For all you Glock-a-philes out there, yes my 1911 died tonight. I was shooting through my first two mags of factory PMC ball when the 14th rd went off with half recoil and a muted sound. The hammer was at half-cock. Smoke rolled out of the back of the gun and out the magwell when I dropped the mag. Top round in mag was soot black.
I quickly realized I wouldn't be hand cycling this one clear.From my target I could not verify if the bullet had left the bore, I had fired 14 shots, but thanks to the kid next door my paper had 17 or so holes in it. So I did something smart and verified the chamber was clear by dropping a pen down the bore. It's depth showed me it was reaching pretty much to the breech face and I could safely look down the bore. Hmm, brass still there. The barrel absolutely would not drop down to unlock(why becomes obvious later. I popped the bushing, plug and spring out, wiggle the front of the barrel, beat down on the barrel hood with a steel base Wilson, etc. No dice, the slide would stroke to the point where the barrel should start to cam down and then stop. Did the std beat the front of the slide down on a table edge to force it back. Nope, no dice.
Had an old military armorer/competitive 1911 shooter look at it, he figured too that something was broke bad inside. I was still blaming the ammo for the breakage, two clues that something was broke were the fact that the slide would go 1/8" fwd of where it should have been in battery and the front of the slide was sitting up in relation to the fwd edge of the frame. Shooting adventure over, I went home. The old leg match shooter had allowed as to how he had once burst a barrel and had bandsawed the top half of the slide off to get the gun apart.
Thinking it over I had a better plan. Once home I whipped out the Dremel. Starting with a piece of beer can scope shim in between the frame and slide stop arm as sacrificial metal I cut through the arm just aft of the pin area. No scratches on Frame or slide. Drove the slide stop pin out and lo and behold the gun came apart! Turns out the bottom of the barrel was broken off. From about 5 to 7 o'clock just aft of the link lug to about 1/2" up the bottom centerline of the bore. Link and pin were still there untouched. The case was still in the barrel, bulged out along the rear of the break line. It took a little doing to weasel the barrel out of the slide as the extractor was still engaged. The case bulge is what had so throughly locked the gun up, the case would not begin to extract allowing the barrel and slide to separate as they would during a normal cycle. Apparently the barrel had near completely broke on the previous shot and the last shot finished it off with most of the pressure escaping through the break.
The good news is I did not blow my face off clearing a malfunction. The slide and frame are untouched, only the barrel and the slidestop I cut are damaged. Plus I had already obligated to buy a barrel off another TFL'er. Spare slidestops I have, the gun will be running again this week. I guess that after 57 years and untold abuses it was time for that poor old barrel to go. I tried contacting Remington-Rand customer service, but someone tells me their e-mail is down.
All guns break, sometimes in the damnedest of ways. Have a spare.
I quickly realized I wouldn't be hand cycling this one clear.From my target I could not verify if the bullet had left the bore, I had fired 14 shots, but thanks to the kid next door my paper had 17 or so holes in it. So I did something smart and verified the chamber was clear by dropping a pen down the bore. It's depth showed me it was reaching pretty much to the breech face and I could safely look down the bore. Hmm, brass still there. The barrel absolutely would not drop down to unlock(why becomes obvious later. I popped the bushing, plug and spring out, wiggle the front of the barrel, beat down on the barrel hood with a steel base Wilson, etc. No dice, the slide would stroke to the point where the barrel should start to cam down and then stop. Did the std beat the front of the slide down on a table edge to force it back. Nope, no dice.
Had an old military armorer/competitive 1911 shooter look at it, he figured too that something was broke bad inside. I was still blaming the ammo for the breakage, two clues that something was broke were the fact that the slide would go 1/8" fwd of where it should have been in battery and the front of the slide was sitting up in relation to the fwd edge of the frame. Shooting adventure over, I went home. The old leg match shooter had allowed as to how he had once burst a barrel and had bandsawed the top half of the slide off to get the gun apart.
Thinking it over I had a better plan. Once home I whipped out the Dremel. Starting with a piece of beer can scope shim in between the frame and slide stop arm as sacrificial metal I cut through the arm just aft of the pin area. No scratches on Frame or slide. Drove the slide stop pin out and lo and behold the gun came apart! Turns out the bottom of the barrel was broken off. From about 5 to 7 o'clock just aft of the link lug to about 1/2" up the bottom centerline of the bore. Link and pin were still there untouched. The case was still in the barrel, bulged out along the rear of the break line. It took a little doing to weasel the barrel out of the slide as the extractor was still engaged. The case bulge is what had so throughly locked the gun up, the case would not begin to extract allowing the barrel and slide to separate as they would during a normal cycle. Apparently the barrel had near completely broke on the previous shot and the last shot finished it off with most of the pressure escaping through the break.
The good news is I did not blow my face off clearing a malfunction. The slide and frame are untouched, only the barrel and the slidestop I cut are damaged. Plus I had already obligated to buy a barrel off another TFL'er. Spare slidestops I have, the gun will be running again this week. I guess that after 57 years and untold abuses it was time for that poor old barrel to go. I tried contacting Remington-Rand customer service, but someone tells me their e-mail is down.
All guns break, sometimes in the damnedest of ways. Have a spare.