J.L. Hardy

The only fix for this will be to weld up the face of the frame cut and recut. Chances are, if you had a new barrel installed, you would have to do this to properly fit the new one. If the current barrel has no damage itself, a reweld and recut would be the most cost effective repair. I believe barsto barrels are the only ones with oversized impact lugs. If it is a wilson/nowlin ramp then it can be properly recut for a clark/para for the simplest fix with a new barrel. .

Feederic, What I do to reliably shoot factory length 40 without having the gun tuned (assuming that it works just fine with long length ammo) is to use the spacers and grams followers and springs that we use in the 9mm guns. I highly recommend that shooters who do not reload and only shoot store bought ammo go this route. It might not be something you want to do for a few boxes of ammo though, due to cost.

Saffer, I just sent Chuck (Shooters Connection) a supply of 140 length spacers. If you already have the 170's you could get one from him and use it to cut off those. As far as the question about adjusting the tube for follower tip over- I have never adjusted the ribs on any of the tubes I have tuned. This seems to be something done to 140 mags to get a longer basepad on so it will hold 23 or 24 rounds. I recommend just going with big sticks for this and no tube bending is needed. If you use the +1 base pads from Dawson the ribs do not cause an issue because the stack up of the compressed spring takes the follower higher than the bottom of the ribs. Arrendondo makes a spacer that has a section on the bottom that folds around to take up this space if you really need to use the longer basepads. I think Chuck carries them as well. The reason that I prefer the stainless ones over the polymer ones is the battering that occurs at the top of the spacer behind the top round. When they first changed the rule allowing the 9x19 loaded to factory length, I made the spacers out of delrin and they would just get flattened out and start contacting the disconnector rail on the bottom of the slide after repeated use. Arrendondo and Sti started making them as well out of a similar material and I tried them and had the same results. I just went to stainless and this didn't happen anymore.

Guys, I designed and build the stainless spacers sold at CPWSA and Shooters Connection. Dave Dawson also uses my spacers that are supplied through Shooters Connection. I highly discourage the use of anything being used to adhere these to the mag. They need to be pulled out when the mag is cleaned. They are also designed to have clearance to slide about 15 to 20 thousandths up and down. They do not rattle around when the mag is loaded. They are made to be used with Dawson +1 basepads. The only thing that needs to be done to them is the edge that mates with the back side of the mag could be beveled as needed to lay flat in some mags. I recommend the use of Grams 9mm followers and springs. If you use other base pads that are longer or shorter than the Dawsons then you will have to shorten either the 170 spacers or in some cases the 140's. STI and SV mags usually just drop in on the 140 and 170 length mags, although the lengths have varied slightly over the years and sometimes to require fitting on length to get the spacer to have the needed few thousandths of free play up and down.jlh

Guys, I don't know of any gun that the round of ammunition has a straight path into the chamber, with the exception of single shots where the round is placed in the chamber by hand. There may be some, but I am not aware of them or have seen them. Take a look at an AR m-4 ramp. It has small ramps at 5 o'clock and 7 o'clock, meaning the round comes in at not only a up and down angle, but also with a left or right angle added in. 1911's come in with mostly a up and down angle and get wedged into the chamber with the slide pushing forward on the round and the wedge action shoving the base of the cartridge up the breachface and under the extractor hook. The nose of the bullet, at about 6 o'clock on the nose itself, hits the barrel or frame ramp and then hits the top side of the bullet as it enters the chamber at about 12 o'clock more on the top side of the bullet. The round may actually turn slightly as the base of the case rim slides under the extractor going up the breachface. As stated previously Plated bullets are softer than jacketed bullets. They will show dents. Plating has also been known to get sheared or scraped off as the bullet passes ports in the barrel of an open gun, if you have barrel ports. Plated bullets have also been shown to not like the high velocities reached with open guns and the firmer crimps sometimes used and will occasionally tumble. They, on the other hand, have proven to be quite useful in minor loads and limited type major rounds and save money over more expensive jacketed bullets. Get a good strong pair of reading glasses and some good lighting and look over the chamber carefully. If it is smooth and you cannot see any burrs or bumps don't obsess with dents in the bullets. Get some ammo loaded up and go shoot. If the gun is accurate be happy. If you are looking for an excuse to tell the wife that you need a new gun, that's your story and stick to it.

Dave, you are surely a lucky guy. I have seen and repaired too many to count. Especially back in the day when the rage was to put hybrid ports almost back to underneath the C-more. That is not as common these days but I still find many with the two back screws loose, even with red loctite being used. If a C-more flexes and touches the top of the slide it is mounted too low and the slide probably should be flat-topped to correct this issue. Of course your results might vary.

Ok, I will bite on this. Anybody that has known me for a while know my feelings on blast shields and other $69 gadgets that get sold to shooters who just have to get the latest trinket to stick on thinking the trinket will be the holy grail that improves their performance. If you take a soft cloth (t-shirts make good lens cloth) and wipe your lens off between stages, your lenses will stay clean, although I have seen some chips or marks from possibly jacket material that hits the lens. The Main things that I have problems with on the shields is that placing an object over the port transfers that very strong psi gas pressure directly to the c-more legs or mount. On the serendipity models the mounting screws work loose and the legs start developing cracks that originate from the holes molded into the legs and radiate towards the front mounting screws. I have also had the c-mores flex in such a way as to rub on the top of the slide. This shows up as a rub mark on the bluing or hard chrome on top of the slide and you can usually see the rub mark on the bottom of the c-more if you take it off and look. This will also cause the gun to have malfunctions when the slide is slowed down. They also crack frequently at the rear mounting screw holes. Shifting of the zero indicates that something is moving around. I have had to cut the legs off numerous serendipity models and put them on metal mounts after they have had blast shields on them. When you use a blast shield on a slide ride c-more and use a one sided mount, the mounting screws frequently work loose, even when you use red locktite. I have also had to replace a few of the one sided aluminum mounts after they developed cracks where the flat top (where the cmore mounts) meets the side at the front of the mount. I have seen this on several different brands of these mounts. The only one that I,so far, have not seen crack is the mounts from Brazos. If you look at the mount, it has a nice radius underneath the shelf where it meets the side instead of a sharp corner. They are the only one sided mount that I have used for a long time, but someone else may be making theirs with the radius now. The original Alchin blast shield mounts frequently showed up with the cracks I am talking about. Don't get me wrong, open guns are open guns and this pretty much allows us to put what we want on them as long as we don't exceed the max mag length and I think this is good. Some parts on them are consumable and need maintenance or replacing from time to time, c-mores and mounts shouldn't be in this category though. I just think that most shooters could benefit more from proper instruction on technique, dry fire practice, live fire practice and shooting matches than from purchasing every $69 gadget that comes along. I keep referring to $69 because for a long time every one of these widgets was priced at $69. There are several items that have come from the process of shooters experimenting with their open guns that are almost essential and definitely provide competitive or functional advantages like slide rackers and thumb safety shields. Dot sights,comps and ports were all a part of this process and we wouldn't consider a gun to be open class without them. Most of the true performance innovations do not cause failure of other parts or systems on the gun.

Guys, it always intrigues me that when a discussion arises about hammer springs the only two concerns mentioned is whether it affects trigger pull and ignition reliability. No one ever mentions that the hammer spring and recoil spring work in conjunction to control slide velocity, timing and lock up pressure. The hammer spring applies much more pressure when the slide is closed than the recoil spring does. To prove this just rack your slide once with the hammer cocked and once with the hammer down. I point this out to make sure that everyone understands that the recoil spring and the hammer spring work as a system that we must consider when making changes. I am not saying that things will automatically self destroy if you make a change, but these type of changes can cause reliability issues, increased wear and tear and in general changes to the system that has been developed for optimum performance of that system.

Another option that I checked against a couple new frames I have is the Chip McCormick grip safeties, I had several on hand and 4 frames. I swapped them all around and each one fitted very nicely to the frames. I do taper in the sides of the tails when I blend the safeties much like the STI ones and they have to be chromed or finished with the frames as they only come blue not stainless as far as I know. I stopped using the STI ones because I ran into issues with the fit on the left side of the frame, sort of like the grip safety was made off center somewhat.

You should take a look at your loaded rounds and make sure that you didn't bend the case rim. If so you may experience some feeding issues on the bent ones. The ones that stuck are probably the ones to be concerned with. I had this happen for the same reason a long time ago.

You definitely must have the accu-rails installed first then the barrel. Consider getting Doug Jones do them and maybe even get him to do the barrel fit as well. What happens is that the accu-rails pull the slide down on the frame. This causes the lower lugs to be cut shorter. That is fine but it leads to another issue. Para frames are notorious for having the ramp barrel cut made very long where the rounded barrel lug comes to rest on the frame bridge during cycling. It is essential that the barrel lug stop the rearward travel of the barrel with good contact and not the barrel link or pin being used for that purpose. When you pull the slide down, this leads to a shorter link being used. You may need for the frame cut to be welded up and then re-cut to the proper distance for the new link.

That will also result in a sheared link pin ultimately.

A barrel links only job is to pull the barrel down during the rearward cycle of the slide and barrel. The frame bridge should stop the rearward travel of the barrel and the lower barrel lugs push the barrel back up into lockup on the forward cycle. If a barrel link stretches and breaks or if a link pin shears there is a problem with the timing and either link length or frame bridge dimension. When everything is cut properly and the link properly sized there is very little stress on a link. Sad thing is that when this type of failure occurs there is a lot of damage to the recesses in the slide and upper lugs on the barrel, sometimes even before the link breaks because the link stretches and finally breaks.

If you get it, pm me here with your e-mail address and I will try and find my users information sheet that I provide with my guns. Short guns are not for everyone and the 9mm round isn't either. I think if those two things are in your favor, you can't get much better.

And the last line.