Remington Green box over pressure

[mccandmatt]

Wolf is now loading Herter's ammo.

Is Wolf and Tul same company? Cause I got a case of Herter's .223 and it was stamped Tul. lol

[Seismic Sam]

Da Komrade!! In Soviet Union ammunition quality control rates YOU, and not the other way around!! Cease your capitalist whings or you will wind up in gulag near Ely!!

[Seismic Sam]

Well, the mystery deepens, or maybe not. Thanks to minnesotatv, we have this:

Click on the link to expand the recall page, and see what you think.

http://www.wolfammo.com/

So what's more beleivable, that somebody else makes Herters ammo among others, or that somebody in the Wolf factory screwed up and used the wrong set of packaging in the Wolf factory? I vote for door #2, after one of the packaging guys had WAAAYYY too much Stoly the night before... Da Komrade!! All the Kommie Krap we make looks the same!

[yuppiejr]

Frankly, I'll buy the story in the article that the demise was caused by exotic endangered species bird feathers that Herter bought legally years before, and then some EFFEN A-holes from the Governemt came in and ran roughshod over him. For a fiercely independent self-made man like Herter, that could have been the last straw.

Interesting in light of the recent Gibson Guitar fiasco... same law, same legal purchase that the government decided to take issue with anyway...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 59286.html

[FJ540]

Got a new 14# progressive rate wolff spring for it today, shortened it down so it'd fit the 3.5" slide (which also increases effective spring rate), and it feels just like racking the wife's S&W model 59.

I'll get a chance to shoot it this weekend and see how it works.

[Seismic Sam]

I said it to begin with, and I'll say it again: All this putzing qround won't cure a concave slide face. Had cases that looked just like that, and they disappeared the moment I got a replacement gun.

[cobb]

Got a new 14# progressive rate wolff spring for it today, shortened it down so it'd fit the 3.5" slide....

I presume you did this spring modification with the spring to make sure that the spring does not stack solid in the 1911 and not as a visual comparison to the original spring. With an incorrect length, specifically to long may cause the barrel bushing to break or crack the slide at the muzzle.

[FJ540]

Sam, I've checked it with a straight edge - it's not concave, or even remotely worn. There's also no excessive wear around the firing pin.

It was mentioned earlier, that it could be unlocking the slide prematurely, and that would be fixed with a stiffer spring - so that's what I did. The one it came with was a soft spring. I have no idea if it was stock and worn out, or not stock and simply too light. Turns out I won't be making the Gopher this weekend, or I'd bring it. If you want to inspect/shoot the gun, I'm all for meeting up at Oakdale tomorrow or maybe Thurs afternoon? They're threatening snow next week.

[FJ540]

Got a new 14# progressive rate wolff spring for it today, shortened it down so it'd fit the 3.5" slide....

I presume you did this spring modification with the spring to make sure that the spring does not stack solid in the 1911 and not as a visual comparison to the original spring. With an incorrect length, specifically to long may cause the barrel bushing to break or crack the slide at the muzzle.

Huh? I lined them up side by side and took a sawzall to it just like a mosin.


Just kidding!

I shortened it to about an inch longer than the one it came with (off the soft side of the spring), checked it for fit and feel and then still needed to take a coil off the stiff side to keep it from spitting out of the slide (which also increased the spring rate slightly). After that, I checked it for fit and feel again.

I got the stiffer spring (which is for sale) in case the softer one was still too soft once fitted, but I'm pretty confident this dog will hunt. Most people running shorter frames recommended stiffer slide springs (and then a softer hammer spring - I'm leaving it alone for now) than full length guns, so I guessed that the 14# would end up over 16# once shortened and that's the target I was aiming at.

[FJ540]

For giggles I just used a fish scale to test the cycle weight and it's showing 20#. I'm not sure if that's accurate at all (analog scale which has never been calibrated or checked with a known weight), and haven't checked any other guns. I clamped the slide in a vise (with some leather padding) and then pulled the trigger guard with the hammer down. It was consistent all three times.

[Seismic Sam]

You're still doing it all wrong. Spring length don't mean diddly. In addition, adding a variable strength spring to the equation pretty much hoses up the calculations you have to make to get it right. I've only used constant strength springs for beefing up stuff like my EAA 45 Super, and then you can get it right. First off, count the # of TURNS on the stock spring in the gun. Then grab the caliper and measure the wire diameter of the spring. Now multiply the # of turns by the wire thickness, and this will get you the minimum length of the spring in fully compressed state, which you don't want to exceed unless you do some other really fiddly measurements.

(Specifically, you CAN take the gun apart, caliper all the critical dimensions, and then calculate the minimum distance with the slide back from the muzzle spring plug to the end of the recoil rod, BUT there is one big GOTCHA! When you reassemble the gun, there is some spring preload when you push back the slide and put in the slide stop pin, so your static measurements will be too long by at least a couple of turns. It's a bitch to figure out properly.)

At any rate, you get your new spring, measure the number of turns, and measure the diameter of the wire (heavier wire = stiffer spring) and then figure out what the fully compressed length of this spring is. If it's longer than the stock, or you did the fiddly math to figure out the true internal compression length, you want to cut off just enough spring to equal the fully compressed length of the original spring. Then you can stuff that into the gun and see how it runs.

While Pee-Wee 45's like these give me the willies, a lot of the second hand knowledge I have heard is that getting a 3.5" 1911 to run reliably is a lot more challenging than a Combat Commander of a full 1911. 3.5" is the edge of the envelope for a 1911, and you're not leaving a lot of room for a gun that short to cycle reliable like a full 1911 does. Good luck!

[FJ540]

All of which is fine and dandy, but this is a 9mm, and I searched out people with specific experience on 1911 forum and used their input to determine what my starting point should be. I also have some experience with spring rates and how cutting coils off predetermined rate springs impacts their functional rate. It's NOT simply a matter of wire diameter that determines rate, it's free length, diameter, and coil spacing + preload. The farther apart the coils, the stiffer the spring. There's also a free length variable that enters into the mix, where when you start shortening the spring it gets stiffer. I've been dealing with this crap in lifted and lowered cars for years. When you cut coils to lower a vehicle, you kill the ride quality because the coil spacing increases for the same load. There's even Hooke's law to calculate the stuff with, but I prefer empirical starting points since I don't know the frictional losses and mechanical loads involved. Part of my resistance to returning to school for a ME is that I don't like trying to use math to get to a physical solution; you can postulate till you're blue in the face and reality will still bite you in the rear.

[Seismic Sam]

Two slightly different areas of discussion. Car springs don't wear out after 30,000 miles, but recoil springs can certainly wear out after 30,000 rounds. (With a DE 50 it's under 5,000 rounds, maybe as low as 3...) And if you take a brand new recoil spring, put it in a gun, and shoot it a few hundred times, when you take it out it will be shorter. So total spring length with a recoil spring is a moving target, and all you have to work with are the number of turns and the stiffness of the wire, which the way Wolff does it, is proportional to the diameter of the wire.

[cobb]

Besides all that has been said....

When replacing a recoil spring, it may not have the same dimensions of the previous, so it should be verified that it does not stack solid which will most likely damage the slide.

With no recoil spring installed, pull the slide completely to the rear and make a pencil mark on the dust cover where the front edge of the slide is. Now install the new recoil spring with guide rod, recoil spring plug and bushing as normal, retract the the slide to the rear and the pencil mark on the dust cover should again align with the front edge of the slide. If not, if it is short of doing so, this indicated that the spring is physically too long and stacking solid. This exerts the recoil on the bushing and can cause the slide to crack where the bushing groove is or tear out the bushing.

I am sure if someone disagrees on this simple method, they will point it out.

[FJ540]

Rick, that's sort of what I did; only I put the slide stop in (90 degrees from where it belongs) sans spring and then checked where the slide was in relation to the frame without marks and then assembled the gun with the spring and checked it again. There's no interference.

Sam, you're correct that automotive springs aren't pushed as hard in use and don't lose their set like gun springs do. I didn't make any adjustments based on the length of the spring that came out of the gun aside from holding the new one next to it for a quick visual comparison. There was easily 2" difference.