John Travis

Will it function? Probably...at least in most cases/most of the time. Depends on several things. Will the function be optimum? Probably not. If you reload, you may have noticed distinct dings on the edges of some of your cases that eventually make it hard to fit the rim into your shell holder. There's a sign of a push-feed and extractor hook snapover. The gun may run well for a time, and suddenly the extractor loses tension...or breaks in some cases. If you have intermittent failures to go to battery that defy all reason and attempts to correct...that's another sign. It may not occur frequently enough to cause concern on a range gun, but may be just often enough to undermine your confidence in a carry gun. Ever heard of or known personally of very old pistols that are much worse for the wear that still function perfectly...even with 50...60...70-year-old...or older extractors? There's a sign that the breechface is perfectly within spec...or as perfect as a dimension can be, since there's really no such thing as a perfect dimension. Ever seen a stock USGI pistol that'll feed everything that ya throw at it just as well as hardball? There's another sign. If the gun is all within spec, and in good condition...not worn out or rattle like a bucket of rocks...it'll match or outrun any Glock, Sig, USP, or anything else out there, reliability-wise. Boring reliability. Gaston Glock knew about it, and addressed the issue by targeting the areas of potential problems by rolling the barrel ramp/throat into the floor of the chamber and reducing the angle of entry...but he also destroyed much of the case head support too...Same with the USPs that I've seen. He used an external, spring-loaded extractor with nose geometry that would tolerate an occasional snapover...but he also lost the advantages of positive controlled feed on every round, every time. In short...A trade-off that worked well enough to put the guns into production. Is the angle that critical to function? Maybe not in a given gun, since other things are also at work. Tolerance stacks sometimes bring things into harmony...or completely out. Depends on the particular gun in question. Overall, as applied to a million guns with a requirement for parts interchangeability between several different contractors? Yes. The Government requirement for the five WW2 contractors was to be able to disassemble one gun from each...toss the parts in a box...shake the box...and assemble five working pistols from the jumble...and it worked, time after time after time. And it had to be the same for any spare parts supplied by any of the contractors. Again...these points were never meant to fuel a flame war, or deride any smith's approach to building a gun. It began in an attempt to keep wsimp from making his problem worse with a file...and later purely for educational purposes meant for those who want to understand how the gun functions. Sorry if I ruffled any feathers.

Rooneyguns... Sorry you misunderstood, Kruger. It's not disrespectful and wasn't meant to be. I guess I'm showin' my age. The term was coined many years ago, when IPSC was starting to loosen up and allow the shooters to run what they brung in different classes. IIRC, it was Mickey Fowler who stalled out on the first one he saw, and in typical down-home Mick fashion, remarked "That thing's got more attitude than Mickey Rooney...or it mighta been Andy Rooney. Also can't remember just where that memorable event took place, but I'm thinkin' Flagstaff, Arizona. The term stuck. Sorta like the way that fiberglass bodied, flip-top rail dragsters got their name. Somebody saw one at an IHRA "Run whatcha Brung" meet in the Poconos, and remarked: "That sure is a funny car!" (Or was that Orange County Raceway?) Been a long time.

Well...This may get a little involved, so I've started another thread on it. As hard as it is to draw a picture with words, I'll give it a shot because some have expressed a genuine interest in this. Morph yourself down to a millimeter tall, and use your mind to "see" the events in slow-motion, one step at a time. The slide moves forward and strikes a very small "chord" at the top of the case rim, causing the cartridge to nose down into the feed ramp. Much hand-wringing has been made of this "nose-dive' but it's a necessary function in the controlled feed design because it works to keep the case rim in firm contact with the breechface. The slight rearward rake of the breechface helps nose the round downward. The cartridge then tries to take an abrupt 31-degree upward turn, and the rake again comes into play to make that turn more gradual. If the breechface was set too close to perpendicular, the bullet nose would literally bounce off the feed ramp, and nose up at a steeper angle, possibly causing a bolt-over base malfunction...or at the very least, hang the bullet nose at the roof of the chamber hood. At this point, extractor pickup hasn't begun. A word on extractors before proceeding: The practice of radiusing the bottom corner of the extractor claw to prevent the rear bottom corner form contacting the forward face of the inner case rim is most often overdone, with the radius far too heavy. This does work to facilitate the breakover, but also delays extractor pickup, increasing the possibility of the round being chambered ahead of the extractor. It's therefore recommended that the radius be held to a minimum. And...A word on magazines: The old, tapered lip design...aka "Hardball Magazine" worked in conjunction with the angled breechface to effect a more gradual release...and gradual is where it's at. The more recent, parallel lips and "timed" release designs tend to release the round too early and too abruptly. The tapered lips start the release earlier and finish it later, while the parallel lips keep the round from releasing until the last moment...which makes the correct angle on the breechface all the more critical. Necessary for cartridges with a short OAL, this design works against a gradual release for longer rounds. Other issues will have an effect on the actual release point of the magazines with tapered lips...variations in the actual angle and distance between any given point, along with variations in case rim diameter...but as long as the release is gradual, it works out. Okay! Back to the video. As the cartridge moves forward on the 31-degree angle, the bullet nose makes contact with the underside of the chamber roof, which forces it to begin the horizontal breakover. The extractor has picked up the rim, and the side of the case is starting to pivot on the floor of the chamber...and the round is entering a condition of stem bind...which is also necessary for full control to be maintained...but beyond a certain point, the stem bind can become a three-point jam. If the angle on the breechface is TOO far removed from perpendicular, a TPJ is almost a certainty, though other issues can contribute to the malfunction. So...The round needs a little extra help in breaking over...and the rearward rake of the breechface again comes into play. The rim is almost in correct position on the breechface, but there's still a little friction between the bullet ogive and the chamber roof. The slide is pushing the round forward, with most of the push coming at the top of the rim with the bottom not in contact...and the angle forces the round to nose down very slightly, breaking much of the friction with the top of the chamber. The barrel hood is in full contact with the slide, and beginning its ascent into battery. Here, if the breechface is too close to perpendicular, the round continues to be shoved in a straight line relative to the breechface, and this friction remains constant. The barrel rises too early, and contacts against the underside of the slide lugs...and working in conjunction with the bullet-to-chamber roof contact...you have the potential for a failure to return to full battery...just slightly out....with light thumb pressure placing it in. Again...other factors may contribute to the malfunction...such as an over-tensioned extractor, etc... and should be eliminated before looking to the breechface specs. Understand that this is for educational purposes only, and altering a breechface without the proper equipment and the necessary skillsto use that equipment is ill-advised. Polishing a breechface with sandpaper should be done carefully, with no attempt at making it like a mirror. Toolmarks should be lightly burnished. Attempting to completely remove these "swirls" gives us about a 50/50 chance of doing expensive damage...and most especially a file should never be used for this. The chances of maintaining the side-to-side squareness of the face AND the correct angle is practically nil. It's been said that the 1911 was designed to function with hardball, and unless radically altered and used with timed-release magazines, will only function WITH hardball...but I beg to differ. If the breechface angle is within spec, and the pistol in good overall condition, it will feed and function perfectly with hollowpoints and even lead 200-grain H&G SWCs fron the old "Hardball Only" magazines. I have several original, unaltered USGI pistols...1911 and 1911A1...that will shoot that bit of wisdom down, and any who are within driving distance are invited to come see Black Army Colts and Remington Rands gobble the stuff like they were specifically tuned for it. Come see/Come say!

*sigh* I can't seem to distance myself, no matter how hard I try. Sorry for the snippet, Kruger. It was meant as a good-natured poke with a stick...and sorta givin' back what I got early on. All I was really tryin' to do...after the talk turned to advising the guy to take a file to the breechface...was try to save him a little grief. Okay. You're correct, of course. Pressure...acts in all directions equally. I was in a rush and still had Kunhausen's screwed-up theory on my mind. More Efficient Conservation...The slide is heavier than the bullet. It holds what it gained longer, and moves slower...I think the old shooters referred to this as "carries" further. Maybe the best way to...expound...is to compare .30 caliber bullets...both fired in the same .308 rifle. One is 165 grains at 2600 fps, and the other is 150 at 2800 fps. The light bullet kicks the heavy bullet's patoot for the first 100 yards. By 200, the 165 is closing the gap. At 300, they're almost neck and neck. by 400, the 165 inches past the 150, and at 450-500, the 165 is pullin' away like a drag car against a grocery getter. Flash back to the pistol. Bang! Bullet screamin' toward the muzzle while the slide goes "oof" and tries to get moving. Its greater mass slows it down, but it also picks up the barrel's mass as the lugs engage, and starts to pull it back with it. At .100 (nominally)inch of travel, the bullet exits, and has no more influence on the slide. The slide finishes the cycle under momentum alone. I'm usre there's a mathematical calculation that would describe this in more correct terms...but I'm not a mathematician or a physicist. I'm an armorer) So far, RPD has come the closest to answering the reason for the breechface angle. here's a "clew" for the guys here who are truly interested in figuring it all out...(Give a man a fish, etc.) The 1911 pistol is a recoil-operated, locked-breech design that operates on the basis of "Controlled...Feed." If the pistol loses positive control of the cartridge, even briefly...the chance of a malfunction greatly increases. Visualize the slide stripping a round from the magazine. As the round starts to slide up the breechface...just before extractor pickup...it begins its breakover to horizontal. What would occur...at that point...if the breechface were set at dead vertical? Then imagine what would occur if the angle was say...80 degrees. Think about it carefully...Therein lies the answer. Finally...though RPD may feel that it's insignifigant...consider that machining the breechface at 90 degrees would be faster, easier and cheaper on a production line, not even considering having to employ QA personnel to gauge the specs on X number of slides per day...with naturally a percentage of rejected parts. If that angle COULD have been eliminated, it WOULD have been eliminated...since the bottom line in any mass-production exercise is profit. The less precise it can be made, the cheaper it can be made...and the faster the contract or production quota can be met. The angle is critical.

Now Bill...it ain't worth runnin' your blood pressure up. I'd already decided to shake the dust offa my shoes and move on from here. If they don't wanna know, fergit'em. I'll just stay happy goin' in behind these nationally famous smiths and fixin' the problems they left behind. Who knows...I may get one from one of these gents one day. Just finished with one such this past week. Any of ya had a stainless Colt Officer's Model in for a build and barrel fit/reverse-plug system that went to middle Georgia in the past 6 months or so? If ya did, it wouldn't run. Does now though. Only took about 45 minutes... 'Course, that's about all I do. I don't build raceguns or comp guns or rooneyguns of any description, and don't care to. I quit playin' with toy guns in the late 50s. So, let's have a snort of Jack Black and call it a day. Notice that ain't nobody answered that angle question yet?

Nobody? Goodness gracious, Gertie! Bye now...

Okay, Dave. I'll give it another try. wsimp...No need to make it more complicated than it is. The answer lies in Newton's Laws. High-School Physics. Equal and Opposite. Remember? Charge a muzzle loader and poke a bullet down the barrel. Cap it and pull the trigger. Boom! Kick! Recoil... Do it again and omit the bullet. kpow, and no kick. No bullet...No recoil. The bullet has to be there and it has to move. Once the bullet is gone, recoil is over, and any further rearward motion is purely on momentum. If the bullet exits BEFORE the slide moves, the slide WON'T move. Kuhnhausen has amended the BTV theory in recent books The initial link that I posted: "How the 1911 Really Works" was his early theory...and it was 101% wrong. But there's still the error on P 124, Volume 2. The chamber face is NOT a recoil face. The barrel doesn't recoil. The slide recoils. Otherwise, you'd have the reverse-image of the barrel hood tattooed on the breechface instead of the ghost of the cartridge rim. More complex version: Cartridge fires. Bullet slams into the rifling, and swages down under intense pressure and frictional resistance. Barrel is pushed forward. Same pressure is driving the slide rearward. (Remember that a vector of force acts equally in all directions. Up, down, sideways, diagonally, forward...and backward.) Locking lugs engage, and the breech is now locked. Slide's greater mass and more efficient conservation of momentum pulls the barrel rearward with it. Barrel reaches the disengagement point at nominally .100 inch of rearward travel...and begins to disengage and drop. The bullet must be gone before the barrel reaches the disengagement point...and the pressure at atmospheric or nearly so..or the barrel can't disengage. Try the door trick and it'll be clear. Now, about that angle...

Ya'll STILL ain't figgered it out? I'm plumb flabbergasted. All these Top Guns, and a simple question has'em all stumped... Radical P...Gap at the top if the breechface is dead vertical? Gimme a break! With a minute of angle being 1.047 inch at 100 yards, how small is that gap gonna be at a half-inch? (A 1/2-inch being roughly the height of the breechface.) The cartridge itself is nominally .476 with the chamber at .4795-.4835 inch. That's more than enough to allow for a tiny gap at the top. Helle's Belles...The cartridge rim ain't that square! Now that wsimp has noticed somethin' wrong with Kuhnhausen's "Balanced Thrust Vector" thing...you can go see more of his basic misunderstanding of the way the gun functions on Page 124, Volume 2. Top drawing, he clearly refers to the chamber face as the "Recoil Face"...which it's assuredly not. The recoil face is the breechface/breechblock. The barrel doesn't slam backward and drive the slide. If it did, the (real) breechface wouldn't last as long as a snowball in July. The slide recoils...not the barrel. Flex...No need to ban me. I don't think this is my kinda place anyway. Ya'll keep thinkin' about it. Maybe it'll come to ya...

Hey Ivan! Good to see ya, buddy! Kinda...chilly in here...dontcha think? Eric...Since you seem to have descended into veiled insults and condescension...which surprises me, since I had rather expected a more relaxed, open atmosphere here...I'll toss this out and see what we get. As stated previously, the breechface isn't supposed to be perpendicular, but is rather set on an angle of 89 degrees, 8 minutes...+/- 5 minutes. That's a critical angle. The small allowable tolerance confirms that much. That angle is so specified for two good reasons. The first is pretty obvious...or maybe not...but it's to allow for the barrel tilt in-battery, along with the small angle on the chamber face. I'll let ya ponder on the other one. Stay tuned, flamewar fans! This one could go hot.

Well...I'll stop now. Seems that I've ruffled a few feathers by tryin' to keep wsimpso1 from screwin' up his gun with a mill file. My advice stays the same though. This one needs corrective surgery...at least if he wants the problem corrected. If he's okay with a cobble-job, far be it from me to bust his chops. Cheers!

ROFL Eric. The issue is basically nothing more than specs and tolerances. In this case, the breechface to first lug dimension, which allows a plus of just .009 inch from nominal on an ordnance-spec gun. (1.809 + .009 inch...and that's just to the first lug wall.) Slides selected for match purposes are held to just .004 inch over nominal print dimension. If the slide in question is at mid-spec...or about 1.814, which is "iffy" since it's been shot a bunch, and the rear face of the slide lugs have doubtless worn and/or deformed slightly...that doesn't leave a lot of material to remove and keep the slide within acceptable tolerances. Even .010 inch will take it .005 inch out of spec...and if it weren't critical, the allowable print tolerances would be much looser. Also...The breechface isn't dead perpendicular...or it shouldn't be. It's machined at a nominal angle of 89 degrees, 8 minutes...with an allowance of +/- 5 minutes. The chance of filing the breechface to square within tolerance from side-to-side, and stay within the specified vertical angle AND keep the dimension from breechface to lug walls within acceptable tolerances is practically nil, especially for someone with limited skill and experience with a file.

cking, The breechface was damaged due to thrust forces when the gun was fired. Soft steel deforms faster than hard steel. That's why Colt introduced the steel inserts back in '36 and '37. After WW2, the slides were fully hardened throughout and the practice was abandoned. As to it not making much difference...it depends. Mainly on how much material will have to be removed in order to clean it up and get it flat and true...and the liklihood of being able to do it with a file is slim and none. It will require a mill and a machinist who can do a good setup. Also...the odds that it can be cleaned up...even in a mill...without removing at least a 64th of an inch are small, and it will probably be closer to .020 inch. A 64th is a bit more than .015 inch. The GO to NO GO limit is only .022 inch, which is about the thickness of a sheet of typing paper more than the required removal for cleanup. All that means that there will be an additional .0156 gap between the chamber hood and the newly-established breechface...which is about .010 inch out of spec, no matter how tightly the hood is fitted, and no matter how perfectly the chamber is cut. There's more to it than just chamber length and hood to slide fit. Much more. ********************** nvmichael...You're quite welcome, sir. I've had good success in this endeavor on various forums, under another name...and my main goal is to teach the guys how to fix their own pistols, or at least diagnose what's wrong so they can talk to their smiths on a common level. My theory has been that, if you can completely understand how the gun functions, you can usually figure out what's ailin' it...and a lot of the time, you can fix it. And...failing that...I've had several forum members bring their pistols to me to have them repaired. Most of the time, it's somethin' simple. Simple doesn't apply to the pistol that got this thread started though. This one will require surgery. In this case...and I repeat myself...the proper fix is to send the slide off to have an insert installed so that the slide will be within the specified tolerances...and the barrel fit will be good. The other way, one problem is (maybe) solved, but the other one remains. Cheers all! PS. For the record...Whenever a forum member or a friend does bring a gun for me to repair, the labor is at N/C. I don't do it for money. I do it for love of the breed.

Benny, in the interest of your continuing education...Let's hypothetically fit a barrel backward. Start with a hypothetically perfect barrel fit. Zero clearance at the hood and breechface. Full vertical engagement of the lugs. Fully equalized horizontal lug engagement with the slide. Minimum static headspace. Gap between the breechface and the chamber face is perfect, and so is the angle. Perfect! Take the gun apart and machine .025 inch from the breechface. You now have a gap of .025 inch between hood and breechface. Right? Okay...Weld the rear face of the hood and refit to zero clearance. Still perfect...or is there a headspace problem? How about the gap between the face of the chamber and the breechface. Still perfect...or is there now a .025 inch wider gap? Let's take it a step further and pretend that we know a gremlin who is one millimeter tall, and that he has a teeny tiny tig welder that he can use to shorten the chamber by welding up the shoulder. You use a reamer to again establish a minimum chamber depth, and the gun will once more just go to battery on a .898 inch GO gauge. You still have a headspace problem, Benny...and so will the guy who started this thread if he simply cleans up the breechface and fits a barrel hood to it. Think about it...

Benny sez: >. The barrel hood lenght has nothing to do with the bottom lugs.< *************** I didn't say that. I referenced the breechface to the rear face of the slide lugs...not to the lower lug...which is where the zero-clearance hood fit pushes the barrel lugs. Again Benny...If you cut the breechface back by X thousandths of an inch and fit the hood tightly to that location...and ream the chamber depth to produce minimum headspace...you're still going to have an added gap between the breechface and the barrel face, (below the hood) and you're still going to have case setback past the point of optimum head support unless you start with a semi-finished barrel...A barrel that is overlength at the hood AND at the face, along with a short chamber, and doesn't have the ramp/throat pre-cut. It doesn't matter if the case setback comes from excessive headspace, or the chamber stop shoulder limiting its position forward into the chamber...the case will still sit further rearward than it should. Think about it... And: >I can only recommend watching a good smith fit one to understand.< Oh, I understand it perfectly, lad...I truly do.

And, since I hate leaving a tutorial unfinished...and to keep the thread on-topic by addressing the original question... There's more to headspace in the 1911 pistol than simple chamber length. I'll try one from a little different angle. Suppose that you were to clean up the damaged breechface with .010 inch or so of material removal and install a barrel that required the chamber to be reamed to depth to get minimum headspace. If the barrel in question already has the ramp established...some call it the "throat"...and the barrel face under the hood didn't need any work at all in order to fit within the space available... the same condition would exist at the case head support area that would be present with excessive headspace. All you've done is to shift the whole cartridge case rearward. The breechface is moved rearward by .010 inch...which places it that much distance farther from the rear faces of the barrel lugs. The barrel ramp and face is still in the mid-spec position, even though the barrel is short-chambered. This means that the case will back out of the chamber by .010 inch farther to meet the breechface, and will lose that amount of head support at the bottom. It's the same condition as cutting the ramp deeper into the chamber, even if you follow the existing angle. The only way to make up for the relocated breechface is to go with a full semi-finished barrel. One that has not only a short chamber and a long hood, but one that has an overlength barrel face with no ramp/throat area. The hood and face must be cut to fit, including the slight clearance angle...the chamber is then reamed to depth, and then the ramp is cut to the correct depth and angle. So, you can literally have the slide barely close on a GO gauge, and still have a problem. My advice to the man is to ship that slide to EGW and let George install a hardened insert in it. That's really the only right way to make the repair.

Here's the exerpt from the text by Kuhnnhausen: How the 1911 Really Works" Courtesy of The American Rifleman. Will return to add the link so you can see the whole thing. ***************** Firing Phase B: Horizontal disengagement At the end of the firing phase, the bullet exits the muzzle and drops gas pressure inside the barrel. Bullet departure breaks the balanced thrust vector established when the bullet was in the barrel as in fig. 4A. In terms of the effect on the pistol, this action enables the top locking lugs to horizontally disengage (see National Match barrel note in next phase) and imparts a rearward force on the slide assembly equal to the inertia of the departing bullet. Then, because the slide assembly has a greater relative rest mass -plus the added benefit of the recoil spring- inertial energy is absorbed as the slide recoils to the rear. ***************** Benny...Don't mean to be argumentative, but once most of the gunsmith-fit barrels are fitted up, the chamber and headspace dimensions are generally within .003 inch of minimum specs. About the only finish reaming necessary is in straightening out any taper present, or cleaning up the leade...which doesn't entail deepening the chamber. In fact, most of the ones that I've done for equal lug engagement leave the chamber about .903-905 inch. And...he ain't gonna get the breechface true with a file anyway. Stand by for the link... Here's the link. Scroll down to the second one from the bottom. http://www.m1911.org/technic_forum.htm

Benny, quite correct as long as you use a barrel with a semi-finished chamber, but not all gunsmith fit barrels have semi-finished chambers. Schuemann may be the only supplier unless you special order and ask for it. Merlin...The reason that you haven't seen my guns in the field is because I haven't really fielded any that would draw recognition. Like i said...most of my practive has been reliability tuning and rebuilding/restoring worn-out USGI and commercial pistols. They look pretty much like they did when I started. For the record, many knowledgeable people have wondered what Kuhnhausen was thinking when he published his Balanced Thrust Vector theory. He clearly stated that: "Once the bullet has cleared the muzzle, the balanced thrust vector is broken, freeing the slide to move rearward." Maybe not verbatim...but that pretty well sums it up...and it's incorrect. In order for recoil to occur...which is essentially what the slide does...the bullet has to be present. If there's no bullet, there's no recoil. No recoil, no slide movement. It would be like firing a blank. >If the bullet exits before the slide moves, the slide WON'T move.< I'll go find a link so that you can read it for yourself. Stand by...

Nope. Retired. Now I just tweak a pistol now and then for friends and such. Don't do custom work in the strict sense and mainly focus on makin' a problem child behave. Oh...While we're on the subject of misleading terms: "The link unlocks the barrel from the slide." Lock occurs when the gun is fired and contines until the bullet exits. At that point, the gun is unlocked. All the link does is get the barrel down and out of the slide's way. The link doesn't...actually can't...unlock the barrel from the slide while the bullet is in transit due to the vector that has the locking lugs engaged while barrel and slide are being slammed in opposite directions. If the link actually pulls the barrel down while it's under firing pressure, the link will either break within a few rounds, or it will stretch until the rear of the lower barrel lug hits the impact surface in the frame while the lugs are still part-way in the slide...and the locking lugs will crack, or shear within a few rounds. To illustrate: Stand in front of a door that opens toward you. Have a 12-year-old kid stand on the other side and push against the door hard...and try to turn the knob. Unless you have stong hands, you probably won't be able to move it without damaging the inner workings of the knob...if you can move it at all. The striker is the barrel lug. The striker plate is the slide lug. The knob is the barrel link. While the door is under force, the striker and striker plate are "locked", and they won't unlock until the kid lets off. (Don't tell your kids about this.)

Well...more of a mechanic. Armorer is the official term, I guess, but it all started in 1964.

Aw, now...Don't give him a hard time. You'd be surprised at the experienced people who don't fully understand how the thing works...even a few gunsmiths. Jerry Kuhnhausen, for instance...used to think that recoil and slide movement rearward occurs after the bullet leaves the muzzle. Early printings described this as "Breaking the Balanced Thrust Vector." He has since eliminated it in more recent publications. Apparently, someone sat him down and explained it to him. To wit: If the bullet exits BEFORE the slide moves, the slide WON'T move. The balanced thrust vector exists...It just doesn't occur at the time and place that he described. Also...The term "Locks up like a vault" to describe the fit is incorrect and misleading. When the gun is static and in battery, it's not locked. It's held in battery by recoil spring tension and...if tightly fitted...friction. Wedged into battery, for lack of a better term...but it's not locked. The locked breech part comes when the gun is fired. Interesting, what?

Whenever I hear "Old Colt" this is what comes to mind. Circa 1919 and mechanically perfect, right down to the bore. In the background is a minty 1945 production Remington Rand. Now, let's see if this photobucket will post here. Mods...If I'm outta line, please delete the post with my belssings and apologies.

Ahhh...Thanks for the welcome, guys. John...I'll tell him that you said howdy next time I see him. I saw him at the range last Friday, but didn't have a chance to stop and talk. He was conducting a class, and I was on a tight schedule.

Howdy wsimpso, Excessive headspace comes in two flavors. Headspacing on the extractor is not only incorrect, but also rare. It occurs mainly when the chamber is cut far too deep...but isn't a danger. The problem that results from excessive headspace in that direction is usually erratic ignition and/or misfires. An increase in headspace that results from removing material from the breechface causes the headspace to increase in the dangerous direction. That is...the case moves backward under pressure until it hits the slide and stops. As it backs out of the chamber, it loses head support. Rear headspace occurs due to barrel lug setback and/or wear or an out of spec condition between the breechface and the front of the barrel lugs relative to the rear faces of the slide lugs. In these condtions, the breech essentially opens a bit when the gun is fired and the slide is driven rearward, while the pressure and friction between bullet and barrel holds the barrel forward. Barrel and slide are driven in opposite directions until the lugs engage. Finally...that your pistol is a Series 70 is no guarantee that it's correctly hardened. The fix for your pistol is to machine out the damaged area and install a hardened steel insert. George Smith over at EGW can handle that for ya in fine fashion. Luck! Benny Hill wrote: >It will not affect headspace on a newly fitted barrel as he intends to fit up.< Yes it will. Anything that changes the dimension from the breechface to the rear faces of the slide lugs affects headspace, although, hard-fitting a barrel will take care of most of the negatives involved.

Hi guys. I might be able to offer some insight here. If the pistol is an old 1911...as in pre-A1...it's one that didn't have the hardened steel recoil insert in the breechface. The problem of peening around the firing pin port was discovered by Colt in 1935. The insert was authorized and adopted in 1936 beginning with serial number 710001. All WW2 contract slides and spares, and commercial models were fitted with the inserts, and continued until post-war production, when the slides were hardened throughout, beginning sometime in late 1946 or early 1947. Many damaged slides were retro-fitted with the inserts, but the slides were still dead soft, except the WW2 contract pistols which were spot hardened in key areas. Your slide can be repaired, but it's still soft, and firing should be limited. Simply dressing the damage to true up the face will affect headspace.

*Knock-Knock* I was told to say that Larry Brown sent me...