Hi guys, I'm about halfway through or better on my EZ Fit kit on my old WW1 1918 Colt. I've got great even upper lug contact on the pads, and great contact on one of the lower lugs. I can't seem to get the other lug to make contact. I've checked many times and verified its not the hood length. Is it possible I should just keep filing the upper pads? They are .028 depth right now.
Here is a couple of pics. Is it possible the pad on the inside of my slide
might be interfering?
Okay, first off... don't get intimidated... barrels are the hardest to me too, I think I've done 5 now, and every one of them are 2 hours of pure terror.
Take a candle (a little trick that Log showed me) and hold the barrel hood over the flame until you get the whole hood, all the way around covered in it, and do the feet and the lugs too.
Then, carefully slide your barrel into your slide, lock your bushing, slide it all on the frame, insert your SS, and once or twice rack the slide.
Then carefully take it apart (trying to avoid dragging it and making any more marks). Then look at your canvas, and read what it's telling you. Look all around it for contact, and compare it to the inside of the slide, and the frame to find what is holding you up.
Post pictures afterwards.
Quote:
I would just like to get it straight from the horse's mouth!
Does this help?
http://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=289661&highlight=smoke+barrel
Quote: ...I've got great even upper lug contact on the pads, and great contact on one of the lower lugs. I can't seem to get the other lug to make contact. I've checked many times and verified its not the hood length.
No, hood "length" is not the issue. Instead, it's going to be either contact between the side of the hood and the slide, or uneven removal of material from the fitting pads. The former can be caused by uneven removal of material from the back of the hood, but it's not a matter of hood "length".
If the hood is able to rise into the slide far enough to give you good lockup but you still have contact on only one pad, the likely cause is that the sides of the hood are contacting the slide. How much side-hood clearance Kart suggests, and how to create and maintain it, are provided in Fitting Steps 2 & 3 (pp. 9-10) of the booklet that comes with the EZ Fit. Step 7 (p. 11) describes what you're seeing now and what to do about it:
"7. Each time material is removed from the pads you must check hood clearance. Uneven removal of material from the pads will cause the barrel to move sidewards. If the hood clearance closes up, try removing material from the opposite side pad while making sure the legs of the link lug are making contact with the slide stop pin. If the barrel picks up onto one leg, adjust it back by removing material from the opposite pad and from the hood if necessary. The most important thing to keep in mind is that both legs of the link lug must be in even contact with the slide stop pin and side clearance of the hood must be maintained. The removal of material from one or both pads and/or the hood must be done carefully and patiently ..."
Critical Understanding: When you're at the first stage of getting the hood to rise into the slide, correct any barrel canting by removing material from the hood and on the same side as the unwanted hood-to-slide contact. Later, though, when you're fitting the fitting pads, you correct canting by removing material from the fitting pad and on the side opposite the unwanted hood-to-slide contact.
Suggest you hold the slide with hood and barrel installed up to a light with the barrel centered with the Kart centering block and see if either side of the hood is contacting the slide. If it is, correct that. If it isn't, mark, test and remove metal (in ridiculously small increments - just a light wipe with the file at a time) from the pad on the side of the barrel opposite the side that's getting lower lug contact.
I found my problem. I did not have to trim any material off the sides of the hood as it was actually about .004 narrower than the guide blocks. What I didn't think about is checking the barrel for proper alignment in the slide. It appears as if I had needed to remove .009 off one side and voila! Now I've got perfect lower lug and still keeping good upper lug contact. I guess sometime it's best to walk away for a while and come back to it later.
Great! A key thing to keep in mind is the barrel has to stay straight throughout the whole fitting process. That sounds simple, but when you consider that the whole time you're fitting the barrel you're removing metal from one side and then the other, you can see how critical it is to keep checking for canting constantly as you get the thing fit.
Quote:
Here is a couple of pics. Is it possible the pad on the inside of my slide
might be interfering?
This stop pad on the left side? An early method for limiting a barrels upward location in battery before fitted Match grade barrels where available.
Quote:
How old is the stop pad? When did they stop using them?
I know A. Swenson and others in that time frame did it.
But really don't know, just that it was a way of limiting upper engagement when the barrels first lug recess was full depth, .058"-.060". Which is still the case of some barrels sold as Match , but aren't, such as the ones fusion sells.
The early mods also included a small bit of brazing material on the left side of the port to limit movement also. I saw a couple of those... even one as recent as two years ago at a gun show. It was a bullseye gun.
Quote:
How old is the stop pad? When did they stop using them?
Pretty old... Chow, Shockey, Madore, Al Marvel, Giles, etc. all used them. The one pictured is not an example of any of the above, that I have seen. Usually, the pad is back closer to the breechface, and silver soldered in place. Nearly all bullseye guns of that period exhibited these tabs. I recently inspected and worked on a Marine Corp gun, built in the last 6-7 years, that had a similar modification. The gun is shooting very well, and producing great groups/scores in the hands of one of the greats of the game. This old trick is coming back, in a slightly different form, in an effort to maximize barrel stabilization.
