How to fit a 1911 .45 internal extractor

[Steve in Allentown,]

Steve, I'm confused about getting the needed deflection. I've had to file A LOT of the locator pad off to the point where it is almost gone. Now I am getting only a tiny bit of deflection.

Being able to file down the extractor's locating pad to achieve the correct deflection is a critical skill. The idea is to file a little off the pad then install the extractor and firing pin stop. Then slide your homemade gauge up the breechface to see if the the extractor's tensioning wall just touches the gauge.

The locating pad MUST be in contact with the inboard surface of the extractor tunnel in order to accurately determine its deflection. That means you have to bend the extractor each time you remove material from the pad so that it will maintain this crucial metal-to-metal contact.

My original method

I'm not good enough with a file to be able to evenly reduce the diameter of the extractor locating pad all the way around. So, to simplify and speed up the process of filing down the locating pad and since I couldn't evenly file the half round locating pad I simply whacked off the top and bottom of the pad leaving a narrow point that became the contact surface with the extractor tunnel.

Here's what the locating pad looks like as it comes from the manufacturer. This view is looking straight on the extractor from the front.



What I did was to file the top and bottom of the pad down to the dotted lines with a pillar file to create a pointed shape as shown below. Filing a flat is way easier for me than trying to follow a curve.



Once that was done all I had to do was file the point itself down bit by bit until I achieved a .010" deflection.



My newest method

I first I hog out the sides of the pad using a Dremel grinding bit. Not very exotic but it's all I have that'll do the job.



Then I smooth the concave cut-outs by hand using sandpaper wrapped around a short piece of steel rod. Getting the area smooth is not just about cosmetics. It's also about removing the stress risers. By the time I finish up the pad looks like this:



This is all just prep work for the real work of setting the deflection by filing down the now reshaped fitting pad.

As I file down the pad, I may reach a point where the tip of the pad is too wide in my judgement and I will hog out the sides again and smooth them in order to avoid the edges of the now flat and too wide area making contact with the tunnel wall instead of what used to be the peak of the "mountain".

[Steve in Allentown,]

As described in a previous post I made a feeler gauge out of a piece of steel stock. As I file down the extractor locating pad I will install the extractor along with the firing pin stop then slide this gauge up along the breechface between the left guide block and the extractor's tensioning wall. When the sides of the gauge just touch the guide block and tensioning wall at the same time, I know I've reached the correct amount of deflection and don't need to remove any more material from the locating pad.

Many kinds of material can be used to make these gauges. They can be made of plastic, wood, aluminum, and probably many other materials. Since they don't wear they don't need to be made from steel. I floated the idea of making sets of these gauges using a 3D printer to George (EGW).

A friend shared that he makes these gauges out of old sear leaf springs. As he wrote: "I make them from old sear springs. Just break off the two outer legs and thin down the remaining "paddle" width to .465".

[anon emous]

I came to this thread because of feeding problems with one manufacturers magazines with the GI feed lips. The other brand uses hybrid feed lips and had no issues. The loading never felt smooth anyway.

As a first step I removed the extractor. The action became very smooth. This led me to start looking at the extractor as the problem.

When I saw the picture of a “perfect” extractor I measured mine and determined that it was not possible to achieve. Then I found various drawings that confirm my 1911 was in spec.
I purchased and installed a shorter extractor (0.02”) from the only manufacturer I found that advertises this dimension. Even before adjusting the tension I could tell that this was going to work. At the range I had zero issues and all rounds made a nice little pile at the 4 oclock position about 4 feet away.

My question is how could this have been an issue for over a hundred years? If you look at the drawings available on the internet then the claw must contact the round even on paper. JMB was too meticulous...

signed,
confused

[Steve in Allentown,]

Originally Posted by anon emous

My question is how could this have been an issue for over a hundred years?

The good news is it wasn't an issue for over a hundred years. I'm not a firearms historian so those who are may rightfully nit-pick what I'm about to say.

The 1911 was designed to meet the military requirement that all parts be interchangeable between pistols without the need for additional fitting. This requirement was frequently tested throughout the production phase by obtaining random samples of all the parts, tossing them into a barrel, then assembling however many pistols worth of parts were in the barrel. Every pistol had to function and pass all safety tests.

In order to achieve this feat of mass production, each part had to meet the blueprint specs. Every company that made 1911s (e.g. Singer, Rand, Colt, etc) used the exact same blueprints.

Fast forward to today. Everyone and his brother makes 1911s and none of them use the same blueprints or have the same stringent quality control demanded by the military back in the day. What you end up with are different dimensions depending on who does the manufacturing. So, one manufacturer's slide may well have a different distance from the firing pin stop slot to the breechface than any other manufacturer's slide. This alone would cause problems with finding the correct length extractor.

If there were only a single company that manufactured 1911s and used the original Ordnance approved blueprints, these dimensional problems wouldn't exist. Only Glock makes Glocks, only Smith & Wesson makes Smith & Wessons, only SIG make SIGs, etc. They don't have these problems (unless their QC is bad).

If you look at the drawings available on the internet then the claw must contact the round even on paper.

There is some debate on this which revolves around the issue of using mid-spec dimensions, tolerance stacking, and whether such drawings are from the actual Ordnance blueprints. I don't have a dog in this fight so cannot comment meaningfully.

However, I will say that a 1911 .45 ACP extractor claw works best when it does not touch the case anywhere. Further, the only contact between the case and the extractor should be at the case rim and the tensioning wall.

Since we know that manufacturing dimensions are all over the place, the axiom is that there is no such thing as a drop-in 1911 part. Nearly every part has to be massaged in some way in order to get it to work perfectly with all the other parts. The degree to which a part has to be modified depends on who manufactured which part and when.

It's very rare that an extractor can be used out-of-the-box without getting some attention especially if you're looking for perfect functioning. You may get lucky and find one that drops in and the pistol functions fine but that usually happens when the manufacturer made both the slide and the extractor (e.g. Wilson, Caspian). Once you get an extractor properly fitted, it will last a very long time without any problems at all. We're talking about tens of thousands of rounds. Basically, when the barrel needs to be replaced because it has become a smooth bore, replace the extractor.

Anyway, that's the joy of 1911s. You get to tweak these things to your heart's content to get them to work the way you want them to work. Glocks are no fun - they run right out of the box.

[Hammerhead]

Well, it been about 18 months and my Kimber runs as smooth as can be.
Hasn't missed a beat.
Even very light loads that don't have enough recoil to lock the slide open will feed, extract and eject cleanly.

Just wanted to say thanks to Steve in Allentown.

[Steve in Allentown,]

Excellent, Hammerhead!