engineerjet Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 I spent a few hours fitting my barrel to the slide tonight. I took off the sides so it would fit into the breechface and then i started working on the hood. I finally got to the point where the lugs started locking so my thought process is, if its tight (gets stuck) just take a few passes on the hood and recheck. I did this many times and each time it still felt tight where I had to really push down on the barrel to get it to unlock. This is where things went south. I noticed that at the first locking lug, there was a small gap, yet the barrel was still super tight in the breechface. If the barrel is not wedged between the breech and the first lug, then why does it still feel tight? (barrel will not drop freely) Afterward I tried to push the barrel forward to see if the barrel would bump up against the first lug and it did, after some force. It was only then did I realize the massive gap in the hood. When the first lug is starting to engage, this is the gap I get in the hood... Trash the barrel? Not sure where I went wrong, I should have been measuring each time but I figured if its still tight, just give it a few more passes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ltdmstr Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 It can't be wedged between the breech face and lugs with that much clearance. My guess is the binding is due to something being out of spec; either the barrel lugs or the slide cuts for the barrel lugs. I would check dimensions on those areas before doing anything else. Re: the barrel hood, in reality, that's not going to make any difference if it locks up solid (barrel doesn't really move fore/aft if it's locked solid in the lugs, it's the hood sides and bottom lugs that are important for accuracy). If it bothers you, an experienced welder can TiG weld a bead on that in about five minutes and you can recut it so there's no gap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cam73 Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 You are fighting with barrel spring from the muzzle end somewhere. It's pretty easy to mix it up with hood length on your first time through the process. You have to measure the slide accurately and trust the numbers. If you are on dimension for hood length, the interference is somewhere else. Ink up the first few inches of the barrel (assuming it's a bull barrel) and push it on and out of "lock up" a few times to identify where it's making contact with the slide. Slowly remove material at the interference points until the barrel seats into the slide the same depth as your first barrel lug recess (the others probably won't make contact before the first) and sounds solid when tapped with a soft faced hammer from the underside of the barrel. How big is the gap to the BF? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
engineerjet Posted June 1 Author Share Posted June 1 7 hours ago, ltdmstr said: It can't be wedged between the breech face and lugs with that much clearance. My guess is the binding is due to something being out of spec; either the barrel lugs or the slide cuts for the barrel lugs. I would check dimensions on those areas before doing anything else. Re: the barrel hood, in reality, that's not going to make any difference if it locks up solid (barrel doesn't really move fore/aft if it's locked solid in the lugs, it's the hood sides and bottom lugs that are important for accuracy). If it bothers you, an experienced welder can TiG weld a bead on that in about five minutes and you can recut it so there's no gap. I figured it out, quite the expensive lesson. The left side lug was cut (by me) on a very slight angle, and it was binding with the sides of the breech face. I thought it was clear so I thought the binding was from the hood. Hard lesson learned. Definitely something I wont repeat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzt Posted June 2 Share Posted June 2 When I fit my very first 1911 barrel, I ended up cutting the hood too short. I had it welded up and refit. I didn't like the way it looked, so I got another barrel and fit it. Then I started thinking. This manufacturer says .003" clearance between the back of the hood and the breech face. This one says no, I should be under .001". ????? As long as the barrel feet ride the SS properly, and there is enough clearance on the sides of the hood so it doesn't torque or bind, you are good. The hood then just acts to keep a round from feeding too high. I went back to the original barrel. I shot it for accuracy from a bench. Then I took .003" of the back of the hood and shot it again. Same accuracy. Took another .003" off, then again. After .013" too short I quit. It did not make one iota of accuracy difference. So, the old bullseye shooters were telling old wives tales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeBurgess Posted June 3 Share Posted June 3 Welding a barrel hood up is a perfectly acceptable fix. I built a 9 Major open gun with a ebay RIA barrel with welded and refit the hood and feet, that gun ran many thousands of rounds without issue and that barrel is still running fine now that that old gun has been converted to an LO blaster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racinready300ex Posted June 3 Share Posted June 3 I also have a gun at home I took to much off of and had the hood welded up then recut it. Came out great and is still running today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cam73 Posted June 4 Share Posted June 4 https://www.microprecisionwelding.com/gun-welding No affiliation, but I dorked up slide pretty good once and the quote from Tony to weld it up was quite reasonable. Changed plans and didn't end up going through with the repair. There's always next time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now