Has anyone ever broken a recoil spring plug in a 1911?

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defjon

New member
Full length guide rod system, shooting 200 to 300 rounds. No issues noted at the range chugged along fine.

Got home to clean it, field stripped and noticed the plug had broken in three pieces. Two large pieces remain. Guessing the third was on the firing line.

Odd.

Switched to a gi system. No need for a bushing wrench.

Anyone ever seen this?

Tried googling but no luck!
 
I haven't seen it but almost all of my 1911s have the GI system. Just curious as to brand of pistol.
 
An early form of shock buffer was a guide rod with a spring-loaded plunger protruding, and I'd heard they could/would punch a hole in a standard plug, but a plug coming apart in a stock gun?
 
I did not break it, my 1911 had the two piece guide rod system that required an Allen wrench to take apart. I shot a couple of hundred rounds without a glitch and did not notice the plug was missing until I got home to clean it. Called Sprinfield Armory and they sent me a new recoil guide rod system free of charge. I have since changed to a gi guide rod system.
 
Never broke any spring in my 1911's, and that's from 1964 til the present day. And I rarely change them out...per Kuhnhausen's recommendation, I have maintained the original GI/JMB design. Rod
 
Full length guide rod system, shooting 200 to 300 rounds. No issues noted at the range chugged along fine.

Got home to clean it, field stripped and noticed the plug had broken in three pieces. Two large pieces remain. Guessing the third was on the firing line.

Odd.

Switched to a gi system. No need for a bushing wrench.

Anyone ever seen this?

Tried googling but no luck!
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I've heard of this will full length one and two piece guide rods but I have not personally seen it. It's most likely a bad plug.

tipoc
 
I’ve broken the GI plug on a Colt Compact, never a full length
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I'm sure you didn't mean it this way but a GI plug is longer than the plug on a Commander. Which is shorter than a 5" piece so requires a shorter plug. The Officers and Defender have a different set up altogether so of course the GI plug wouldn't work. These latter "plugs", on the OACP, are known to have broken some in the early days of these pieces it was fairly common.

tipoc
 
Have full length guide rods in 7 1911s, several with over 20,000 rounds. Never had a problem with rods or plugs. Never heard or seen of a plug breaking. Had to be defective especially with a low round count.
 
I saw the plug (partial) and spring from a Colt Officers model go down range while the guns was being shot. Wasnt my gun, but that of the boy in the next booth over.

Apparently, it was fairly new and he hadnt done anything to it. Just bad luck I guess.

Over the years, Ive owned right around 40 1911's, and only one had a guide rod spring assembly when I bought it Springfield Loaded), which I quickly replaced with a GI type. That gun was a POS too, and wouldnt feed hardball out of the box.

Never had a plug break on any of my guns though.
 
Older officer models were prone to plug failures. King and a few others were making reverse guide plugs for that reason. Good point, but never heard of an issue in a govt or dommander model
 
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