Aguila Blanca
Staff
What a hot, steamin' mess of meadow muffins!
I'm tinkering with a 1911 project pistol. After fitting the barrel to the slide, I istalled what I believe was a standard link, put the slide and barrel on a frame -- and couldn't retract the slide because the barrel isn't linking down enough to clear the slide. Another barrel in the same slide and frame function fine, so the issue probably isn't the slide or the frame.
So I pulled out my box of barrel links, found one I thought should be .003" sorter than the standard, installed it ... and had the same issue.
So I went to what I thought was a -.006" link ... same issue.
I don't remember how I sorted the links when I created the box. It's a flat box with a bunch of compartments, and I made up a roadmap that's in the box to show what length links are in which cubbyhole. Now that I'm questioning my sorting, I'm brought back to the unhappy realization that there is no standard to the way links are numbered or marked for length. One company uses -3, -6, -9 and +3, +6, and +9 to indicate plus or minus .003, .006, etc. Another company just uses 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 -- and their lengths are plus or minue increments of .003", they're plus or minus increments of .005".
So my project for this afternoon or evening is going to be taking all the links out of the box and measuring each one with an actual inside micrometer (not a caliper) to see what I have. And I hope I have one that works, because Brownells is mostly out of stock on 1911 barrel links.
I'm tinkering with a 1911 project pistol. After fitting the barrel to the slide, I istalled what I believe was a standard link, put the slide and barrel on a frame -- and couldn't retract the slide because the barrel isn't linking down enough to clear the slide. Another barrel in the same slide and frame function fine, so the issue probably isn't the slide or the frame.
So I pulled out my box of barrel links, found one I thought should be .003" sorter than the standard, installed it ... and had the same issue.
So I went to what I thought was a -.006" link ... same issue.
I don't remember how I sorted the links when I created the box. It's a flat box with a bunch of compartments, and I made up a roadmap that's in the box to show what length links are in which cubbyhole. Now that I'm questioning my sorting, I'm brought back to the unhappy realization that there is no standard to the way links are numbered or marked for length. One company uses -3, -6, -9 and +3, +6, and +9 to indicate plus or minus .003, .006, etc. Another company just uses 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 -- and their lengths are plus or minue increments of .003", they're plus or minus increments of .005".
So my project for this afternoon or evening is going to be taking all the links out of the box and measuring each one with an actual inside micrometer (not a caliper) to see what I have. And I hope I have one that works, because Brownells is mostly out of stock on 1911 barrel links.