Solve the puzzle...1911 mishaps

K

keys85

Moderator
I picked up a (used) Springfield GI 1911. My estimates say it had no more than one or two magazines put through it. It was totally stock, not screwed around with, not a mark anywhere, except...the parked gun had a stainless extractor. The extractor also moved forward and backward in the slide slightly. I immediately removed this and replaced with stock (blued) Springfield part. Tight fit, works great.

Upon examination of the stainless extractor in the gun I found that someone had filed the notch in the end of the extractor where the firing pin stop slides into to lock into place. They filed the notch wider say, .020 or .030". I have no idea if the gun did, or would have functioned with all the play there. Is there any logical explanation as to WHY someone might have done this?
 
No logical explanation except some people who don't know any better can't keep their hands off the files and hammers. The extractor probably needed to be fitted and they thought they knew how.
 
All you can do is speculate. Scorch may be right that he didn't know how to fit it, but why install such a mismatch in the first place? The simplest explanation is that the part came off another gun it had already been fitted to. Maybe the original was defective and broke, or perhaps it didn't extract properly and needed its tension set and the fellow didn't know how to do that? More likely, though, is simply that he needed the original for another gun, then he had to put something in the Springfield to be able to sell it.

If he did that filing to the part intentionally, the only thing I can think of is that the extractor may have been slightly long and the rear edge of the extractor hook cut was protruding from the breech face? That will mark cases. By filing the forward side of the slide stop notch you could get that surface to be flush with the breech face, though you would have to upset the rear edge of the firing pin stop to pull it back and have a tight fit. It would be an awkward approach, when you could just clean up the fit at the extractor hook itself along with doing the usual tuning contouring and clean-up.
 
It was Bubbafied:barf:

Maybe Bubba was attempting to "fit" an extractor and didnt inderstand what fitting the hook is all about. Mistook that FPS notch for the hook.

Who knows what runs through "Larry the Cable Guy's" mind when he sets to 'Smithin.
 
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