bountyhunter

Closing one eye does have an effect on the other eye, or so I have read. It strains your open eye and can cause some distortion. and headaches. The trick is to use a narrow strip of opaque scotch tape to block the image line but still let the same amount of light in.

Some people's brains just don't register. When I first started working (35 years ago) a friend of mine needed a car real bad, so I lent him $1000. BTW, that was about half of my net worth at the time. So he buys the car, and time starts dragging by without a word of paying back. I remember the thing that REALLY pissed me off is when he shows up with an ounce of dope (weed) he had just bought which probably cost $200. I finally had to start hounding him and he got huffy about it. It took me many months to get paid back. Lesson learned. never lend friends money. Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend.

Most extractors these days are made of hard steel (typically MIM) but the point is the 1911 extractor was intended to be "spring steel" which is to say steel with a bit of flex. The reason is it acts like a spring and applies a certain tension against the case rim and the edge of the breech face. hard steel extractors are hard to tension precisely and even when they are, the steel "takes a set" pretty soon and they lose tension. Weigand makes a good set of inserts to check extractor tension using a trigger pull gauge. I set my extractor at between 15 and 20 ounces, YMMV. It sounds like yours is slipping past the rim. Visually inspect to make sure the hook is nice and sharp. Chances are if it is, it's a tension problem. The other thing to try is polishing the barrel throat to make the brass slide out easier. A lot of barrels have rotary milling edges in the throat that are not real smooth. IMHO, polishing the throat is standard procedure for any new 1911.

In my day, I have filed more sights than I could count. More often, I am narrowing the front blade because of gun maker's love affair with .140" - .150" front sights that look like barn doors. Shaving the front sight makes the rear notch look bigger, also makes it easier to center IMHO. I have very good files for the purpose, and I also use kapton tape to protect the surfaces the file should not touch. If you are filing a rear notch, put a slight angle on the vertical edges to make sure the side you see presents a sharp edge. If you are filing a front sight, again a slight angle inward along the bore axis on each edge makes sure the side you see will look sharp.

Yeah.... I was coming home on San Tomas Expressway in rush hour traffic (bumper to bumper) with a few bikes cruising along in the bike lane to the right. Then I see a hard core street biker come up on the "normal speed" bikes in the bike lane and swerve straight into the traffic lane in front of traffic to pass the "slow ones". The closest car locked up the brakes and swerved to miss him (hitting the car next to him) as Joe bike rider cruised on down the road. Bikes: nature's way of helping reduce the shortage of donor organs.

We have a co ordinated mass stupidity called critical mass each month where idiots on bikes intentionally block streets and intersections to make some kind of point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass_%28cycling%29 The local morons running the city have started a mass transition where they re stripe all of our four lane roads into two lane roads with a giant bike path.... doubling vehicle congestion on the streets. I can't even get out of my street anymore. But when you have Jerry Brown for a governor, cars are evil and bikes are wonderful.

+1 Exactly what I had to do on a couple with similar feed problems. If you have the Weigand gauge and a good trigger pull gauge, check the tension and set it to about 15 - 20 ounces. Also, polishing the breech face sometimes help feed problems. Polishing the barrel throat does too, especially the top surface where the nose of the round rubs on as it feeds up. (flame suit on) When I had guns with such feed problems, I would very slowly "hand feed" live ammo by slowly cycling the slide forward to detect the "hang spot" where it is resisting. My first guess would be extractor, but you may also have a case where the round is hanging as it tries to get "over the hump" feeding into the chamber. That can be fixed by polishing and rounding over the top of the feed ramp slightly. Anyway, if you isolate the point of the feed cycle where it drags, you can fix it. ADD: sometimes rounding the feed lips on the mags helps so the round releases easier from the front edge of the mag.

Surpises me too. If it was steel case ammo, I could see how. Is it possible the barrel has become surface annealed from heat in the throat area? Either that or it was not hardened properly when it was made? I remember a barrel maker saying that people who shoot very fast strings can get the barrel surface hot enough to anneal it a bit.

Exactly, just because you are focused on the target, that doesn't mean that you not seeing your sight. For me, it is easier for me to call my shot when I can see exactly where my fuzzy front site is on a crisp target then it is to see where a crisp front sight is on a fuzzy target. I will lose the target if I focus on the front sight. Makes it difficult to make hits when you can't find the targetsame here.

Had similar problem solved by filing the back side of my mags (single stack 1911). If the frame is truly out of spec, it may need some filing. I always file the cheapest part first. You may want to use the old black sharpie on the mag to locate the friction areas first.

IMHO: most of the mass makers got rid of the gunsmiths years back. CNC machines supposedly make parts precisely enough that monkeys can throw them together without gunsmith fitting. As you discovered, no keen or discerning eye would have let that go... and none did. Just a min wage worker with a quota to meet. And I am not just talking about SA, the last new smith wesson I bought will be the last gun I ever buy from them. Gunmakers have a new QA philosophy: give everybody a lifetime warranty, use your customers to find the dogs and you don't need gunsmiths any more.

As I have said when anybody asks about buying 1911's... there are really two kinds: mass made and fitted. The mass made guns from Kimber, SA, Para, Colt etc are cheaper and many of them are very good values because they give good service for the lower price. But a significant percentage of them have problems. So you make the choice and pay the money. To be fair, fitted guns like SVI, STI, Wilson, Baer and the like sometimes can have problems but in my experience it's a lot less likely and they break their necks to fix them when they do. My gripes with guns that have problems: 1) It's typically expensive and time consuming to send them back. 2) I am sending them back to the same fools who screwed the gun up in the first place. Just my two cents.

I can't help but think this is like the time the guy went to the doctor: "Hey, Doc..... everytime I move my arm like this, it hurts like hell." DOC: "Then you really gotta stop doing that....."

It sounds like the inertia of the slide coming forward hitting the frame rocks it forward just enough against the trigger finger to let the sear nose slip off the full cock notch and it falls to half cock. It is a result of trying to hold the trigger too far back to get a fast reset. This can never happen if the trigger remains fully rearward after ignition until the slide locks into battery and the trigger is then released and repulled.

IMHO, extended firing pins gain nothing assuming the stock firing pin is the correct length (which I think is .495). SW put out some "stubbies" that were too short for a while. I have done many action jobs and used to buy the Wolff reduced power ribbed mainsprings as I found they would give the same ignition force with about 1/2 pound less DA pull force required. YMMV. Later on, I got tired of buying them and just use the stock SW mainspring and put a little bend in it. You can use the strain screw to back off spring force as long as you use some blue loctite on it. I typically adjust my mainspring force so theres about 10% more hit than necessary to get good DA ignition with the strain screw 1/4 turn out so that leaves me a shade extra if I run into some stubborn primers. I also agree going from 7# down to 6# isn't really gong to make a whole lot of difference, it's the smoothness of the pull that really makes it an easy trigger to shoot.

dup

Funny story..... I had SEVERE gastritis which is inflammation of the stomach lining forever and the doctor wanted to do an endoscopy where they shove the camera down your throat. Being it was Kaiser, they wanted to do the colonoscopy at the same time because it's done at the same place and even uses the same camera equipment. So I had to ask: "You do wash that thing in between the procedures don't you?"

Sadly, I am also in that club. I have chronic acid reflux and stomach lining inflammation, so I have to eat food to control the pain, even have to get up to eat every three hours at night. Been that way for decades. I tell them that two days without eating would cause pain so unbearable no human could stand it. I wish there was a way to make it possible for me to take the test.

Me too. I have a laser dry fire training device that goes in the guns bore to practice this skill. I did it for a while and found some things which may be comforting or alarming: 1) At ranges of 7 yards or less, I was hitting a torso silouette target 100% of the time after only a couple of minutes of practice shooting "from the hip". The good news is: in a close range gun fight, the chances of me hitting my target are very high. The bad news: the chances of my armed target hitting me are also very high. MORAL: don't engage in gunfights at close range with an armed target. 2) One thing I noticed is that the higher the gun was when I fired (getting closer to normal sight line) the more accurately I was hitting even though I was intentionally not looking at the sights. Musle memory seems to work better as the muscles get closer to where they are when they usually fire. Interesting debate: my dad was LE, and he always said the philosophy in life threat (close range) was that the instant the gun cleared leather and was level YOU SHOOT. You keep shooting as you keep bringing the gun up to eye level but you don't wait until you see the sights.

My best guess is that you are both converging and focusing your eyes on the front sight. That will lead to doubled targets. Instead try to converge on the target but focus on the front sight. There should only be one target. +1 Let your eye focus go to the target but your brain focus (awareness) is on the sight picture. Sounds hard to do, actually is easy after a while. If you want to try the tape thing, use some medical tape which is translucent so light gets through. I used to put a narrow strip across my glasses so I could "block" the left eye in the sighting position but go back to normal vision by tilting my head slightly up or down. You want light conductive tape so both eyes get the same amount of light or you can get headaches.

Sounds like a mega lawsuit waiting to happen.... when I fixed guns for my friends, I absolutely never took a dime to make sure it was just a favor, never a business.

When you live in California and want to shoot guns, you have to have a pretty thick skin. The laws are ridiculous, many things are simply banned and can't be obtained........ but the law always was that anything owned legally before a ban was enacted could be retained by it's lawful owner. They were not going to outlaw things and force "collection" or go to jail. That has now officially ended. Sunnyvale, california passed a law which among other things, bans ownership and/or possession of any magazines with capacity above ten. To comply, those mags must be turned in or destroyed. The only question now is how long until the "confiscation" extends to guns..... first one kind, then another. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Sunnyvale-gun-control-measure-passes-4958902.php Measure C requires gun owners to report a firearm theft within 48 hours, lock up their guns when not in use and dispose of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Gun dealers would have to keep a log of ammunition sales.

So sorry to hear about your dog. We work at a shelter for senior dogs called Muttville so I really feel for you. We recently had a dog who had a stroke that looked pretty bad at first, but she recovered most function and now is doing very well. I hope the best for your dog.

They deserve a lot more than they get. The "justice" system still coddles them IMHO. If I was king, first DUI conviction would get 30 days in county jail and six month license suspension. Second would be a year in state with five year suspension, third would be five year stay and lifetime suspension. Jail time might work but license suspension won't. I say 75% of the DUI stops in our area get a "driving on a suspended license" tacked on. Bill True. I'll amend my post to "chain them to a radiator" after second DUI conviction...... I don't know what the solution is, I just know it ain't working now.

They deserve a lot more than they get. The "justice" system still coddles them IMHO. If I was king, first DUI conviction would get 30 days in county jail and six month license suspension. Second would be a year in state with five year suspension, third would be five year stay and lifetime suspension.