Is Springfield teasing a 2011?

[Evil_Ed]

Went to the range this morning with it...put a total of 464 rounds of 147gr Blazer flat nose, and 50 Fed HST 147gr.

At a combined count of 500 the gun was getting REALLY sluggish; I think if I had more lube with me I could have kept it going but it was just having problems chambering at that point. I could flick my wrist and get it to finish chambering new rounds, but...it was an uphill battle, and at that point I just finished out the mag and packed it in for the day.

This was across the factory 17 and 20 round that came with the gun, as well as 3 17 round CMI mags that just came in.

Until it ran dry, I had 3 failures - all 3 were failure to load on the first round; they were across two CMI mags. The first failure to chamber was actually loading up a fresh gun before going to the range; I had put 16 rounds into a CMI mag and went to chamber a round and it stuck. Applying pressure and pushing up the mag a little more in the magwell and the slide chambered it. The next 2 failures were similar as the gun got dirtier and dirtier, with the 147gr flatpoints. Again, pushing up on the mag allowed the slide to get enough leverage to finish chambering the round. I'm not sure if it's a CMI mag issue or a mag catch issue. Didn't happen with the Springfield mags though.

I started having a bunch of failures to feed at around the 500 round mark because of the lack of lube but I'm not going to hold that against it...I was deliberately pushing it.

When I got it home and dismantled it for cleaning, I found there was zero lube left on the slide or frame rails. Bone dry. I was expecting this super duper expensive Lucas magic gun oil to last forever...I'm gonna try some Liberty Lubricants HLP next time (IIRC it's owned by Jim Ryan/JRC Holsters; good stuff! He was kind enough to send me a sample with the holster I ordered from him a while ago; I had found it independently of him so I've got a decent bit of HLP laying around at the moment).

I had fitted a 10-8 slide stop before today's outing; it performed perfectly. I just replaced the ambi safety with an EGW unit that came in the mail today. The factory one keeps splitting apart, even though it's actually pretty comfortable to use as a righty.

Hopefully Monday the tool-less guide rod will show up along with another mag or two; I need to order a hammer strut, and then I'll be able to replace the factory internals with a drop-in kit I had bought for another project years ago but never really actually used. I've got an ejector waiting in the wings in case the MIM one snaps a leg (documented in a thread on arfcom...) and waiting for 10-8 to get more mag catches in since the factory one is really ...janky, I guess. It feels like there's a piece of sandpaper in the works somewhere every time the mag release is pressed. I'm not even going to bother debugging it; I'll just straight up replace it and make life easy.

I think with all the extra parts I've ordered/will be ordering, I'll be at around $500 on top of the cost of the gun. There's a decent chance that some of those parts would have been bought for a Staccato as well, so...

One thing I'm kind of interested in with the Chambers Custom work-over of the Springfield - how much of that work would he have had to have done to a Staccato as well? I'm pretty sure some of the work he's doing internally would have been done as well to the Staccato, so while the cost of his services on top of the Springfield might push it more than a Staccato...it very well could be "better" than the Staccato when it's completed as well.

[Tokarev]

@Evil_Ed

Can you load the CMI mags to capacity and then post a pic of how the rounds stack in the mag? Is there a gap between the top cartridge and the next round down?



Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[Evil_Ed]

@Evil_Ed

Can you load the CMI mags to capacity and then post a pic of how the rounds stack in the mag? Is there a gap between the top cartridge and the next round down?



Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

Sure!

So my standard loading procedure (just so we're all on the same page) - load to capacity, smack on the spine a couple of times to make sure everything's seated, and drive on.



Left to right:
Springfield factory 20 round
CMI mag 1
CMI mag 2
CMI mag 3
Springfield factory 17 round

All loaded with Blazer 147gr except the last mag, which is loaded with 147 HSTs.

It's worth noting that you can stuff in 18 rounds in the CMI mags; the tension/pushback you get when loading the 17th round in the Springfield factory mag doesn't happen in the CMIs until you try to shove in the 18th round. These mags are loaded to 17, so loading 18 may alter the calculus.

It looks like only one of the CMI mags has an appreciable gap...that mag didn't give me any specific trouble, EXCEPT that it was the mag that I had originally loaded to 16 and went to chamber a round on and it stuck dead on the feedramp when the gun was clean. Pushing it up a little more in the magwell and the slide was able to shove the round in without further drama. It proceeded to run and not give any further problems at the range.

One thing that's worth noting - the cut in the front of the mag, that sloping curve...it's a bit shallower than on the Springfield mags; you can see the right most Springfield mag (and the left most one, but the right one has the best viewing angle) you can see the noses of the top two rounds fully; on the CMI mags, that front curve isn't cut as deep in the mag; it only lets you see the top half-ish of the 2nd round in the mag. What does this mean? No idea...just a difference worth pointing out in case someone needs to quickly ID mags, I guess.

[Evil_Ed]

Also, for those of you thinking of changing your thumb safety to an EGW ambi safety - if you are right handed, don't.

Here's what it looks like with the thumb safety engaged:



Here's what it looks like with the thumb safety disengaged:



That pinch point on the bottom where the cutout in the frame meets it...it will grab your hand and squeeeeeeeeeeze, right here:



And that is not a joyful experience. Putting your finger on the side of the frame as an index results in a light but still painful pinch; being ready to go and just flicking off the thumb safety as a last step results in a really hard pinch. Like a "the gun is now stuck to my hand" pinch.

[Evil_Ed]

So I tried beveling the inside edge and it seems to sort of work - still pinches a bit but not nearly as much or as painfully as before.

Of course, since I'm out of cold blue...it looks horrible I need to clean it up but proof of concept...seems good so far.

[Evil_Ed]

Also, I don't recall if I heard this in one of Hilton's videos or read it in this thread or elsewhere, but - now I have a CMI mag, a Staccato Gen3 mag, and of course factory Springfield mags - and out of the 3, only the Springfield mag solidly locks the slide stop into the notch in the slide fully. The CMI and Staccato mag both fail to fully seat the slide stop in the notch. I don't know if it's a spring thing or a follower thing; when I get a chance I'll dismantle all 3 and swap followers around and see if that alters things.

This can be a big deal; on a 45acp gun it really only takes five to ten, 7 or 8 round mags mags if the slide stop doesn't fully seat to start peening out and then rounding off the rear of the slide stop notch, making it so the slide will not lock back anymore no matter how the slide stop is seated. There's not as much spring force on the slide slamming it home on a 9mm gun, but still...it's a recipe for peening out and rounding the notch in the slide, making it inop. I'm hoping and praying just replacing springs with an XP or similar spring (even though the mags are new) would solve this, but...I need to check the followers and see.

[Elwin]

So I tried beveling the inside edge and it seems to sort of work - still pinches a bit but not nearly as much or as painfully as before.

Of course, since I'm out of cold blue...it looks horrible I need to clean it up but proof of concept...seems good so far.

I think you could be pretty aggressive with that if necessary. Looking at some of the King's style ambis from other companies (like Brown and Kimber) that have essentially no plate on the right side, it seams the plate is rather superfluous. At the very least, it's not covering up a hole in the frame like on the other side.

[Evil_Ed]

I think you could be pretty aggressive with that if necessary. Looking at some of the King's style ambis from other companies (like Brown and Kimber) that have essentially no plate on the right side, it seams the plate is rather superfluous. At the very least, it's not covering up a hole in the frame like on the other side.

Yup, I might wind up taking it down some more. I've also got a Novak ambi on order; they use a method similar to a BHP's ambi thumb safety, a small roll pin, to hold the right lever on.

[60167]

So I tried beveling the inside edge and it seems to sort of work - still pinches a bit but not nearly as much or as painfully as before.

Of course, since I'm out of cold blue...it looks horrible I need to clean it up but proof of concept...seems good so far.

I had a similar issue with an EGW non-ambi safety where for it to function properly I had to take material off in the same area so that the safety could move completely.

[60167]

Current round count: 5350

I noticed that my trigger was sticking halfway from reset when I was taking careful shots. I originally thought I was just pinning the trigger and causing the malfunction through my own negligence. Turns out that the trigger bow was bowed outward slightly and binding on the inside of the frame.

A closer inspection revealed that my trigger over-travel screw had backed out. I think that I bent the trigger bow by mashing a dead trigger (with the hammer down) pretty hard during dry fire. I think that with the over-travel screw backed out, the trigger bow took a lot of force it wasn't supposed to.

I bent the bow back, polished out the wear, and now the trigger press is noticeably lighter with a nice reset.

The photo below represents what I initially found when I cracked the gun open. The black substance is just lube and gunk. Once I wiped that off, I could see a clearly raised shiny spot with rough gouge marks in it. You can also see the over-travel screw backed out. I didn't notice that until everything was back together. I'm just a dumb Glock shooter so I never noticed the difference.