1911 Full Length Guide Rods

O

OverPressure

New member
I want to purchase a full length guide rod in my Colt Gold Cup Series 80.

I looking at a Wilson Combat guide rod and with plug , their item number
25G. I am trying to keep cost in line.

I will be expermenting with some slow 650 fps 200 gr. rds , 12 lb spring and
later on the same bullet in the 850 fps with an 18 to 20 to cycle the gun faster
for action shooting.

Any opinions?
 
Don't waste your money. It adds nothing and just makes the gun more complicated.

There are 2 types of FLGR's. I wouldn't spend the money to add one to any gun. I have a couple of guns with the type that do not require any tools to field strip the gun. They don't help a thing, but don't hurt either, so I have no plans to replace them.

I bought a used gun several years ago that had a FLGR in it that required a screwdriver to field strip the gun. I replaced it with the short GI type rod, and would recommend anyone else do the same.
 
I, and others, consider a FLGR useless and a waste of money. Others consider them the best thing that ever happened to solve all the world's problems. Many of the latter group sell FLGR's.

Jim
 
I want to purchase a full length guide rod in my Colt Gold Cup Series 80.

I looking at a Wilson Combat guide rod and with plug , their item number
25G. I am trying to keep cost in line.

I will be expermenting with some slow 650 fps 200 gr. rds , 12 lb spring and
later on the same bullet in the 850 fps with an 18 to 20 to cycle the gun faster
for action shooting.

Any opinions?
Click to expand...
I keep reading this trying to figure out what you are trying to do.I see you are going to the lowest charge for that bullet weight and changing recoil springs and
then working it up and changing them again.So far so good.
Where does a full length guide rod fit in you experiment?
 
Polyphemus

What i wanted to accomplish was to smooth out the cycling. I have read pros
and cons . Mainly springs binding.

What you are reading is that i will be testing different loads . Right now this
gun cycles very slowly, but I want to work on some speed steel , i know i will
have go up in spring tension and design a round that cycles the gun it the
850 fps range.

My Defender cycles like lightning, so i am going to work up slowly on the
cycle speed of the Gold Cup. The Gold Cup feels like a clunker compared
to the Defender.

This is too nice a gun to use for a speed steel gun but i want test it to see
how i shoot the 5" 1911 in speed events. Up till now it has been the Defender
for speed.

I will buy another 1911 if i decide to procede in 5" speed events.
 
OverPressure said:
What i wanted to accomplish was to smooth out the cycling. I have read pros and cons . Mainly springs binding.
Click to expand...
The companies that sell FLGRs love to claim that they prevent spring binding, or kinking. It's an easy claim to make, and impossible to disprove, because the design of the pistol makes it impossible for the recoil spring to bind or kink anyway.

Think about it. Where is the recoil spring in the pistol? If it tries to deflect out of axis, where's it going to go? It can't go up, because it's restrained by the barrel. It can't go down, because it's restrained by the recoil spring dust cover of the receiver. Likewise if it tries to deflect to either side. Plus, by the time the spring reaches nearly full compression, it's just about fully engaged by the standard guide rod, as well as fully enclosed by the recoil spring plug.

All of this means that the recoil spring can't kink or bind, even on a standard guide rod.

Save your money.
 
The recoil spring simply cannot bind.It cannot kink either because as soon as the slide moves rearward all the loops are supported,there are only about four unsupported while at rest.So the guide rod is not a factor to how your pistols
actions feel to you.
If you think the slide does not operate smoothly you could have a bulging barrel
or some other type obstruction that bears attention.I am not a Colt expert but
I think Defenders and GC's have different designs so they would naturally feel
different and maybe you don't need to modify a pistol that works like it is intended to.
 
I do not make or sell full length guide rods. But I use them. Slowly rack the slide on your M1911 with a standard guide rod. Pay close attention to what is happening, and how it feels. Now install a FLGR and repeat. Notice a difference? Does the slide feel smoother? Did that sound of a spring kinking and worming around go away? It does on my 1911’s so the FLGR stay in.

Do my 1911’s work just fine with both? One does, it works just fine either way. The other is a custom build and came with a FLGR. There’s a reason the custom pistolsmith (whom happens to be a member of the American Pistolsmith’s Guild, and knows more about pistols than any of us) put it in and I’m leaving it there.

Now all we need is our friend “1911tuner” to come in and tell us all about how he shoots 1911’s without recoils springs and this thread would be complete. :rolleyes:
 
Mike 38

Actually the slide action is fine. I use slide glide and the slide action is very
smooth. The idea came with , In The First Post, the idea of going into
very low velocity/pressures to testing the gun for speed events.

I have only fired FLGR pistolsl a few times , once with a 650 fps bullet. It was
quite smooth and of course little recoil.

Speeding up the recoil comes from having fired the Defender for speed for several years. The defender does have a much smaller more compact
design. I have attached an image of the Defender Guide Rod, but have
never attemped this before, hope it appears. There is an outer spring
that doesn't appear in this image. " Two Spring System".

Anyway, i am not attached to one way or another only the results. Basically
i have no experience with FLGR.
 

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There’s a reason the custom pistolsmith (whom happens to be a member of the American Pistolsmith’s Guild, and knows more about pistols than any of us) put it in and I’m leaving it there.
Click to expand...
The reason is plain to see,he got paid the fee and made an additional profit on
the parts.
 
A friend pointed-out a worthwhile use for the FLGR; if you have a pistol with a conversion unit, either rimfire or otherwise, equipping the different uppers with FLGRs allows much easier swapping as the upper stays together as a unit.

Slowly rack the slide on your M1911 with a standard guide rod. Pay close attention to what is happening, and how it feels. Now install a FLGR and repeat. Notice a difference? Does the slide feel smoother? Did that sound of a spring kinking and worming around go away? It does on my 1911’s so the FLGR stay in.
Click to expand...

I must not have the same sensitive caress, when it comes to racking the slide, but I don't really notice that, no. :)
The spring fits around the short guide rod, and within the spring plug, closely enough that there's nowhere for it to go. When the slide is fully in battery only about 5/8" of the spring is unsupported (five or six of the 30+ coils?), so by the time the slide has moved far enough to extract a fired case, the spring is supported along its entire length.
I have FLGRs in two of my guns, one because it came that way, and the other to change the weight and balance to match another gun.
I'm probably in the crowd that wouldn't prefer to have one, but wouldn't remove one from a gun so equipped.
 
My Kimber custom II functioned FLAWLESSLY, smooth a silk, not a hiccup it came with a FLGR.

My old beat to heck mid 80s Sprinfield did not have a FLGR.....It functioned FLAWLESSLY, smooth a wet glass and not a hiccup with anything but crappy wolf ammo. And the issue was not guide rod related.


Both are a snap to dissemble, neither require any special tools.....Cant tell a bit of difference between them, no matter how slow or fast I pull the slide.
 
There's just nothing there to kink with the standard guide rod. Take a look at this cut-away view of a standard M1911A11. There are only four (4) unsupported coils between the tip of the guide rod and the open end of the plug. That amounts to about 1/2 to 5/8 of an inch.

1911cutawaysmaller2.jpg


Another version:
cutaway1.jpg
 
I get the impression the only reason Wilson sells the 25G FLGR separately is because they make it for their Shok-Buff buffer system, which seems like the only reason you would use a FLGR.

I actually own and use the Wilson Shock-Buff system because at the time I felt I needed it to shoot a steady diet of heavy +P 'woods' loads and IMO the buffer does help, but there is no noticeable felt difference in 'smoothness' of actuating the slide. Im no expert but it seems if your 1911 runs smooth as butter it wouldn't be because your using just a FLGR, there is no need to waste your money on one to reduce 'kinking' the spring when the original design is fully captivated on both sides after a very short amount of travel (see diagram Aguila shared) the same way a FLGR is.
 
Right after I installed my brand name magazine spring guide rod,the sound of
the spring kinking and worming out went away and my magazine follower
works smooth as glass,no more last round hangs or feed issues, the pistol has
a better feel and balance it's more accurate,it feeds all kinds ammo without hitch even russian.My range buddies think it is very slick,I'm happy.
 
polyphemus said:
Right after I installed my brand name magazine spring guide rod,the sound of the spring kinking and worming out went away and my magazine follower works smooth as glass,
Click to expand...
Magazine guide rod? If you put a guide rod in the magazine, where do the "bullets" go?

... no more last round hangs or feed issues, the pistol has a better feel and balance it's more accurate,it feeds all kinds ammo without hitch even russian.
Click to expand...
I don't understand how a magazine spring guide rod (whatever that is) could possibly make a pistol more accurate, but it sure sounds like the answer to a maiden's prayer. Does it do windows?
 
Mike38 said:
I do not make or sell full length guide rods. But I use them. Slowly rack the slide on your M1911 with a standard guide rod. Pay close attention to what is happening, and how it feels. Now install a FLGR and repeat. Notice a difference? Does the slide feel smoother? Did that sound of a spring kinking and worming around go away? It does on my 1911’s so the FLGR stay in.
Click to expand...

I'm curious... What does a smooth-gliding slide do to enhance the gun's performance or anything that matters?

Does it improve reliability? Reliability has never been as issue with the standard guide-rod mechanism; given that it's not a problem, you'll be hard-pressed to show that a full-length guide improves reliability.

Does it improve accuracy? The bullet leaves the barrel before the slide has moved much more than a tenth of an inch -- so the gun's guide rod CAN'T play much of a roll early in the early part of the firing cycle. And a "kinking" recoil spring can't matter much either...(If only because the dustcover makes a tunnel in which the spring must run and conform...)

The barrel bushing, barrel link, and locking lugs control where the barrel and sights are positioned (aligned) when the sights are being used and during the early part of the slide's movement; those same mechanical connections also control barrel/sight alignment when next round is chambered and ready to shoot again. THAT mechanical consistency between barrel and slide (and sights) is what assure accuracy (or, more correctly, precision.)

Perhaps you feel the guide rod adds rigidity to the process; perhaps it does, but that would seem to be a characteristic that has little or nothing to do with how well the gun runs or how well it hits what you're trying to hit.
 
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Does it do windows?
Click to expand...
I forgot to mention that indeed it does in addition to solving all the worlds problems better than a full length guide rod or a shock buff for that matter.
You try to be logical and reasonable about this part and what it does not do
and the responses are illogical and unreasonable so maybe a little humor gets thru,I don't know.But I'll say this: Tuner is a respected M1911 authority and he's
not in this thread so the dig was uncalled for and a cheap shot.
 
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