Buford!

My new extractor just falls right through. There's no resistence when putting it in at all. It also won't even make contact with the casing in my P18. I understand that there may be some fitting required but is the falling through part normal?

The stock release may have been plastic but the one is this gun (I bought it used) is not. That's the one I ended up ordering, Chad. Except mine is SS. I like shiny things.

I should have laid a better foundation for why I'm asking. Here's the deal... I'm shooting a P18 and my hands aren't quite big enough to get my thumb around to the mag release without creating some serious movement in my grip. So, I'm trying to find a way to add an oversized button. My mag release is not tapped so I would have to replace the entire piece. All that being said, I'm guessing I'll still have to stick with Para parts. Why are they so darn hard to find? Geez.....

Will any 2011 mag release work in the Para platform or is this another one of those things that require a para only part? Specifically, I was looking at the Dawson STI release on shooters connection. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

It was a kydex style holster though so no stretching. The more I think about it and talk about it here I just have to believe that it was just the wrong holster all together.

He must have given me the wrong product number because I couldn't even get the barrel to fit in the holster. I guess the good news is that I've at least made it to this point in the project. And hey, I've learned a lot.

Well, I don't know what happened because I ordered a Safariland holster that was supposed to be for a 5" 1911 (I had a Safariland rep at a GT Distributors give me the model number) and my P18 wasn't even close to fitting in that thing. I've currently got a holster on order with Bladetech but I didn't really want to wait 5 weeks to get it since I'm shooting a match with my brother in 3 weeks and I would really like to use this new gun. Maybe I'll just take the gun up to GT and start going through the holsters to find something that will work.

Anyone know if it will work? Seems that there aren't too many options out there for a P18 so I'm looking for alternatives. Thanks.

Sweet. Thanks, Chad!

Do you guys know if the mag holders marked for the Para P14/P16 will also work for the P18 mags?

I was told that this was the guy to go to around here. So, if that's the wait time then that's the wait time. Meh. The upside to the five week wait is that I haven't even had the opportunity to shoot this gun in a competition so I won't know what I'm missing really. And I've got my M&P so it's not like I'm left high and dry. Heck, I don't even have a holster yet (it's on order) or mag holders for my belt. Speaking of that... any suggestions on which mag holders to go with?

It's definitely more sweat equity than I was planning on but I'm sure it will all be worth it. I dropped the gun off yesterday to get the trigger work done so I'll have an update in about 5 weeks.

Update: I put in the Arredondo inserts and fixed the original problem but then of course I had to deal with the followers not going down into the basepads. After some sanding (front and back of the followers) I finally got all four mags to work as advertised... at least from a loading and unloading by hand standpoint. I took the advise from slowsure and went ahead and replaced the factory springs with ISMI springs as well.

Alrighty then... inserts (and springs) will be ordered in the next 24 hours. Thanks, guys.

Here's the situation - P18 factory mags with original followers and original springs. Add Dawson Toolless basepad and the spring locksdown at round 19 when I push it down to insert round 20. I can basically rattle all the rounds out of the mag at that point. What is happening is that the first two rounds are getting stuck under the indents on the sides of the sides of the mag with one round sitting on the follower as it's supposed to and the other looks like it jumped the track and got on the outside of the follower. I've tested it with two different mags (one that I know works since I shot it last week and one that is brand new as of yesterday) and the same thing happens. Do I have to get new followers, new springs, dremmel down the indents? This little experiment is getting a bit frustating.

Indeed. I guess I know where to start now. Thanks, Chad.

I finally made it to the range today to do a function check on the gun I got last Friday. I was delighted to find that the gun ran quite well. No major problems burning through the roughly 90 rounds I ran. Mixed ammo too - Federal 115gr. and S&B 115gr. FMJ. Based on much of the reading here I was expecting to have FTE problems or for the extractor to just snap in two. But it didn't happen. It really needs a trigger job so that will be coming very soon. What did happen that was interesting was that one of the two factory mags didn't really want to let go of the last round... slide lock with one round remaining. BUT, it only happened if I loaded at least 5 rounds. Put 3 rounds in the mag and it ran fine; put 5 rounds in there and it went to slide lock after 4 rounds. I suppose I'll just replace the mag spring and hope that fixes it unless someone has other thoughts on the matter.

Good point about the vibration just being a practice/dry fire thing. We'll see how it feels after a trigger job. There is no movement of the barrel and slide when it's in battery. My light comment was based on when I had the barrel out and I was sliding the bushing up and down the barrel. I might try the drill with the safety but I kinda want to get a larger rest area for my thumb anyway so I'll probably go ahead and order a new one. The "hole" in the hammer isn't really a hole in the sense that it goes very deep but it's easily noticable with the naked eye so it's more of an indent. Same thing with the plate that holds the firing pin in place (not sure what that's called). It has two indentations on the face. One other thing that I nocticed is that the trigger has quite a bit of play up and down. I can push it to the top of the frame and the bottom of the trigger guard. Maybe a new trigger will fit better. Not sure. Thanks for the feedback, Anopsis.

Got the gun yesterday. It's in very good shape. Appears to have been shot very little. I disassembled it and wiped off what little poweder residue was there. I haven't had a change to fire it yet but here are a few observations from a newbie.... - The slide to frame fit is nice and tight. No rattle or play at all. I'm plenty pleased with that aspect of the gun. - The trigger is pretty heavy but breaks over crisply with a nice, short reset. I'm not sure if it's normal but I can really feel a lot of vibration in the palm of my hand through the main spring housing when I pull the trigger. Would a metal mainspring housing fix this? - I'm not sure how tight the bushing is supposed to be but it seems to fit pretty well. There's just a little light coming through. How much movement is considered acceptable? - The thumb safety sucks. It will travel past the firing position slightly with an audible click and then goes back to the desired position. I guess I need to get a new one. - I'm guessing that a number of trigger parts are MIM parts. I'm not educated enough to tell MIM parts from other parts but the hammer has a noticable void/hole in the face just below the contact point with the firing pin. - This last one is not gun related but rather regarding some mags that I bought from a re-seller. I'm not sure who the maker is but they are marked "Made in Canada" and have the Para logo on the extended base plate. The after market mags would not lock-in... I could pull them out without pushing the mag release button. I measured the body width of the factory mags that came with the gun - .950". The ones I bought were .935". I guess that little bit was enough to make them not work. Gotta send them back. I'll report back when I get a chance to test fire it (hopefully tomorrow) but if anyone wants to share some insight on the items I listed above that would be great. Thanks.

Right on. Thanks for the links!

Roy - where can I go to get more educated on changing out the series 80 safety? Parts needed, process, etc.? Thanks.

Good to know. Did you just drop in the trigger parts or send it to Dawson to have it done?

So, I found a used P18 that looked to be in good condition (I don't have a round count on it) and it's on the way to me now. I'll be using it for 3-gunning and some IPSC shoots. I've read through a number of the threads here so I'm up to speed on the extractor situation. My question now is, being new to the Para brand and all, what other modifications should be done to make this gun a top performer? Top Performer = pull trigger, round fires, empty is ejected, new round loaded, repeat as necessary with no malfunctions. I'm coming from a Smith and Wesson M&P that has this routine nailed so I will expect a gun that will eventually cost well over twice the price to do the same. Your guidance is much appreciated. I forgot to metion that I'm relatively new to the 1911 platform but I'm not afraid to get in and work on my weapons so if you post something it would be helpful to know if a reasonably intelligent guy could do it or if it should be done by a professional. Thanks!

Yep. He actually reached out to me before he posted it here (good guy). I should have said at the onset that I'm looking for a 9mm. I'm sitting on a few thousand rounds of 9mm and I don't want to move to .40. Sweet deal there though. I'm sure one will pop up at some point. I just gotta be patient and not jump on an Edge or Eagle (unless it's a smokin' deal!).

I've actually traded some emails with Jon at Oak Hill. He's expecting one in sometime soon but doesn't have a hard delivery date. I guess he's going to be my best bet right now.