Extractor tuning. School me.

[TonytheTiger]

This thread may be a little late, as I already broke out the files and sandpaper, but here goes.

I've been noticing a very sluggish chunky feeling lately when my 9mm TS goes into battery, which is weird and annoying, and I've had two stovepipes in the last 600 rounds, which is unacceptable. Running the slide slowly by hand on an empty chamber there's is no interference. Running it while feeding from a mag reveals that the extractor has significant spring tension that the slide has to overcome to go into battery. The extractor and spring have less than 3k rounds on them, and it's very clearly the cause of the chunky feeling.

So, of course I got out the files, rounded the bottom corner of the extractor more, and took a little off the hook. Not sure if that was the right thing to do but the sluggish feeling has gone away (no live fire yet though), it feeds smoother, still ejects great by hand and still has tension on the case rim.

Now I can't get any live fire in for a couple days and I'm second guessing my gunsmithing, and the search function didn't turn up much so I'm hoping a bunch of you guys post that you did the same thing and it changed your life for the better, maybe even made you taller or better looking.

Thanks in advance for any input!

[thompsoncustom]

First thing I would do is pull the extractor and clean the channel it's in those are known for getting gunk in them that can cause issues.

I've never had a problem with to much pressure on the case from the factory and I can help you with a couple of different ways to increase it but that doesn't sounds like what your looking for.

Beveling the bottom corner should help and not have any negative side effects if you don't take to much.

I guess if you had a really small drill bit you could tightly fit the extractor spring or you could turn it down a little to decrease spring tension or just polish it to help increase smoothness.

Something I've wanted to try but haven't yet is polishing the breechface, you would what to remove as little as material as possible but I can't think of a downside to a really polished breechface except smoother feeding.

Edited March 29, 2016 by thompsoncustom

[GeneBray]

Clean the left side of the breach face with a small brass brush and powder solvent. There is a small groove there (at least on my SP01) that helps hold the case on the breach face. And, ensure there is no binding causing excessive force for the extractor to pivot.

[TonytheTiger]

I'll check the breech face groove. The breechface is polished, as is the extractor. The extractor groove is currently spotless, I clean it pretty regularly. I'm probably going to polish the big flats on the top and bottom of the extractor just for giggles.

[TonytheTiger]

Interesting new problem: It seems the chunky slide feeling was more ammo problem then gun problem so I gave up on my extractor modification project and put a spare extractor back in. Now for no particular reason that I can see when the gun locks back on empty it leaves the last case sitting on the follower. This happens with two different extractors, newer extractor spring, a 10lb recoil spring, 18lb hammer spring, 124 and 135 grain bullets loaded at 120-122 pf. The good news is when I drop the mag the case drops with it and I also attempt not to run dry on the clock anyways. The bad news is I've lost a lot of sleep over this issue the last few days.

[GeneBray]

Given the new information, I would focus on mags and/or slide lock.

[CZ85Combat]

you might need a little more powder (+0.2) or an #8 recoil spring. Mt steel loads do the same thing when I get down to 120 pf

Edited April 16, 2016 by CZ85Combat

[huskerlrrp]

There is a thread on some work that a Gray Guns 'smith (RLN_21?) did on his 75B extractor. If you haven't seen it check out http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=104456&hl=%2Brln_21

[TonytheTiger]

Given the new information, I would focus on mags and/or slide lock.

I'll try it with a few different mags to see if it's an isolated problem. Is there anything specifically I should be looking for that would cause this?

[TonytheTiger]

you might need a little more powder (+0.2) or an #8 recoil spring. Mt steel loads do the same thing when I get down to 120 pf

I was kinda thinking the same thing, I tried some 135+ pf factory ammo the other day and last round ejection was still erratic, some went 7-9', some barely went 2'. The lower pf stuff has a similar ejection pattern but with the occasional case sitting on the follower with the case mouth towards the breechface. The annoying thing is it might do this 3 times in a row or maybe once in 150 rounds, it makes it hard to diagnose. Edited April 16, 2016 by TonytheTiger

[TonytheTiger]

There is a thread on some work that a Gray Guns 'smith (RLN_21?) did on his 75B extractor. If you haven't seen it check out http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=104456&hl=%2Brln_21

Excellent info, thanks for that.

[TonytheTiger]

There is a thread on some work that a Gray Guns 'smith (RLN_21?) did on his 75B extractor. If you haven't seen it check out http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=104456&hl=%2Brln_21

Excellent info, thanks for that.

I went ahead and did everything in this thread and then single loaded 30 rounds yesterday with no problems, plus another 120 rounds shot normally. 100ish round match today and it ran perfect (though I never went to slide lock), I wish I could say the same for the pistols owner...