Range Officer Woe's (continued)

Asking for a little knowledge from those that know more than I.

A few weeks ago I told the story of my new RO that was grouping terrible and shooting way to the left.  Well I sent it to Springfield and just got it back this week.  The RO is grouping much better now BUT it still shoots approximately 6 inches to the left of the black on a B-8 target at 25 yards. It's fine that I'm getting 3 inch groups with iron sights but I only have 4 clicks to go on the rear sight (moving it all the way to the right) before I hit the stop and 4 clicks aint getting me to the middle of the black at 25 yards. 
 Here's what they did at Springfield.

Inspect pistol
Refit slide to frame
New sear  (I can't figure out this because there was nothing wrong with the sear)
Safety check
Range test 
Lockup checked and good

So where do I go from here?  Obviously a call to Springfield again but what can I check on my own to see what might be the reason this RO shoots so far to the left?  Barrel bushing?  Check slide to see if bushing hole is off center?  The barrel itself?  Other idea's ?


 I'm stumped 
 Virgil

I forget if the range officers front sight is dovetail or staked. If it's dovetailed you could check to see if it's centered. Also check to see if the rear sight housing is centered in its cut. Maybe there's something there? Just a thought. It would be my first place to look. Then I'd get a laser bore sight for 45 and see if you can zero it to the laser. If you can then maybe you are causing it to shoot left for some reason. Not trying to be rude or insulting but it's a test to find out if it's gun or shooter error. If you go through all this and it's still left then I'd say another trip to Springfield is needed.

No that's not being rude or insulting, it's the obvious question that should be asked first.

Front and rear sights are centered, one of the first things I measured along with checking them to make sure the dovetails are straight in the frame..  Had other people shoot it and got the same results even off the bench. In 100 shots taken not one landed right of the black at 25 yards on the B-8.  My Kimber II and Caspian I built I shot fine with irons last night, the RO not so good.

Just searching for something so that if I find it I can direct Springfield to a possible fix.  I don't know how well their staff is trained but I question them when they replaced the sear when the original problem was huge (over 12")  groups, no lower lug contact and shooting way to the left at 25 yds.  Maybe something was wrong with the sear that I didn't know about but it seams strange to me that they did this and they never addressed the problem of shooting left.  For all I know it's within their specs and it will never be addressed.  The RO is shooting good groups now just not to the point of aim with little adjustment left.


Virgil

Virgil Kane wrote:No that's not being rude or insulting, it's the obvious question that should be asked first.

Front and rear sights are centered, one of the first things I measured along with checking them to make sure the dovetails are straight in the frame..  Had other people shoot it and got the same results even off the bench. In 100 shots taken not one landed right of the black at 25 yards on the B-8.  My Kimber II and Caspian I built I shot fine with irons last night, the RO not so good.

Just searching for something so that if I find it I can direct Springfield to a possible fix.  I don't know how well their staff is trained but I question them when they replaced the sear when the original problem was huge (over 12")  groups, no lower lug contact and shooting way to the left at 25 yds.  Maybe something was wrong with the sear that I didn't know about but it seams strange to me that they did this and they never addressed the problem of shooting left.  For all I know it's within their specs and it will never be addressed.  The RO is shooting good groups now just not to the point of aim with little adjustment left.


Virgil

Wow, that's frustrating. The only good solution is to contact them again and explain the problem. Hopefully they'll pay for another trip back to correct the issue. My wife says, "Nothing is easy!" More often than not, she's right.

When you send guns back to the manufacturer, they almost always reset the trigger mechanism back to factory specifications.  It was standard policy at Remington to do this as a gunsmith friend told me a Jewell trigger equipped rifle came back with a factory trigger and the Jewell in a separate bag.

If you don't want to send it to SA again, you could either drift the front sight left or the rear sight right. The gun seems good otherwise, you just need to adjust the sights to where the barrel is pointing. It appears the front sight is pinned (see this post: https://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=337462 ). I think you can remove the pin and put loctite to keep it in place, but get a real gunsmith to confirm. I'm no gunsmith, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn before...

It's unfortunate Springfield didn't make it right the first time through their shop. But if they test at close distance, the technician may not have noticed the misalignment.

Wobbley wrote:When you send guns back to the manufacturer, they almost always reset the trigger mechanism back to factory specifications.  It was standard policy at Remington to do this as a gunsmith friend told me a Jewell trigger equipped rifle came back with a factory trigger and the Jewell in a separate bag.

  It was a brand new RO with only 60 rounds threw it before it was sent back.  If the sear was that bad it never should have been sent out in the first place.  But I agree with you that if the gun had been used more that the factory would want to limit any liability and bring back to factory specs.

And yes the front sight is pinned on my RO.  I'm going to do some measuring of the bushing and bushing hole in the slide and see what they are.  I would think that if the rails or slide were out of spec that the slide would still point the barrel in the right direction and the sights would line up more on center.  Something seems a bit canted with this RO and I'm thinking it's got to be something with the barrel group whether barrel, bushing or off centered bushing hole on the slide, maybe all three?  The test target they sent back was strange with 3 holes that had X's marked through them on the edge of the paper and then 5 holes centered in the target.  Distance to those test target 3 holes with X's and the centered group  is the same distance to the center of the target and groups as I get on my target. Test target was shot at 25 yards.  I hope they didn't move the target to center the group, LOL but then stranger things have happened.


Virgil

Probably crown damage

rebarrel the RO with Kart barrel and egw bushing,contack Kc at www.Kcskustomcreations.com

swap the bushing out with pretty much any old bushing and see if it changes.. If not then back to SA.

OK did some measuring and everything seems in order. The bushing is a bit off but there's some slop in the barrel bushing fit so I'm ruling that out.  But I did find something interesting and I think it could be part if not all of my problems as to why this RO is shooting left.

The right rear of the barrel hood is contacting very hard on the right side and peening  some while the left side rear of the barrel hood has .009" clearance.  I can see the peening on the hood and also it's marking heavily on the right side of the slide where the barrel hood hits it.  It may very well be that the barrel is getting pushed hard on the right rear and forcing the barrel to the left.  Like I had said there is some slop in the bushing with slide fit and barrel fit so I think this would be possible.  Also the left lower lug has a lot more contact with the slide stop pin than the right lower lug.  I believe this confirms my suspicions about the barrel hood pushing the barrel to the left.  If this is causing my problems it's an easy fix.





Something I'm sure Springfield wasn't worried about seeing as most shooting at closer ranges wouldn't notice.  This I can fix without sending back and it the future will re-barrel but for now I'll see what I can do without sending back.  Remember that this is with only 100 shots through this RO, I can't imagine how much peening would take place with a few thousand rounds fired.

We sure do get spoiled with our well fit and finished BE guns and I suspect I was expecting to much from an over the counter 1911 but it seems fixable. 

Virgil

Even if it was "only" used for personal defense it should not have gotten out the door.
I view precision as how close the holes are together, then are they where my sights are pointed.
If the group isn't where I'm pointing the gun it's useless to me.

JMO

Failure in quality control. Bummer.

Virgil Kane wrote:The right rear of the barrel hood is contacting very hard on the right side and peening  some while the left side rear of the barrel hood has .009" clearance.  I can see the peening on the hood and also it's marking heavily on the right side of the slide where the barrel hood hits it.  It may very well be that the barrel is getting pushed hard on the right rear and forcing the barrel to the left.  Like I had said there is some slop in the bushing with slide fit and barrel fit so I think this would be possible.  Also the left lower lug has a lot more contact with the slide stop pin than the right lower lug.  I believe this confirms my suspicions about the barrel hood pushing the barrel to the left.  If this is causing my problems it's an easy fix.

One side of the rear of my hood was contacting the breech face on my stock RO, with a  gap on the other side like you mention. I was shooting low to mid-90s on the short line but falling apart at 50. I planned to fit a Kart barrel anyway but didn't even notice this (1911 newbie) until fitting the new barrel. The breech face finish is gone where the one side of the hood was contacting. I did a lot of research and even found a thread where Jerry Keefer spoke about how the breech faces on guns may not even be perpendicular with the bore.

The gun never shot well at 50, and I always attributed it to my skill level. With a new to me borrowed gun in an EIC match my groups grouped and looked less like a shotgun pattern at 50. Even off a rest I was less than impressed and just thought the stock barrel was junk.

If you do file down the contacting portion of your hood, I wonder if the left side gap will close slightly or stay about the same at .009".

I want to thank everybody for their help and ideas. Different viewpoints stimulate the brain and we start taking notice of the small things we tend to overlook.

The first time I sent it back because the barrel was riding the link very hard and no contact on the lower lugs.  I believe (but I'm not a gunsmith) that there was enough slop in the link pin that the barrel was getting pushed to the left by the barrel hood but because of no solid lockup this peening didn't show and accuracy suffered. Now that I have some contact on the lower lugs the barrel shows the peening because it has no place to slide to like before, accuracy was better but still shot to the left.  I had marked the barrel, frame and slide just to see if they replaced them and they all came back with my marks on them. They did however replace the slide stop pin with a larger one and a new link.  Now off to the range to see if my Bubba theory was correct.  I stoned down the high spots on the barrel hood and now have about 90% contact across the back of the barrel hood, much better than just one side.

Virgil

Wobbley wrote:When you send guns back to the manufacturer, they almost always reset the trigger mechanism back to factory specifications.  It was standard policy at Remington to do this as a gunsmith friend told me a Jewell trigger equipped rifle came back with a factory trigger and the Jewell in a separate bag.

Some may reset the trigger but when I sent my RO for repair to SA I noted in the instructions not to reset the trigger as i have the pull (3 lbs.) where I wanted it.  They did leave the trigger at 3 lbs.  They seem to be very responsive to the customers' requests.