Slide stop causing FTF?

General Firearms Handguns - 1911
1

Hello all, new member here. I have a Colt Series 70 that was completely gone through in the early eighties by Virgil Tripp and his brother, which included building up the barrel foot, adding a beavertail and Clark Commander hammer plus all the other reliability tricks. It ran flawlessly and ate everything it was fed.

It had many rounds down the tube over the years including +P as well as thousands of .22 while having a Colt conversion kit on it so it it was getting a little loose.

I had it updated a couple of years ago with a Wilson hammer and ignition set, parkerized the frame, blued the slide and added a Brown slide release which tightened up the looseness as well as it’s accuracy. Only problem is it now fails to feed every other round, even WWB 230gr. ball. The slide won’t completely close the last 3/8" which is a consistent stopping point. A heel of the hand to the back of the slide won’t assist it home either.

I put in a new Wilson recoil spring and got some Wilson mags hoping it would solve the issue.
I shot it yesterday and it emptied the first Wilson mag without a hick-up. I stuck in a CMC mag and it FTF the second round and subsequent rounds including when I manually racked the slide.
I chunked the CMC in the back of the truck and put another Wilson in and it had a FTF about every third round.

I can’t think of any other reason othere than the larger .200 size Brown slide release is the culprit. The thieving hacks in a shop in S. Austin that did the recent worked “threw away” my stock Colt slide release along with Clark hammer and trigger group claiming I said they “weren’t any good” so now I have to find a stock Colt slide release which are .197-8, I believe, and have it parkerized. Either that or order a SA slide stop which comes parkerized and hopefully it is the same dimension as a Colt.

Anyone have similar experiences when going from a stock mill-spec to a max size slide release?

2

A few questions to clarify;

  1. Have you checked extractor tension/new extractor installed?

  2. Manually racking the slide of an empty gun with no mag. When riding the slide home does it want to stop at the same point?

  3. Is the bottom of the barrel lug/feet smooth or is there a bump where it is getting slammed into the slide stop pin.

  4. Was the gun refinished the same time the work was done and is the slide bead blasted on the inside?

Sounds as if the rails (frame and slide) were blasted after the work was performed adding additional friction slowing the slide down. As Mr Vickers would say, run it wet so the EPA is looking for you and run in the parts so the slide rails can mate. This could be done live fire or manually with an empty gun riding the slide foward. Once the rails have burnished and it is still hanging up, the barrel lug to slide stop might need to be lapped in.

3

The slide was reblued and the frame parkerized but I don’t think the tolerances are so tight as to cause binding as there is still some play.
The Colt barrel had an accuracy job done to it when it was originally tuned in the eighties and the lug / feet were built up. When not in battery the barrel doesn’t sit horizontal like in a stock gun but rides at an angle which can be seen in the ejection port.
I’m wondering if it had been lapped in to fit the stock slide stop and an adding the larger Brown slide stop is the problem.
I ordered a SA parkerized slide stop hoping it’s closer to stock.