Update on Colt 1911 9 mm
 

John D, Rudy and Jim (and anybody else who cares),

I had the Colt (and a few others) to the range today for some exercise. I started with the Colt and Wal-Mart Winchester ammo. The gun with 10# spring and Wilson extractor had worked perfectly last week for 100 rounds. It worked 100 % perfectly for another 70 rounds of the same ammo--then the slide was beginning to slow down. I disassembeled the gun and could see no problems. The only lube available was from the dipstick of my Ford Explorer--it worked great. I fired the other 30 rounds in the box with no problems with the slide operating smoothly.

Then I decided to fire the PMC ammo that had given me trouble before. Rats, the first round failed to extract. I broke out another box of the Wal-Mart ammo and shot another 32 rounds in the Colt with perfect reliability. I wiped the gun off and put it away. Later I pulled the extractor and bent it a little more and ground off the pad at the end of the extractor a few more mils to let it move inward a little more and lubed the gun to get ready for the range again.

While at the range I decided to use up the remaining 30 or 40 rounds of PMC ammo in my '36 Luger shooter. At 25 yards 6 of the 7 rounds in the first magazine went into one hole right in the center of the target that measured 1" high by 1/2" wide. The seventh round opened the group up to 1.75". What an improvement over the 3-5" groups I got with the Colt, even with the V notch Luger sight and heavy (and a little gritty) trigger. I will try to post a scan of the target later (I have never succeeded yet). Anyway, the rest of the PMC ammo worked perfectly in the Luger.

I followed this with a few rounds from my Colt .45 SAA and Para Ord .45. Great Guns.

Rudy, I am blessed with easy access to state owned ranges both here at our summer place in WV and also in FL. Hunting is big in both states and the ranges are uncrowded during the week (great for us retirees). I understand your range access problem--I lived in CT for 5 years and I had to drive 1 hour to reach the only good range in the state (that I knew of).

I will continue to reload most calibers for economy--I can reload .45 LC and .44 mag for $3 per box (and some labor) while storebought ammo in these calibers costs over $20 per box. Finding 9 mm ammo at $11/100 gives me a good excuse to get lazy (from reloading). 9 mm is pleasing to shoot, not quite up to .45 thrills but close.

Here is my attempt to upload the Luger target. Ain't Lugers great?

http://boards.rennlist.com/lfupload/61903TR5.jpg

Experts (Ed?),

Why did I get a link and not the target? Why is it so big? How do I do this right?

AGE, the link happens when you just drop the link into Quick Reply or the post reply, to make it show a picture, you can go to the "Post Reply" button or type [image] then place the link here [/image] ensure there are no spaces between the link and the [ or the ].

If it is too big, then you can shrink it by your photo editor. I have JASC Paint Shop Pro, and you just go to resize and make it around 9 inches across for most peoples monitors.

When I checked for resizeing it, it showed it was scanned in at 150 dpi, and it was 11x14 inches, so I resized it to 90 dpi and then resized it to 10 inches tall by 7 inches wide.

and here it is:

http://boards.rennlist.com/lfupload/61903TR5ebt.jpg

larger image here:
http://boards.rennlist.com/lfupload/61903TR5.jpg

BTW, nice darn shooting Tex! Uhh, Florida, or is it WV, :D

Thanks Ed. I'll make some more attempts to post properly. Hope I don't make too big a mess of this topic. It's WV right now and will be FL when it gets cool here (if it ever warms up).

Occasionally everything works out when shooting. This was one of the good occasions (sometimes I can't hit anything).

AGE, play as much as you want in posting, this is a good area for it, and I'll help out or clean up <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> anything,

Ed

I shot the 9 mm 1911 Colt again today with 80 rounds of Winchester and 40 rounds of PMC. Worked 100% perfectly. I won't bore you guys anymore, but I guess I now have decent 9 mms in Luger, Colt and S&W. This will save an old codger a lot of reloading hassle. I'll be out banging away regularly to my heart's content.

Hey Al..!!!!

Nice shooting!!!! Now - what's that you won't bore us anymore about your Colt and Luger??!!! :) Actually - feel free to post anything about these firearms in this section (I'm still trying to decide about posts regarding your S&W, though... LOL!!! :D )...

Sounds like the Colt is now a "keep'a"..!!! Good for you..!!!!

Thanks John,

Also, thanks for your smithing hints. I have never had any trouble with .45 extractors but the 9 mm extractors seem to be touchy.