I purchased a RIA compact 1911 last year and twice now (once while firing it at the range and once while racking the slide by hand), the slide decided to completely lock up partway out of the battery. The first time, I dropped the magazine but couldn't clear the live round it was trying to feed. I tried everything to get the slide to budge one way or another, but it didn't want to move. It turns out that somehow the slide lock started to wiggle it's way loose and that's what locked it up. So when it happened the second time, I just gave a quick tap to the slide lock and it moved freely.
This is only my second 1911, but I've used my Kimber considerably more and never run into this problem. Is there something I can check or do to make sure this doesn't happen again?
Other than flushing the shaft of the slide stop... make sure you don't load up the end of the slide stop shaft on the right side of the frame with your trigger finger.
Replace the slide stop. The inner lug that keeps it in may be short or worn in such a way as to do this.
The slide should only be able to move to the left when the aft end is aligned with the disassembly notch in the slide. If yours moves left when not so aligned, there's a problem with the slide stop - specifically the uppermost portion shown in green in this drawing:
If that's not high enough, you need a new stop.
Are you left handed by chance?
Quote:
The slide should only be able to move to the left
The slide doesn't move to the left regardless, but the slide stop, while only moving significantly when aligned with the disassembly notch, does have some wiggle room when it's not aligned. I'll have to see if I can bust out the micrometer to see how it measures up to the drawing.
Quote:
are you left handed by chance?
Nope, I'm right handed. There's a chance with the first failure that I had placed my trigger finger on the stub in an attempt to keep it off the trigger until I was ready to fire, but it definitely wasn't the case the second time. Thanks for your help.
I'd mike mine and compare it with Neimi's illustration.
If it's even a bit off; I'd get a new Colt or other "name brand" one that's not MIM.
I had the same thing happen on a pistol of a different brand. That one was also a compact, and I think that's part of the equation. What I found was that the shape of the slide stop lug was a little "fat" toward the front, so that as rounds lower in the magazine slid forward just a tiny bit under recoil, the ogive of the bullet was making contact with the slide stop lug and pushing it up and out.
When that happened on a Para-Ordnance P13.45 (Commander-length), the timing was such that the contact did not occur when the slide stop was aligned with the take-down notch, and it just resulted in premature slide lock. But on the compact, it seemed like the timing was just right that the bullet made contact just when the slide stop was aligned with the notch, and that allowed the slide stop to be partially pushed out of the pistol.
In both cases, some careful filing of the slide stop lug solved the problem.
Oops!
Post #4 should read "The slide stop should. . .".
The SS is more likely to get wedged under the slide if the slide has a lot of up & down play on the frame. The average GI 1911 has 0.004" of it. Also, the corners of the slide and SS closest to each other in the drawing should be square - and not rounded. If they're rounded it makes it easier for the SS to get wedged in under the slide.
Gun parts cast from ground up fenders off an old rusty Subaru are not known for their sharp corners.