A 1911 failure to feed tip.

[GT-40 GUY]

"Tuning" the 1911 extractor.

I was going to send it to a smith that really knows his stuff. It was going to cost me at least $100 and he probably would have done what I did to the extractor groove and sent it back to me. If you guys have never done this it is very easy. It takes more work & time to remove and put the extractor back together then grind and polish the groove. It allows the shell to align easier & faster in the extractor which makes the shell align perfectly with the chamber when the slide goes to battery.

Here is some reading to help:

http://blog.wilsoncombat.com/caliber...y-bill-wilson/

Here is a drawing that I did. It isn't very good, but I hope you get the idea. (?)

Bottom picture is the jam.

Also the grind stone used in my Dremel. I was very careful not to touch the vertical sides of the groove while grinding.

gt40

PS: If you have questions please ask.

[jglenn]

many good aftermarket extractors today already have the cuts and bevels and only need a bit of polishing..Brown and Wilson come to mind


extractor tention is the other half of the equation..

Brownells has the right tools for that piece.

[Wiskey_33]

I think your feeding issue lies here, not in the extractor.

[GT-40 GUY]

Originally Posted by Wiskey_33

I think your feeding issue lies here, not in the extractor.

If that is the issue what should I do to the thousands of cases.

gt40

[TaxPhd]

If you make those mods to the "Ejector" as your drawing indicates, you may well have problems.

[RBM]

Polish the feed ramp, then it will feed anything. I had a Thompson 1911A1 that I had to break in brand new once. A good gunsmith will do a nice job polishing the feed ramp. Right out of the box I had a lot of work to do on it and the feed ramp was one thing as I had failure to feed. The extractor worked great so I didn't mess with that or the ejector. I had to tight fit a barrel bushing and barrel lug. I also added a recoil spring buffer kit that had a new slightly lighter spring. Working and wearing in the slide with the frame was the big pain. Once all that was done it shot sweet with anything I fed it, Ball, HP, and SWCs. I shot it a lot so for practice I shot a lot of 185 gr. hard-cast SWC reloads.

[jglenn]

honestly the feed ramp is the last thing to look at on a 1911 on feed issues

magazines and extractors are 1st on the list of most common problems

the actual feeding of the round onto the extractor's hook is the issue there..extraction is the 2nd thing it does



following that can be the barrel setback away from the feed ramp


yes polishing the feed ramp can help but not the most common issue.


Afraid to say I've seen many 1911 messed up by improper "polishing" of the feed ramp. so be careful and stay way from Dremels