New to me malfunction?

i think i would try a stronger mag spring...its cheap and if it dont work you havent really hurt anything

i also like steve's idea of doing a flat bottom firing pin stop...that would change the felt recoil impulse and keep the slide in battery just a tad longer

i think it is right on the edge of being there and just needs a tweek or two...and the firing pin stop is a good tweek anyway...a flat bottom pin stop was the original design

i like doing the cheap changes first..no hard impact...the fact that the round is sliding forward and could be bumping the slide stop tells me there is a soft fix out there...heavier mag spring? pin stop..change the recoil impulse? ( i would do that anyway)...heavier main spring with a flat bottom pin stop...big change in recoil impulse....no hard changes and pretty cheap to do......if you change the pin stop to a flat bottom (with a very small raidus) you will like what it does to the gun.....it does make the slide work a little harder when the hammer is down....thats why the army had it changed to the way it is now...for combat ease of working the slide

just my thoughts

ocharry
 
What would you think of fitting a
flat bottom firing pin stop and/or dropping in a heavier than standard mainspring?
Click to expand...

I think "don't fix it unless you know its broken" and when troubleshooting a problem only changing one thing at a time is the best method.

MAYBE either or both of those things will wind up being needed, but I wouldn't jump right there, to begin with.

A possible additional concern is, will the increased stiffness affect the gun when not shooting the heavy loads?

Changing the recoil spring is simple and easy, and could well be something needed to do in order to shoot heavy loads, swapping back to a lighter spring for lighter loads if the gun isn't reliable with lighter loads and the heavy recoil spring.

Changing out the firing pin stop and hammer spring is not mechanically difficult but it is more involved than just swapping recoil springs and its best if we can avoid having to do that.

I say go with the heavier recoil spring for heavy loads, first, and then, if that's not enough, do more.
 
Steve in Allentown said:
What would you think of fitting a
flat bottom firing pin stop and/or dropping in a heavier than standard mainspring?
Click to expand...
It may help to understand the history of the "small radius" (not "flat bottom") firing pin stop before jumping to install one. The M1911A1, according to Ordnance Department blueprints, us a firing pin stop with a radius of 7/32" and the generally accepted recoil spring weight (for a full-size pistol in .45 ACP) is 16 pounds. The original M1911 (not the M1911A1) specs called for a recoil spring of around 14 to 14-1/2 pounds, with a significantly smaller radius to the firing pin stop (around 1/16").

In addition, John M. Browning didn't refer to the recoil spring as a "recoil" spring, he termed it an "action" spring. While it certainly acts to dampen slide energy in recoil, its primary function is to return the slide to battery. The small radius firing pin stop made it difficult for some soldiers to rack the slide manually, so for the M1911A1 the Ordnance Department increased the radius to make it easier to rack the slide. They also increased the strength of the recoil spring to somewhat compensate.

Much more recently, several manufacturers have taken to using an 18-pound recoil spring in full-size pistols where the expectation is use in dirty, dusty environments, in order to reduce stoppages due to crud interfering with chambering new rounds.

Before doing anything, I would want to know what the existing recoil spring strength is. According to Wolff Gunsprings' web site, the Colt Delta Elite in 10mm takes a 23-pound recoil spring -- significantly stronger than for the ,45 ACP pistols. Before changing anything, I would test the existing recoil spring. If it's not 23 pounds, or pretty close, that's the first thing I would replace.
 
I put a 24# recoil spring in it on Friday. In all fairness, it is a borrowed spring out of my friends SR1911 that he has modified to shoot .45 super.

The spring definitely slowed the slide down a bit as my brass was only getting thrown 8-10 ft instead of 15ft. I had zero malfunctions in the 100 rounds that I shot Saturday.

There was still copper marks on the slide lock, filling that down a couple thousandth may be my next move if I still have issues.
 
Invited from afar.

It's called Jumping the Feed Lips or Jumping the Follower, depending on who you talk to.

The round in the magazine moves forward as the slide is nearing its rearmost position during recoil, then appears to jump when the slide hits the impact abutment. What actually happens is that the pistol is jerked out from under the round.

The follower rises and engages the slide stop. A variation of this malfunction is seen with live rounds on the ground among fired brass when the next to last round jumps and the last round feeds.

It most often only involves the last round.

The cause is a weak mag spring, lack of a cartridge stop on the follower...dimple...
or both, but is most often the mag spring, but is can be exacerbated with a heavy recoil spring, which is the usual with the 10mm pistols.
 
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