Order of Fit: slide, frame, barrel & bushing

K, I'll get things lined up for the sights. Thanks for the procedure.

Well, tonight I went ahead and parked the grip safety, thumb safety and MSH. Then I reassembled the gun and here it is. The sights are standing in for photo ops, but, this is it.

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On a side note, I just got word yesterday that we did recieve verbals for the Japan orders we've been hoping for. I think our move will be slated for the Dec/Jan time frame. So, I'll just have the coming months to get all the shooting in that I can. Firearms are prohibited in Japan so ours will be sent to live with my folks. I've been wanting to get Dad a CZ75B, but in the meantime, he can make do with our stash.
 
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we did recieve verbals for the Japan orders we've been hoping for.
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Saronara Shorts! Do keep in touch and tell us how much you are loving it!

I hate to be the one to mention this, but don't you think your pistol deserves a fitted grip safety? I certainly do! Other than that, it is really looking good! I'm glad you didn't go with the spotted look of stainless small parts. :D
 
lol Thanks

Yeah, I left that grip safety there that came with the gun. I originally slated a BT, but when I got this, I decided it would do. Not the prettiest, but its alright. I'm not even using the new hammer and sear I ordered because I got the original set feeling pretty good. I might try those for a little kick in the pants 'new'.

I think later down the road I might end up redoing some things. For now though, this should be a decent shooter that won't rust away in the closet. This gun is staying with me, never to be traded or sold (as if anyone would wanna chance it) :o
 
I guess it is done done. I installed the sights yesterday. It went pretty quick. I slid the sight in and marked the hole and pressed a little divot for the bit. I didn't want to drill through the sight and widen up the hole any, so I removed it. I don't have a drill press so just used the hand drill and some careful pointing :o A little oil dabbed on there too for good measure. Once it was done, I set the sight in with some Loctite, let it dry, then punched in the crush sleeve, a little Loctite too. The rear is just sitting in there with the set screw until I sight it in.

I'll see if I can get out to the range today or tomorrow. Time's getting tight as I leave for Japan on Tuesday, so I might not get out there until after the trip.

Again, thanks everybody for the help and patience :)

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I hate these kind of endings. Sayonora from No Habba Hair Boy San, Shorts. I was very big in the Land Of The Rising Suns 50 + years ago.

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Shorts,

Sorry to miss out on most of the end of this. I’ve been working out of the country and had limited time for Internet access.

Several observations and questions:

The apparent double-strike on the case primer looks to me more like a ding caused by the spinning case hitting something on its way out. The photo appears to show cratering and coloring of the small dent not matched to the firing pin nose. This could just be angles and light fooling me, but I would look for a little brass coloring on the corner of the ejection port where the hood channel meets open air.

On the other hand, if it actually is a firing pin double-strike, then a new firing pin spring may be in order. I would try stretching the original a little until you see this behavior stop, but still don’t incur any misfires. If you have lightened the mainspring any, that also may put an end to it.

Since I haven’t ever played with an Essex 9mm slide, I am curious to learn how it fit originally? I know from the posts that you lapped it in place, but since your photos don’t show any sign of the rails being lowered, I wondered if it were possible that only the horizontal fit of the slide and frame had been achieved, but not the vertical? The way to tell is by having the slide and frame together alone (no barrel or links or springs to create tension) and slipping feeler gauges into the space between the slide and the frame along the bottom edge of the slide above the grips. You shouldn’t be able to slip anything bigger than two or three thousandths in there on a newly tightened gun. If you can, it partly explains why you need such a long link. Lowering the slide will shorten the link length requirement by an equal amount and give you slightly better consistency in lock-up.

You commented about having some cases climb your arm on ejection. This is generally because the case is struck by the recoiling slide on its way out the chute, imparting rearward momentum to it. This can happen for a couple of reasons I’m familiar with: the ejector is too long or the recoil spring is too light. The long ejector causes the case to start out of the extractor while the slide is still moving very quickly to the rear. This, in turn, causes the case to tend to spin rapidly. As it leaves the extractor hook, the rotational axis shifts location from a line perpendicular to one between the hook and the ejector impact point to the center of mass of the case on a parallel axis. This speeds the spin up like a skater pulling her arms in on a spin. If the rotational velocity is great enough, this can cause the case mouth to whip around and smack up against the slide port before it clears the gun. You can tell if this is happening both by brass marks on the slide at the front edge of the ejection port, by marks on the cases that jump back at you, and by having a friend watch cases come out and tell you whether they are spinning lazily or whizzing rapidly? The later is a sign of this issue. Setting the ejector nose back a little causes ejection to commence when the slide’s rearward motion has been a little further retarded by the recoil spring, thus slowing the whole event down, and allowing less rearward momentum to be imparted to a struck case. A stiffer recoil spring will also slow things down at the point of ejection.

A third method of mitigating this problem is to reshape the ejector nose, causing it to contact the case low and outside (see right-hand ejector in the illustration). This imparts spin a little further from the pivot at the extractor hook. The result is a lower spin rate and also causes the case to head out at a slightly higher angle off the horizontal. The only concern I have with doing this in your project is that your .45 ejector may already be hitting the smaller case radius on its inner upper corner alone. You could tell by applying some magic marker to the ejector nose before firing, and see where it cleans off? Anything you reshape outside that area won’t count. This situation would already be giving a minimum spin rate for the slide’s rearward velocity, but hitting too high for best ejection trajectory. If so, getting someone with a milling machine to open the ejector tunnel up for the type of .38 / 9 mm ejector Dave showed in earlier pictures may be the best cure. More work, though.

A last question: Whose parkerizing chemistry are you using? Is it the Shooter’s Solutions manganese base chemistry? I have purchased a sample, but have yet to try that product. I noticed in the pictures that your result had a lot of sheen, but that can be fresh oil. If, on the other hand, the solution has not etched as much of a matte finish as you expected (even without blasting), try using it up near the peak of its recommended temperature range. This causes conventional parkerizing solutions to etch more aggressively and leave a rougher matte surface finish. I assume this would be true with other variants as well, but you would have to try it on a test piece.

After illustrating the bushing lug scraping, I started to create a complete virtual 1911. I’ll post the results if you aren’t in Japan by then. If you are, then, jōdeki, to sayonara!

Nick
 

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Hey Unclenick, good to hear from you. I'm fixing to head out for Japan early Tuesday morning, so I'm taking a look at this now, in lew of packing :o I hate packing.

;) Super Shorts, reminds me of the nickname the guys on the offroad forum gave me/my truck. That was S.S Shorts (S.S. = Super Squirrel, don't ask me where that came from).


The way to tell is by having the slide and frame together alone (no barrel or links or springs to create tension) and slipping feeler gauges into the space between the slide and the frame along the bottom edge of the slide above the grips. You shouldn’t be able to slip anything bigger than two or three thousandths in there on a newly tightened gun. If you can, it partly explains why you need such a long link. Lowering the slide will shorten the link length requirement by an equal amount and give you slightly better consistency in lock-up.
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I just checked this with feeler guages, slide and frame only. The .003" fits, .004" is tight and .005" doesn't fit (geez, "you could drive a truck through that hole", in the words of my old marching band instructor). Before the "nerd!" comments begin, I wasn't in band, I was a drummer :cool:

There is no vertical movement between the slide and frame if I grab the two and try to giggle them. I was looking through pics to see where the slide and frame were lapped to each other, but no luck. I reparked the gun so it's harder to tell.

As for the brass on the edge of the slide, I'll have to check at next range session. I cleaned the gun from Friday's outting. I didn't notice any brass dust arond the ejection port, but I wasn't looking too close for it either. Looking at the location of the ding compared to the extractor mark, the dings are centered above the FP strike, although not all cases have them. And the oneshat do, some are more prominent than others.

The cases up my arms, I'll watch that next time out as well. All the spent cases were landing pretty consistent to my 5oclock about 6' away. I noticed picking up brass that they weren't scattered around.

Ok, I have completely lost my train of focus between that last paragraph and this, my husband just called. Anyhow, Unclenick, thanks for the input. Please keep it coming.

Edit: Parkerizing. I actually used a homebrew I had been messing with (H2O, Phosphoric acid, manganese dioxide and steel wool). The pics look pretty shiny. After removed from the solution and a hot water rinse, they were doused in WD40, then toweled off and slathered in gun oil to sit overnight. The frame came out great, better than the slide. I used 100grit paper. The 120 was a little too smooth. Anything more course than 100 would be scratching :eek: A few areas came out smooth park, and I actually like that finish. Parts that weren't touched with any paper, like the rails and inside the mags well.
 
Shorts, you've done a nice job with that project. A 9mm Commander is a fun gun, very handy and well balanced for the caliber.

Good luck to you and your hubby in Japan - and thank you for your service to our country :)
 
After getting maybe a third of the way into my virtual 1911, I found there already is one on line, and it's a good illustration in Flash format (so you need the Macromedia Flash Player installed).

On the menu, click in boxes one (top) and two in the first (left) column to split the slide and the frame, and in the third column click the fourth box from the bottom to hide the slide stop. Click on the link in the right-most tab at the bottom to get rid of the recoil reducer. You still have a full-length recoil spring guide, but basically this will show the lock-up nicely.

http://www.m1911.org/loader.swf

Nick
 
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Shorts,

Genki desu ka? One last thing when you get a chance to read this. The other reason for a stiffer recoil spring than just stopping the arm crawling cases is it retards the whole recoil event. This leaves the case in the chamber a little longer, extracting it after the pressure has dropped a little further, and thus cutting down on case bulging. Tune the gun for the round, as they say. Whoever "they" are. Probably not the Men In Black in this case.

Nick
 
Genki des. Ego ga hanasemas ka? :D Talk about culture shock. I feel illiterate here, offbase is quite an adventure. But I haven't starved to death or been arrested, so the trip is successful.

Apparently the month of August is sweltering with 100% humidity, kinda like back home TX on the coast. But I'm having a good time, yall should see my tan! :cool:

It's wierd being here without my hobbies. I do need all my spare time to memorize words and hopefully more phrases. I am looking forward to the 'easy' of home, where I can order takeout and ask for the wasabe on the side :o

Just dropping in, I hope the guns back home are behaving themselves and are not going off by accident.
 
Konichiwa! Ogenki desu ka? Dou ****eru? Kibu o motte. Yuki o da****e!

So the editor fries Nipponese?!!!!! :rolleyes: Good to see you found a keyboard Shorts! Stay in touch!
 
Shorts,

Yeah, I expect you'll be asking a lot of people if they can speak English? I got so I could read enough kanji to get around on the trains, but a friend of mine gave the simplest advice for finding the right departure platforms: Just learn to pronounce the name of the destination station, ????-eki. If you ask a non-English speaker where the platform for the destination train is, they will say things you don't understand, but will also point. Just head in the direction they pointed and keep asking. Eventually someone will point in the other direction, and you'll know it was the last platform you passed.

Also, a warning about learning the language: limit your use of mnemonics. There is an old joke about the salesman who tried to remember how to say thank you in Japanese by associating "arigatō" with "alligator", pronouncing it by stopping at the “o”. Later, at the conclusion of an important meeting, he bowed deeply and said "crocodile-o".

Have fun,
Nick
 
Domo Arigaro, Shorts! Glad to see you made the trip OK. Also glad you are on line from the Land of the Rising Sun. Enjoy your visit and have a good time there. I sure did.
 
Konbanwa ya'll. I got back 2 days ago and just about fully recovered from the trip. Can I just say that the Lonely Planet Japanese phrasebook is a lifesaver. And I ate things I didn't even know what they were :barf:

Well, I only have a limited amount of time before I must send our guns to live with Dad. It seems that we will be PCSing back to Japan in Dec/Jan time. I feel all rushed now trying to shoot as much as I can! :o

On a shooting note, we did hit the Akihabara (sp?) and in one shop buried in the mess I ran into a whole slew of airsoft pistols and rifles. Those things are awesome! I can see why they'd be mistaken for a real firearm. The least expensive was a Beretta 92, which went for a cheap $30. Average for a 1911 and various others were $100. The really cool autos were $200+. I'll be exploring the airsoft world once I get there, as well as hitting paintball day every month.

Now back to my 9mm Thing. The slide lugs are getting some good contact with the the front of barrel lugs. So much so, there is some peening going on that I can feel a raised edge on both the slide and barrel lugs. There is also a wierd edge on the front of the barrel lugs which look to be as though the barrel lugs and slide lugs are not parallel with each other. Again, noticeable by the peening.

Also, the front of the barrel bottom lugs (were the link sits) is getting battered by the bottom of the rear hole ledge on the recoil spring guide. What is that about?

Alright, I haven't had my head wrapped around this stuff for a little bit so I'll get it all together soon. I'll also try to get a pic of the peening marks. In all honesty I'm ready to throw away the whole top. But my husband would kill me, especially after what we just paid for the Japan trip! :eek: :o :mad: I love shooting this thing, I just need to get it right.
 
Shorts,

Glad you had a good trip! I remember Akihabara and all the electronics and other hobby related booths you could peruse there. I was in Japan so long ago that I had to go to Okubo, where the sumo stables are, to buy shoes that fit. At size 11 I was then about a half centimeter too big for the largest standard shoe size. Not true now, I'm sure. The kids there have McDonalded their way to greater height.

The lug thing: In general the terminology I've always heard and used distinguishes them as the "locking lugs" (top of barrel and in the slide) and the "link lugs" (bottom of barrel). The peening of the locking lugs depends on whether the leading or trailing edge is peening? If the former (more likely in a fit-up gun) the barrel extension (hood) being slightly too long could cause the locking lugs to try to engage too soon. Taking of a thousandth or two off is all that it would require. Also, did you chamfer the front edges of the locking lugs a-la-Hallock? This helps them line up and may also be all you need to cure the problem without touching the barrel extension.

Battering of the trailing edges would be odd, but a very short barrel extension combined with a very long link might conceivably do it. It depends where the peening is. If it were only on the rearmost locking lugs, the other possibility is that the long link is too long and is pushing the back edges of the barrel up into the slide too hard.

Your asymmetric peening is likely due to riding a long link into lockup rather than a cut and scraped set of link lugs. The link allows the barrel to tilt a bit via the small amount of slop in the link pivots, where cut and scrape fit link lugs give a broader base that is fixed with respect to the rest of the barrel. A competent weld-up followed by filing, cutting and scraping would give you this, but it has to be done well. Preferably TIG (tungsten inert gas; a.k.a. heli–arc) welding with the filler material matching the barrel material fairly closely and a chill on the barrel so the heated link lugs can’t affect the temper at the chamber or warp it. It takes some skill, but not rare skill. Talk to some welders and let them demonstrate material addition on the edge of a piece of 1/8” or 3/16” wide scrap if your aren’t sure and they’ve never done it before.

Nick
 
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I had a short slide-long compensator racegun once that flanged its locking lugs in short order. Gunsmith squared them and it did it again. We repeated the process until the contacting faces of the lugs were beaten down to the locking angle in the shortened slide and it never did it again and shot fine as long as it was competitive, after which I bought a regular slide for it. I'd just clean them up and see if it would seat itself with some use.

The battering on the link lug by the head of the recoil spring guide can be stopped by beveling the appropriate area of the head of the recoil spring guide so they don't touch when installed. Saw this on a big name custom shop pistol once, so bad the slide had about .060" of play in it.

Or it could be misfit as U describes and you can weld up and refit the whole works. But I'd do the simple stuff first.
 
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