A 1911 that was given to me by my father in-law(an old AMT hardballer with a 5" carry slide) is giving me issues with FTE’s. i pulled the ejecter out and cleaned it and now it works a little bit better but now when i fire it i will get thought the first five rounds and they eject just fine with good distance, but the last 3 rounds of the mag seem to not have the power to eject and im getting the failures to eject. my thoughts are maybe the recoil spring maybe???
any thoughts or advice if this has ever happened to you would help me out alot thank you
You took out the ejector or the extractor? The extractor may need some tweaking.
On an unknown gun, I always start by respringing the gun. You never know what its been through and whats been done to it. That said, most 1911 failures can be attributed to two things; 1) magazines 2) extractor tension/geometry. You need to be running a quality aftermarket magazine like a Chip McCormack Power-mag, Wilson Combat ETM or Tripp Research Cobra mag. Factory mags are junk and can cause all kinds of problems. If you are getting an inconsistent ejection pattern then the culprit is most likely going to be your extractor. Check the claw itself for damage and perform the extractor tension test outlined in this Blog from 10-8 Performance http://10-8training.blogspot.com/2012/04/1911-extractor-test.html?m=1
sigh…delete.
FTE’s are not a magazine issue. Replacing a recoil spring is a cheap and easy thing to do but if your gun is returning to battery when the shells extract/eject fine then it doesn’t seem like a problem.
I would recommend field stripping the gun and cleaning it really good. Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENFoZPF2-FM and see if your extractor is properly tensioned. Also take it out and inspect it real good compared to the picture on the bottom of this page. http://www.m1911.org/technic2.htm
Those guns are also prone to galling. I doubt that might play a role here, but it is a common problem with stainless hardballers except the longslide (6").