Diagnosing mangled cases from a 1911

Recently a fellow took his Dan Wesson Pointman PM2 to the range to have some fun. What he got instead was mangled brass and constant jamming. He posted a couple of pictures showing the cases.

I looked at the pics and immediately diagnosed an extractor that was losing control of the empty cases during recoil causing them to not eject. The empty cases would then sit on top of the next round in the magazine as it was being fed. The empty cases would then get slammed into the barrel hood. I've personally experienced this specific malfunction in the past so was confident in my diagnosis.


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Eventually the fellow set about removing the extractor from the slide and discovered the firing pin stop had suffered a catastrophic failure. While my initial diagnosis was technically correct, it wasn't due to a bad extractor as you can see in the picture below. The broken firing pin stop allowed the extractor to clock which caused it lose control of the case.

I don't think I've ever seen a firing pin stop fail like this one.


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BTW, the US Army tried plastic firing pin stops. They hoped for 5,000 rounds between failure. It didn't work back then (1940s).

Second, what springs and cartridges? It could also be under-function. Not enough energy to push the slide back sufficiently for full ejection. Then the slide goes forward and pushes the spent case into the barrel (but not the bore).
 
4V50 Gary, the owner fit a new firing pin stop and the problem was resolved. He'd been shooting 230gr FMJ factory ammo with a 23lb mainspring and a 16lb recoil spring out of this 5" 1911.
 
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