I recently purchased a Commander sized pistol. Upon running about 500 rounds through the gun, I took the gun apart and inspected it and this is what i found (as you can see in the pictures). I cleaned the gun, reblued the wear marks, and purchased a Wolff 18 lb recoil spring and a 20 lb recoil spring. I installed the 20 lb spring in the gun, however when hand cycling the gun it felt excessively strong. I took out the 20 lb and installed the 18 lb for the trip to the range. I run approximately 150-200 rounds of WWB 230 RN through the gun at the range. when I came home I disassembled and cleaned the weapon. The pictures below are what I found. What could be a cause of the slide and the recoil plug to slam together at such force? What are some possible fixes for this?
Is that a Caspian slide?
Slide/guide rod/frame Contact:
I have seen elevated pads inside Caspian slides that hit high on the guide
rod like shown in your pictures. The slide hits the guide rod which hits the
frame in spots you show but normally the spots are spread out over a larger
areas of the slide/guide rod/frame...
Barrel/frame contact:
The frame impact looks like a shallow bow-tie cut except that your barrel
legs are contacting the frame a little low for comfort. I would relive the
barrel legs toward the bottom of the lugs to eliminate any lower lug contact
thus extending your barrel life...
The gun is a American Classic Commander with only 700, 800 rounds down the tube.
If this is a new pistol, I'd recommend sending it back for warranty repairs. Something or several things seem to be out of spec. Your American Classic is more hammered than my 1972 Series 70, and it be shot a lot.
+1... if this is a production pistol send it back for repair...
Quote:
If this is a new pistol, I'd recommend sending it back for warranty
repairs. Something or several things seem to be out of spec. Your American
Classic is more hammered than my 1972 Series 70, and it be shot a lot.
The gun is new and has been back for warranty work once already. In my letter to the smith this was mentioned but was not looked at, the gun will be going back. I just wanted what could cause this and possible fixes. I just wanted to know if I was getting the run around from the Gunsmith.
The rearward movement of the slide is stopped when the rear surface of the recoil spring tunnel on the slide makes contact with the flange of the recoil spring guide -- which, in turn, is already in contact with the "frame abutment surface." Both of those contacts should be uniform, so that the stress is evenly distributed around the full perimeter of the slide tunnel.
What's happening in your pistol is that the forward portion of the rail area in the slide was not properly machined, so that it stands "proud" of the remainder of the recoil spring tunnel. So the slide is stopping by contact with just those two points, rather than a uniform perimeter contact. This is shown most clearly by the two shiny areas in your last photograph above, as well as the two small contact points at the top "ears" of the recoil spring guide flange.
Hawkmoon's word explain the same situation I had with a Caspian slide... thanks Hawk...
Here are your pictures with an explanation of what caused the marks on your guide rod flange...
While the Ordnance blueprints do not specify such pads on a slide, I'm wondering if perhaps some manufacturers put them there on purpose to concentrate the impact on the aft end of the recoil spring plug tunnel up as high as possible to minimize the possibility of cracking.
Same idea as concentrating the impact of the barrel lower lugs on the VIS up as high as possible, by either having a "bow tie" VIS or dressing the lower portions of the lugs forward.
I've not (yet) heard of a slide's plug tunnel cracking, but with modern metallurgy and 21st Century manufacturing methods maybe it's only a matter of time? The mere thought of a slide cracking all around at the aft end of the plug tunnel gives me chills!
Here is my Caspian slide that had the same pads and
Nearly the same marks..
I have since removed the pads.....
Thanks everyone, I'm sending the gun back tomorow. Eric my gun looks the same thanks for the pics.