Am i the first to bust a barrel bushing???

D

dick w. holliday

New member
I was at the indoor range today when my Baer 1911 quit on me.. I looked down to see the full length guide rod hanging out under the slide. No spring tension at all.....well i quess not--i could see my spring about 20 yards down range......What happened was that the forks under the bushing sheared off.....My guess is that my recoil spring may have been too long and too light (16 lbs)...I think that the loads were compressing the spring as far as it could compress and the thing that gave way was the underside of the bushing....I'm just guessing......Boxed her up and Fed-ex'd to Beaty Custom Guns in North Wilkesboro NC to have him install one of Briley's new spherical bushings-----i just wondered am i the first to tear up a bushing???????? Dick
 
Bushing breakage is rare, but it does happen. My gues sis that it was either too tightly fitted, and thus stressed, or else it was heat treated incorrectly and fell apart.
 
as far as the tightly fitted issue goes--that may have something to do with it because in order to take this bushing out you better have a "metal" bushing wrench----however the body of the bushing is intact--the only breakage is the yoke fingers on the bottom...........Dick
 
This parts failure had become much more common since the introduction of cast parts for the 1911 and its clones. Back in the distant past, when they made guns by taking chunks of ordinance steel and milling away everything that didn't look like the part they wanted, barrel bushings lasted as long as the rest of the gun.

I saw my first one break on an early Kimber. Couldn't believe it at first but in a matter of months saw several more. Some Series 80s Colts, Springfields, etc. The demand for affordable, mass produced parts had led us to bushings, slide stops, thumb safeties, etc. that occasionally fail.
 
Why didn't you send the gun to Baer? Is it out of warranty, or did you want to try a Briley bushing and Baer wouldn't do that? Sounds like a defect to me.
 
A lot of makers use MIM for that bushing, and it does not stand up to a bending stress. Maybe bushings broke on GI guns, but I sure never saw it. Yes, Virginia, there is something to be said for forged steel.

Of course on the range, all you have is a topic of conversation; somewhere else, you might never have any more conversation.

Jim
 
Your gun had one of those fingered collet bushings? Or a solid bushing? I'm not following...

Collet bushings are, however, crap in my experience.

A gunsmith I know has a drawer full of about 50 of them in a drawer, all broken, that came out of customer guns.
 
I've broken a couple of bushings, on some older Colts (before MIM parts) and a Remington Rand that has been around longer than me. It happens.
 
Mike--the bushing in question is a solid bushing--the part that broke off is the yoke at the bottom of the bushing that retains the recoil spring plug...

as far as why i didn't send it back to Baer--if it had happened within a year or two of purchase i may have but i've had this gun for a while (Frame # 1129).....Plus, i may have contributed to it's demise with a recoil spring that was too light or too long or both...

Also, in the back of my mind i start memembering all those posts about Baers customer service or lack thereof.....and i just spent the better part of two months getting dicked around by Charter Arms in regard to a rifle i purchased new from them so lets say i decided to take the fast track and get it fixed myself....and maybe be better off for it........Dick
 
"Mike--the bushing in question is a solid bushing--the part that broke off is the yoke at the bottom of the bushing that retains the recoil spring plug..."


OH! Wow! Now that's a first. I've never heard of that failure before.
 
Breaks can happen to anything. I can just see a buncha Mil Spec or Glock zealots getting over here: "SEE! I TOLD YOU THOSE CUSTOM 1911s ARE CRAP!" or "WOULDNT HAVE HAPPENED IF YOUR GUN WAS MIL SPEC!"

:rolleyes:

I've been in a 2 day old LAND ROVER when the Alternater died. I've seen the belt on a 1 week old Harley break.

Things like this can happen. I bet once a new bushing is installed - it will never happen again.
 
You are probably not going to want to hear this, but the only time that I have had a bushing break it was a Briley spherical bushing. I returned the broken bushing to Briley at the SHOT Show and they offered to replace it. There was no way I was going to use another one, I went back to Colt NM bushings, I was offering mine to them so they might want to find out what happened, but mine was not the first one they had seen fracture.
 
Dick,

I managed to break the bushing of my Kimber Cusom Classic while shooting factory ammo. Like your failure, the ears that retain the spring plug broke sending the spring downrange and the guide rod hanging out of the pistol.

Kimber was really good and I had a replacement bushing in less than a week after a phone call to customer service.

Since that episode I've ditched the full length guide rod in favor of the GI arrangement for spring retention. No problems and it's easier to strip for cleaning.

I've noticed here and on the 1911 forum that most full size 1911s that had a busing failure, most were equipped with a full length guide rod. Could it be the extra friction of the spring plug riding the guide rod cause extra stresses on the bushing?

BTW all Kimber busings are forged parts, per one of their gunsmiths. I specifically asked if the bushing was a MIM part, cast or forged.

Mark / FL
 
Ammo was 4.0 gr clays and 200 gr SWC.....full length Hart guide rod (you know the one with Mercury in it)....i think when i get it back i'll get the club Ransom rest and try same load but try some with full length guide rod and some with standard recoil plug and spring and see if there is any difference....

The way Baer fits these bushings you cannot get one by mail without sending in the gun--mine was so snug that i went to a metal bushing wrench--a buddy with a Kimber could take his out with no bushing wrench at all..........Dick
 
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