Hilton Yam is my kind of guy. He likes 1911s, but he doesn’t REALLY like them until he beats a bunch of them to death to see how well they’re made.
It appears he was at the NRA convention, and is currently taking a look at the S&W1911 E Series.
Now I happen to have a pair of older-gen S&W1911s. Both I bought used, and both I’ve put a good amount of rounds through. S&W stuck fairly faithful to the Colt 1911 pattern, one diversion is the Schwartz Safety firing pin block and the other is the external extractor.
Firing pin blocks in 1911s is a solution seeking a problem. I get what they do, and why lawyers demand people have put them in most guns out there, still are there ANY instances of a 1911 discharging from a drop in the field? A drop discharge of a 1911 without a firing pin block requires the gun to land firmly on the muzzle and with enough force to get the firing pin to overcome the return spring AND dent the primer. It can happen, but frankly unless the 1911 is going down a narrow shaft to prevent it from turning while dropping, the magazine would likely be the heaviest part of the gun so it would rotate the muzzle away from the ground as it falls.
The external extractor just makes a lot of sense. Look at any non-1911 gun (including guns made by John Browning) what do you see by the ejection port? An External extractor.
Go read Hilton’s post so I can spare you the technicalities, but because the M1911 was NOT designed for an external extractor, it means that most people who attempted it fail. I will say from my brace of S&W1911s S&W got their extractor correct. They work.
I’m glad to see Hilton Yam seeing it as working too. Makes me sound a little less crazy.
….a little.
I know you’re one of those squishy biology types but still…
“the magazine would likely be the heaviest part of the gun so it would rotate the muzzle away from the ground as it falls.”
Physics fail. Gravity acts on the whole gun equally. Unless the gun is already rotating when gravity takes over, the gun will hit at whatever attitude it had when it started the drop.
Alan is correct. If you’re thinking about how a badmitton shuttle falls heavy part first, that’s an interplay of air resistance with the varying profile and weight of the shuttle. That interplay of forces will not have any effect on a 1911 dropped from any reasonable height. It’s initial attitude and rotation, combined with the distance, will dictate how it lands.
ETA: That interplay of forces is not significant enough to have any effect on a 1911 dropped from any reasonable height.
But what if there is butter on the top of the slide?
Then shoot it a few times… should melt right off.
And it’ll help lubricate the slide and extractor too 🙂
Well that’s useful since your asshole will pucker up while you watch it fall….
For that matter, if you put butter on a cat’s back; what side will it land on?
Neither side.
It will stop in mid area and continue to spin — hook up some wires and a magneto for free perpetual energy
Only on my blog could a discussion on external extractors become a discussion on perpetual motion machines involving cats! 🙂
Oh com’on, knowing you, are you REALLY surprised??? 🙂
Not even the littlest tiniest bit!
Plenty of my Sigs have internal extractors Weer’dy…….
Yep, and the Sig 1911s also have external extractors.
Really guns with internal extractors are the odd ones.