Most fans and students of Old Slabsides know that John Browning had a penchant for designing one part to perform more than one function. This worked to hold the number of parts to a minimum and reduce time of production.
Examples are:
The extractor not only serves as its own spring, but the claw can be used to scrape and clean the frame and slide ways.
The hammer and sear spring pins serve as pivot points for hammer and sear, but also...by virtue of sitting slightly proud of the frame...provide the manual safety a surface to ride on and prevent having the safety mar the finish and give rust a place to start.
The sear pin itself could be used to push the plunger assembly out far enough to grasp for removal.
The firing pin lights the fire and serves as a punch to push out the hammer and sear pins.
The hammer strut connects the hammer and the mainspring, and serves as a slave pin to align the sear and disconnect for reassembly after a detailed strip. Also to depress the firing pin spring for firing pin stop removal.
The manual safety blocks the sear and made the cocked pistol safe to jam back into the holster in a hurry, and also to drive out the mainspring housing pin...which was the reason for that small pad and the flat area behind it, with the slide used as a hammer for the stubborn ones.
The rigid, angled lanyard loop...in an era when lanyard loops were rings on pins and swung loosely...served as a bottle opener.
But, of all these things, the slidestop stands out as the king of multiple functions. If we don't count disassembly, it has five.
Working with the lower barrel lug feet, it stops the slide when it runs forward and into battery.
It locks the slide to the rear when the magazine is empty.
It releases the slide to run forward and reload the chamber.
Working with the shape of the lower barrel lug, it serves as a camming surface to get the barrel into the slide vertically.
It's an anchor point for the link to use to get the barrel back out of the slide.
Not too shabby for one simple part, I'd say.
Examples are:
The extractor not only serves as its own spring, but the claw can be used to scrape and clean the frame and slide ways.
The hammer and sear spring pins serve as pivot points for hammer and sear, but also...by virtue of sitting slightly proud of the frame...provide the manual safety a surface to ride on and prevent having the safety mar the finish and give rust a place to start.
The sear pin itself could be used to push the plunger assembly out far enough to grasp for removal.
The firing pin lights the fire and serves as a punch to push out the hammer and sear pins.
The hammer strut connects the hammer and the mainspring, and serves as a slave pin to align the sear and disconnect for reassembly after a detailed strip. Also to depress the firing pin spring for firing pin stop removal.
The manual safety blocks the sear and made the cocked pistol safe to jam back into the holster in a hurry, and also to drive out the mainspring housing pin...which was the reason for that small pad and the flat area behind it, with the slide used as a hammer for the stubborn ones.
The rigid, angled lanyard loop...in an era when lanyard loops were rings on pins and swung loosely...served as a bottle opener.
But, of all these things, the slidestop stands out as the king of multiple functions. If we don't count disassembly, it has five.
Working with the lower barrel lug feet, it stops the slide when it runs forward and into battery.
It locks the slide to the rear when the magazine is empty.
It releases the slide to run forward and reload the chamber.
Working with the shape of the lower barrel lug, it serves as a camming surface to get the barrel into the slide vertically.
It's an anchor point for the link to use to get the barrel back out of the slide.
Not too shabby for one simple part, I'd say.
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