OK…don’t bust my balls too much but I own a Remington R1 Hunter. It’s a long slide 1911 in 10mm. The price was so low that I just said **** it and rolled the dice. And for the first 1,000 rounds it’s been great. But last weekend my extractor broke. So my question is can a fairly competent hobbyist replace it himself? I’ve watched the videos and it looks pretty straightforward…and I have a spare. But the spare looks to be just a hair too long. Would it be OK to just file it down or should I buy a new extractor? I’ve never really done much work on my 1911s outside of changing the grips. Is there anything I need to be particularly careful of? My local gunsmith is just so backed up that I don’t feel like letting it sit there for 3 months if this is an easy fix. I appreciate any feedback.
Try it and see if it works. If not, you can always go back to the way it was or buy another extractor from Remington. Either way, you lose nothing but a few minutes of time.
It’s a fairly simple replacement if you know what you’re doing.
First, use a quality extractor; looks like Ed Brown offers a 10mm extractor that seems to be of good quality.
Look at this detail on how a 1911 extractor should be modified-
Solid advice…that Ed Brown extractor is $28.99 at MidwayUsa…might as well go with known quality rather than this mystery extractor from my parts kit. Thanks fellas.
If you can, please document your work a bit and let us know how it worked out. While the tutorial content seems simple enough, I’m curious on actual feedback pros/cons of doing oneself.
There are three major areas to be addressed when fitting an extractor:
[ul][li]Geometry
[/li][li]Deflection
[/li][li]Tension[/ul]
[/li]See this LINK for a detailed tutorial on how to correctly fit an extractor.
I use EGW extractors almost exclusively because of their metallurgy, extra “meat” in the right places to allow them to be fit to any slide, and their length from the firing pin stop slot to the claw. I use theHeavy Duty for my pistols and have used the GI for restoration work. Other folks report the same excellent results with the Practical.
You will need to make a simple width gauge to measure extractor deflection and you’ll want a gauge to measure hook-to-breechface distance. Both of those are described at the link above.
I’ve had good luck with Wilson’s BP as well.
Saw some vid where Wilson explained that his BP extractors were fabricated with curvature/tension “built in” to the extractors.
Wilson extractors are spec’d to fit Wilson slides. If your slide has the same specs as a Wilson slide, you’re good-to-go. If not, you’re out of luck. Not long ago I was in the process of fitting two Wilson BP extractors to two Caspian slides when I discovered the locating pads of the extractors were too short to allow for setting the correct deflection. I grabbed two EGW extractors and got them fitted with no issues. Either the Caspian extractor bores were drilled crooked or they were positioned further outboard than those in Wilson slides. I don’t need this kind of surprise when fitting extractors so EGW are my default. I never have to wonder if they’ll fit. I also like that their hooks are longer vertically which allows me to tweak them just right for a specific pistol.
Most folks don’t understand the critical nature of extractor deflection. If you set the deflection to no more than .010", you will have a very tough time adding enough tension to the extractor to negatively affect feeding. Extractors with excessive deflection may mostly run fine except for the random, unexplained failure-to-feed malfunction.
