Broken Bushing on Les Baer Stainless Stinger

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o2l

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Bought in 2007 for The Wife, round count in the thousands, last changed the recoil spring from Baer's 23 lb. to standard 18#. Field stripped the pistol for cleaning and discovered a forward piece of the barrel bushing had broken off.
Sent the pistol to Baer (on my dime) as they would not provide a replacement and will report on the outcome. Has anyone else had a Baer (or any one else's) stainless steel bushing break?

Of Note: Upon receipt of this pistol in 2007, it was found that it would not operate reliably. After return from Baer, it was found that the problem had not been corrected. 1911Tuner changed out the slide lock, the firing pin stop and "corrected the angles" on the firing control parts and the pistol has never failed.

With the broken bushing in place, the pistol still shoots. ???
 
Their bushings break because they are either hitting the barrel OR the recoil spring is stacking. Les's sub 5" guns are subpar, IMO
 
Bladeandbarrel said:
Their bushings break because they are either hitting the barrel OR the recoil spring is stacking.
Click to expand...

And sometimes they just break. There's a fairly sharp corner at the junction of the bushing's barrel and flange. That can lead to stress fractures that grow over time. Rare with a machined steel bushing, but I've seen it a couple times.


Bladeandbarrel said:
Les's sub 5" guns are subpar, IMO
Click to expand...

The biggest issue with his Commander-length pistols is that the frames' rails and impact abutments aren't machined to Commander spec. All he's done is used a GM-length frame with a shortened dust cover, which results in shorter slide travel and runup. I'm sure Les has his reasons for that, but I can't imagine what they'd be.

John, as I remember, the safety on that Stinger was bouncing up part way during live fire far enough to block the sear. Les stretched the plunger assembly spring and sent it back. I remember having to adjust the engagement angles on the sear leg and safety lug to get it to stop doing that.

I don't remember changing the slidestop...or were you referring to the safety as the slide lock?
 
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John Travis said:
And sometimes they just break. There's a fairly sharp corner at the junction of the bushing's barrel and flange. That can lead to stress fractures that grow over time. Rare with a machined steel bushing, but I've seen it a couple times.




The biggest issue with his Commander-length pistols is that the frames' rails and impact abutments aren't machined to Commander spec. All he's done is used a GM-length frame with a shortened dust cover, which results in shorter slide travel and runup. I'm sure Les has his reasons for that, but I can't imagine what they'd be.

John, as I remember, the safety on that Stinger was bouncing up part way during live fire far enough to block the sear. Les stretched the plunger assembly spring and sent it back. I remember having to adjust the engagement angles on the sear leg and safety lug to get it to stop doing that.

I don't remember changing the slidestop...or were you referring to the safety as the slide lock?
Click to expand...
 
Slide Lock it was. Just had the Stinger returned from Night Hawk Custom for a Reliability Upgrade and Action Tune. Opted out pf a new match barrel and bushing for now. The barrel is slightly thicker at the muzzle which prevents turning the bushing until you push back the slide to unlock the barrel. A You Tube video shows that to field strip a Baer. You pull back the slide and release the slide lock, The, you separate slide from frame and remove the barrel, bushing and recoil spring assembly. It wasn't this way when The Wife bought the pistol in 2007 and only ended up this way after Baer replaced the broken bushing. Also, NHC machined the frame to Commander length.
 
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o2l said:
NHC machined the frame to Commander length.
Click to expand...

So, you wound up paying for something that Les should have done in the first place. Lovely.

Of course, if you point that fact out to him, he'll get snarky and tell ya that he knows what he's doin' in spite of the fact that Colt pioneered the Commander over 70 years ago.

Classic example of ego gettin' in the way of common sense. He should just admit that he overlooked that little difference and correct his mistake.
 
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I love what you did for my pistol and I can honestly say it has been my favorite because of it's history with what I have been through with it. John bought HIS Stinger and I liked his so much I bought my own. He sold his to a friend that still enjoys it. It has always been dead on target shooting, point- shoot- simple. When the bushing broke it still held together. I found out it was broken when I went to clean it. Who would have thought something so simple could cause Les such trouble. His ego has no bounds. All I wanted was to be able to break my Stinger down by hand as I had done for 13 years. It's fixed now.
We are down to two horses, two mini donkeys, one feral barn cat, two senior dogs and a Senegal parrot. It keeps us busy at home with this virus junk out there. Much love to you and all your fuzzy friends, John!
 
Glad I could help, ma'am. It's been too long since we all got together. Hope we can do that one more time before time runs out.

By the way, yours is the second of Les' pistols I've straightened out after he failed to. The other one had been back to him twice with no joy.

Ah, well. Onward...
 
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