When Buying a used 1911….

I recently looked at an old 1911 45 BE pistol and my first thoughts were it seemed ok.
Well when I disassembled it, it was filthy dirty. I cleaned it and now it was a very loose pistol. Crud had accumulated in the slide lugs and the barrel upper lugs pushing the barrel down so it rested against the slide stop pin. The slide rails were crudded up and the slide fit was tighter until I cleaned the pistol. When reassembled it was much looser than a SA RO. 
So at a minimum when looking at a pistol you might purchase, pull the slide stop pin and you can see how loose the slide to frame fit is. The bottom barrel lug will remove most vertical play and some horizontal play when properly fit. Removing the slide stop pin takes that out of the equation. If you can disassemble further look for excessive wear; breech face, upper barrel lugs and slide. Some older frames are soft and you can see feedramp wear from jhp bullets and look where the slide contacts the front of the frame rails for battering.
Anyhow thought I’d throw this out there.
Jon

Thanks Jon.

Hmmm dirtball accurizing. A new definition of "Slidin Dirty"

So what I think I'm hearing here is don't clean your 1911's.  They will shoot better dirty.  Thats my kind of advice!

SMBeyer wrote:So what I think I'm hearing here is don't clean your 1911's.  They will shoot better dirty.  Thats my kind of advice!

True but I think with a new gun you are going to want to regularly clean it because the carbon over time acts like lapping compound.

I have a story from a shooting bud. He shot on an Army Divisional Team and shot issue 1911's. They were not match accurized. The Team Captain, and ex USMC shooter, told all the team members to pack their 1911's with grease and fire 500 rounds, and they were not to clean their pistols!

Bud claimed those greasy, dirty 1911's would hold the black at 50 yards. And if you could hold the black, you would shoot tens.

This is very good advice from Jon. Too bad I did not know this a few years back. It would have saved me about $1300.00. However, every lesson I have learned in life has cost me something.

Also always check for ringed barrels from squib rounds. I have been burned 3x times buying old BE guns with squibbed barrels. You would think i would have learned by #3, but i’m a very trusting person.

SmokinNJokin wrote:Also always check for ringed barrels from squib rounds. I have been burned 3x times buying old BE guns with squibbed barrels. You would think i would have learned by #3, but i’m a very trusting person.

I saw one that way as well, but they had filed and cleaned up the outside of the barrel to where it looked OK. Removing the barrel and looking through it was another story though!

DA/SA wrote:

SmokinNJokin wrote:Also always check for ringed barrels from squib rounds. I have been burned 3x times buying old BE guns with squibbed barrels. You would think i would have learned by #3, but i’m a very trusting person.

I saw one that way as well, but they had filed and cleaned up the outside of the barrel to where it looked OK. Removing the barrel and looking through it was another story though!

Seriously where do people like this come from? 

Good info to have in the back of my mind cause I’m pretty trusting myself.

3 day , non firing inspection at the dealer is common.
I bring cleaning tools and field strip.

I've been lucky so far. One of my Gunbroker purchases is more accurate than I am. The other is accurate, but whoever worked on it had some really odd ideas about accurizing a 1911. My final one is a RO that has no VIS bowtie. I'm going to have to shoot it some more to see if the Kart barrel lower lugs contact at the bottom. It's something I've seen on another SA frame. All in all, so far, so good!

i have bought probably a dozen guns from gunbroker and not had an issue yet, knock on wood.

Never had a problem on GB, It a used gun and you must understand there could be some things that cost money to sort out. New Guns are good but I prefer to work with LGS as the prices now are not crazy cheaper when you account for shipping etc.

Easy fix for the lack of a VIS cut is to cut the lower half of the back of the lugs down so only the upper half hits the VIS. Seen factory barrel with this cut if the company chooses to not do the VIS cut.

Thanks, Jimmy G. I haven't done it yet but will if I get the contact marks.