blackrazor Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 Hi all, After spending lots of time looking very carefully at my extractor problem with my STI, I've also noticed what may be a machining flaw in the breech face of the slide (mine is a .40). Esentially, the breech face is not a perfectly flat plane, there is a raised ridge running along the right side, right above the location of the ejector cutout. It looks almost like the breechface was finished by two separate machining operations, and they weren't done at exactly the same "depth". The result is the brass doesn't fit perfectly square against the breech face, and after firing, every piece of brass has this step indentation on it. Has anyone else seen this before, is this a real problem or am I just obsessing about things that don't matter? If I did want to get it fixed, could STI take care of it, or could I send it to a gunsmith to polish out the raised section of the breech face? Finally, is the fact that the slide is hard chromed going to require me to refinish the slide if I get this fixed? Thanks for any help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMITH Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 Can you measure the height difference of the step or maybe the depth of the mark on the brass? If it is just a couple thousandths it could be polished out, if it is more you will start to lengthen the headspace enough to consider it. Yes, I have seen the marks before, and seen enough to make marks on the brass. It has never been more than a couple thousandths, and I have polished it out. The 'round' portion of the breechface is cut with a flat bottom mill, and the rest of the breechface is cut with a wire EDM. The breechface will most likely have some 'belly' to it as well. Not a big deal and as slides go STI slides are well made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JThompson Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 A buddy of mine has a Bedell and it has the marks you speak of too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtr Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 When my open gun was brand new it would randomly not go all the way into battery. AFter driving myself crazy trying to figure out why the gunsmith discovered the exact thing you described. He machined the little metal off and it all worked fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianH Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 They wire the breechface square then come down through the barrel bore to pick out the radius...if there's mismatch you're gonna see it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Service Desk Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 I have one in .40 that exhibits the same condition..... but now it has a .38 Super barrel in it and the "ledge" hammers the case heads on the ejector side. It has always been fussy on feeding, now I know why ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ocx Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 A good gunsmith fixes this easily without any need to re-finish the slide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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