My first 1911 was a somewhat "improved" nickel-plated Norinco built by a 1911 gunsmith, George Stringer, who participated here for some years, before a severe health problem forced his retirement and ended his participation in discussions. That gun came with a FLGR installed. I shot it for a year or two, and it was a great gun. I later got interested in another gun, and that 1911 was traded away.
I
think a recoil spring CAN bind or kink, but I also think that's only a problem when the metal of the spring has been damaged or has begun to fail. Then the kink becomes more extreme and things go haywire. I
think I had
THAT happen with the Norinco, with the FLGR installed. It stopped running, and it was a bear to disassemble -- but that was probably as much due to my unfamiliarity with FLGRs as anything else.
What's different about how a recoil spring functions in a gun with the FLGR installed?
If the slide/dustcover does it's job, the spring, even if it seems to "want" to kink, has only a limited space in which to do it. The length of the unsupported spring is quite small, as can be seen in the following animation. (I tried to find an x-ray version of this same activity showing an actual gun being fired, but couldn't find one. One was once available, but the link no longer works. You can argue, rightly, that this is an animation -- and it reflects an artists interpretation.)
I noticed, too, that one of the 1911 animation showed that the barrel and slide didn't move until AFTER the round had exited the barrel. These sort of animations are sometimes scary. The one below is very fast, but the barrel and slide begin move very quickly.
http://www.m1911.org/images/full_anim.gif
If the spring material ISN'T failing, I don't really understand how the spring material can kink or bind that much -- as it's movement is too constrained. Notice in the illustration above that there is only a short space where the recoil spring COULD bind or kink. If the springs are consistently binding or kinking, I think you'd be able to see changes to the spring (through deformation) visible when the spring is removed and laid on a flat surface. There should also be obvious wear marks on the barrel or inside the gun's slide or frame, as well.
I mentioned my 1911 failure above. Perhaps I should have replaced that unknown recoil spring when I first got the gun, but it seemed to be working properly -- and I've always believed in the adage, "if it's not broke don't fix it." It came to me in good working order from a well-regarded 1911 gunsmith. It did not come with a shock buffer (which
Mike38 might argue is part of the problem.) I probably only put a 350-400 rounds through the Norinco while I had it. The gun I got in it's place was a SIG P-210-6, a beauty of a different sort and VERY accurate. (It did have a FLGR...
)
I'm looking forward to Ransom Rest results. I hope we can find someone able to do them for us.
That said, I did find some results. I also found this:
http://www.shootingillustrated.com/index.php/17812/why-full-length-guide-rod-why/ The author, in the cited article, wrote this:
A few years back, an in-depth study of the full-length guide rod was undertaken. Guns were fired from a Ransom Rest with and without the part. It was clearly shown the full-length guide rod had nothing to do with a particular pistol’s accuracy or reliability.
Bill Wilson's gun site
http://www.wilsoncombat.com/faq_handgun.htm says the following:
Does a full-length guide rod improve accuracy?
Full-length guide rods were designed to improve cycling and to keep the recoil spring from binding up. Although, increasing accuracy is not the intention, it could slightly improve accuracy by helping slide lock up.
No mention of buffers, but he does sell them.
Still another link, using a Wilson Combat full-length guide rode in Ransom Rest tests, did show improvements, virtually halving group sizes. That particular gun apparently needed all the help it could get, and it got it:
http://www.ammoland.com/2011/07/group-gripper-1911-parts/#axzz3JLL6bg2G
Here's another site that did Ransom Rest tests. They noticed an improvement when a bad recoil spring was used with a FLGR (but only in cycling smoothness.)
http://www.frfrogspad.com/miscelln.htm#guide%20rods
Q. What is the advantage of the full length spring guide rods I see on many current .45 autos?
A. Not much. While proponents claim it improves the smoothness of operation that doesn't hold up under testing. A friend used an electronic instrumentation set-up to look in detail at the claims made by FLGR fans. Two of the test guns were ancient military clunkers, three were el-cheapo 1911 knock-offs, two were Wilsons, three were Kimbers, two were Colts, and there was one Les Baer.
Each gun was set-up on the bench with accelerometer sensors, and slide motion instrumentation. A high-speed laboratory camera recorded super-slow-motion imagery of the firing sequence. Each gun had two full magazines put through it, the first with a standard short spring guide and the second with a stainless steel FLGR
With FLGR installed in no case did the FLGR make any significant difference that could be measured with instrumentation. None of the guns equipped with instrumentation to measure force linearity during recoil and tested with and without FLGRs showed any measurable difference in smoothness during actual firing.
However, when a horribly bent and kinked spring was installed, there were smoothness differences detectable both by hand and with the instrumentation, but ONLY when the slide was being retracted MANUALLY-- not when the gun was being fired. The forces generated during firing recoil and imparted to the mass of the slide vastly overwhelmed any small roughness from the kinked spring.
Keep in mind that with a standard (short) spring guide, that the spring is fully contained on the guide when the slide is retracted.
As to claims that the FLGRs add weight and reduce muzzle climb, consider how much they weigh. I don't think so.
And... they negate one of the advantages of the 1911 design--the ability to completely disassemble the pistol without any tools (a problem further exacerbated by the current fad of using Torx-head or Allen-head screws and other parts that deviate from the original specs. The original design was such that the lip on the sear spring could be used as a screw driver to remove the grips and the magazine catch, the shaft of the safety as a punch to remove the mainspring housing, and the hammer strut could be used as a pin punch (something you can't do with the current square struts).
Out of all of these discussions, only the Wilson GROUP GRIPPER seemed to add something in terms of accuracy, and the Wilson part is a slightly different variation of the typical FLGR design. There were no mentions of shock buffers being used with any of the FLGRs, including the Wilson version. Wonder if the shock buffer would have improved things even more -- according to Kuhnhausen, they're both part of the system.
It would appear that Ransom Rest tests aren't always definitive.
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