Colt 1903 32 Calibre Pistol slide is "stuck"

S

snowshome

Inactive
I just acquired a Colt 1903 32 caliber pistol a couple months ago. I field stripped it a few times, no problem. I had it apart again over the weekend and happened to put the slide on while leaving the recoil spring and guide (and the barrel) out. I slid the slide back and perhaps the hammer was in the wrong position, but now the back of the slide appears to be stuck on the disconnector. The slide can be brought back to flush with back of the receiver, but can't go forward more than a quarter inch I estimate.

It was made ~1905 per the serial number and doesn't have a magazine safety.

Does anyone know of a good approach to getting the disconnector to descend? I haven't started taking it apart further. Maybe the thumb safety is part of the problem/solution? It can't be rotated up into the slide notch.

Any guidance you all might provide would be greatly appreciated.

- David
 
Can you get the slide to the rear, again? You can shine a light into the magwell and see the trigger bow, disconnector, and maybe some of the sear. Maybe you can see what's going on in there? The relationship of the internal parts - those visible with the gun assembled - isn't much different from a 1911, so if you can see the trigger bow, disco, etc., you might be able to see the problem.
I don't see how you could get the slide on the frame with the hammer in any other position than fully cocked, since you have to run the slide back over the hammer to assemble the gun. That you can't get the safety to rotate is maybe an important clue, but I'm not familiar enough with how the safety interacts with the other internals to know what sort of clue it is.
I had my .380 out last weekend, and it seems to me that the safety rotates pretty freely whether the hammer is cocked, or not.
 
I have a 1920 production 1903 hammerless and I can't even guess as to the issue- Rick makes a great point about the hammer. If some photos of the frame with the slide off might help, I can snap some for you.
 
The only time I've ever encountered that is when the cocked hammer is sitting slightly above the level of the frame, usually due to someone either messing with the sear (or the sear notch on the hammer) trying to make a "better" trigger pull. The clue is that you can push the slide about a 1/4" further forward from where the back of the slide and frame meet.

I've most commonly encountered this on Spanish made pistols.

My only suggestion would be to try to disassemble the frame and get the hammer spring out and see if the hammer is, in fact, the problem.
 
solved - somehow

All, Thank you for the guidance. I was certain I had tried every possible combination of pushing, pulling, etc. on the visible springs, the slide, trigger, grip safety. I was suspicious that the grip safety wasn't really returning to it's resting position. I tried getting at the disco with a screw driver per the advice above. And I downloaded a book from HLebooks.com, and generally got to know and respect this firearm better. And I was resolved to go get a set of punches to begin to disassemble the receiver. Then without know what exactly I did, the slide came back completely. My assumption is that some of the poking around in the mag well helped dislodge the grip safety. I do notice that manually cocking the hammer, with the slide removed, takes the grip safety from it's suspected improper location back to it's fully extended "resting position".

If I learn any more about this behavior, I'll update the thread. Again, Thank you for the help.


-David.
 
Good news!

But post some photos just the same. Maybe if compared to a pistol that won't become stuck, we can learn something

I'm told these things are bears to re-assemble, but I suspect that is because its an uncommon pistol today and the knowledge isn't widespread. Seems a fairly simply pistol to me
 
some more clues

I re-assembled the pistol and observed that the grip safety is further extended when the hammer is cocked. I took some pics but they're somewhat dark. I'll see if I can get them over to the right computer to annotate and lighten up before posting.

I see that the pistol allows you to rack the slide, loading a round in the chamber, at this time (with the pistol cocked) you can then pivot the thumb safety into the rearward slide catch/indentation- this makes sense for concealed carry - you have three safeties in play. (trigger, grip and slide). At this point the grip safety is "further extended".

The relevant point is that I couldn't rotate the thumb safety into the slide catch/indentation when the pistol was stuck. So I apparently had a hammer in the cocked position, but with the grip safety incompletely extended, and the thumb safety unable to rotate into the slide.

Since I hadn't dis-assembled the receiver beyond the slide and barrel, I must have affixed the slide when the trigger/hammer/safeties/springs were in the wrong alignment.

I had seen the excellent advice in the other thread. But in this case, I hadn't taken the pistol apart that far. [Thankfully ... pretty daunting]

So if this makes sense - great. I am still not sure what I did wrong. Someone mentioned just letting dirty guns sit in a tin pan of CLP - I don't know what that is - but sounds appealing...

I don't think this pistol has been modified (in response to the comment that perhaps the sear was 'improved'). It was my great grandfathers, purchased for a uncomfortable commute through some dockyards. But it was passed down to me with probably no more that 20 rounds fired through it.

Thanks for the advice. I'll try to provide any conclusive data I derive.

Regards,

David.
 
The grip safety does act as a "cocked" indicator, and should probably be treated as a loaded-chamber intidicator until the gun is cleared.
 
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