The troubleshooting series that we just participated in was a partial compilation of the oddball things that I've seen over the years. Not all of them, of course, but representative of how small issues can confuse and confound...and how they can bring a pistol to a screeching halt.
How just .010 inch too much tensioning wall in the path of the case rim can bring on a madderning, intermittent failure to go to battery...or just .005 inch too much length on the extractor claw can cause a case to defiantly resist getting out of the port.
Little things that escape our notice. Specs. Even the tiniest of specs can and often do make the difference between a jam-o-matic and a reliable as an anvil self shucker.
And I woke up this morning remembering an issue that I saw over 30 years ago, and didn't see again until some years following Y2K. This one wasn't a problem with the gun. It was a problem with the ammunition.
It was early 1980 something, and I was in the shop on a Saturday morning putting the finishing touches on an action slicking I'd just done on a Model 10. A guy I knew came to see me with a 60s something pre Series 70 Colt and three busted extractors. He was mystified as to why his previously dead reliable Colt had suddenly started snapping extractors off flush with the breechface.
I gave the gun a look and couldn't see anything that immediately stood out, so talk turned to ammunition. I knew that his magazines weren't the problem since all he used were the factory magazines that came with the gun, and a few WW2-era GI magazines...in those days, essentially the same thing. All were full tapered, 7-round with the dimpled followers.
Still, I wanted to see the empty brass so I could look for the telltale signs of push feeding. He didn't have any because he hadn't picked them up. Knowing that he was a reloader, I was curious. Seems that he'd found a screaming deal on several cases of some foreign ammunition...pennies a round...and because they were steel cases, he didn't bother to gather up the empties.
But he did have a few live rounds, and I saw exactly what was killing his extractors every couple hundred rounds. I replaced the extractor with a NOS USGI I had, and told him to go and sin no more.
Fast forward to Y2K + five or six, and broken extractors started showing up again. The cause was the same. This time, the ammunition was Wolf. Everybody who'd experienced a broken extractor after using it assumed it was because the steel cases didn't spring back after expanding, and placed higher stresses on the claw as it yanked the cases out of the chamber. That wasn't why.
The why is shown in the photo that compares an early Wolf case with a later steel case that I don't know who made. Maybe Bear. Maybe a later manufacture Wolf after they became aware of the problem and corrected it. Flip a coin.
The bad Wolf case is on the right,
Can anybody spot what it is about the case that eats extractors like candy?
How just .010 inch too much tensioning wall in the path of the case rim can bring on a madderning, intermittent failure to go to battery...or just .005 inch too much length on the extractor claw can cause a case to defiantly resist getting out of the port.
Little things that escape our notice. Specs. Even the tiniest of specs can and often do make the difference between a jam-o-matic and a reliable as an anvil self shucker.
And I woke up this morning remembering an issue that I saw over 30 years ago, and didn't see again until some years following Y2K. This one wasn't a problem with the gun. It was a problem with the ammunition.
It was early 1980 something, and I was in the shop on a Saturday morning putting the finishing touches on an action slicking I'd just done on a Model 10. A guy I knew came to see me with a 60s something pre Series 70 Colt and three busted extractors. He was mystified as to why his previously dead reliable Colt had suddenly started snapping extractors off flush with the breechface.
I gave the gun a look and couldn't see anything that immediately stood out, so talk turned to ammunition. I knew that his magazines weren't the problem since all he used were the factory magazines that came with the gun, and a few WW2-era GI magazines...in those days, essentially the same thing. All were full tapered, 7-round with the dimpled followers.
Still, I wanted to see the empty brass so I could look for the telltale signs of push feeding. He didn't have any because he hadn't picked them up. Knowing that he was a reloader, I was curious. Seems that he'd found a screaming deal on several cases of some foreign ammunition...pennies a round...and because they were steel cases, he didn't bother to gather up the empties.
But he did have a few live rounds, and I saw exactly what was killing his extractors every couple hundred rounds. I replaced the extractor with a NOS USGI I had, and told him to go and sin no more.
Fast forward to Y2K + five or six, and broken extractors started showing up again. The cause was the same. This time, the ammunition was Wolf. Everybody who'd experienced a broken extractor after using it assumed it was because the steel cases didn't spring back after expanding, and placed higher stresses on the claw as it yanked the cases out of the chamber. That wasn't why.
The why is shown in the photo that compares an early Wolf case with a later steel case that I don't know who made. Maybe Bear. Maybe a later manufacture Wolf after they became aware of the problem and corrected it. Flip a coin.
The bad Wolf case is on the right,
Can anybody spot what it is about the case that eats extractors like candy?
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