field test on the springfield grrrr!

[Lloyd Smale]

took it out to shoot yesterday and its a jamamatic. Wouldnt feed anything slide kept stopping short. Took it apart and found little rings of lead in the end of the chamber. Seated some bullets real deap and it fed them fine. Springfield must have cut the chamber to short on this one. Back to the factory it goes! Thats three for three that have gone back for repairs brand new! Same thing with the two kimbers ive owned. Ive personaly never had to send a colt in for anything. Dont know if its just bad luck but 3 for 3 isnt looking to good for quality control on springfields part!!!!

[Mikey]

Lloyd - geez man, they didn't throw a 45 GAP barrel in that 1911 did they??  

This is getting a bit embarrassing.  I strongly recommend the Springfield to everyone I talk to, based on my positive experiences with mine and others I have shot, and now I find that a significant number of shooters are having problems with the barrels.  

Truthfully, the barrel in my Springer wouldn't shoot fer schmidt, so I replaced it with an Ed Brown barrel.  I never had problems with ftf, but the accuracy was worse than with a worn out war pistol.  I wonder if I avoided problems by doing that.  

Hope it comes back better than when it left.  Mikey.

[TScottO]

Sorry to hear that Lloyd. Sometimes I think certain people and certain brand guns have bad chemistry. I hope Springfield treats you well. It's a real bummer to buy a new toy and have problems.

Take Care,
Scott

[Redhawk1]

Lloyd, let us know how it works out.

[Questor]

Given your record of bad luck, my first suspicion is the ammo, not the gun.  What kind of bullets are you using and what's the OAL?  Does the gun's manual contain a clause like "Only works with 230 grain hardball ammo"?  Are you using very soft lead in your bullets?  I have a jam-o-matic foul-the-bore-with-massive-amounts-of-lead-o-matic whose problems were completely solved by using hard cast bullets instead of soft swaged bullets.

[44 Man]

Lloyd, I also have a friend who had the same experience.  Bought a new custom Springfield and had nothing but jams with it.  Totally disgusted with it.  He too had to re-seat all of his bullets deeper to get it to feed, he has it back to Springfield now.  I picked up an old satin nickle Combat Commander a little bit ago.  Someone had thrown in a 5" barrel and a stainless big shelf slide stop and a standard stainless thumb safety.  Blue trigger with a blue grip safety and Pachmayer grips and mainspring housing.  Only good part was it was a series 70, said Colt on the side and was only $325.  I picked up a used stainless commander barrel off of e-bay, dropped it in and a few satin nickle parts I had lying around.  It has a 'field expedient' barrel bushing.  Meaning you can easily remove it with your fingers, no tools!  In fact, I kidding tell people that if your removed the spring, I think you could shake it enough for the bushing to fall out!  I must have gotten a fortunate fit between the slide and barrel because she is a great shooter!  It has fed everything I have thrown at it so far.  I'll have to bring it to the MISS shoot and try those 400 yd milk jugs with it!  I had a stainless Kimber a while back that would feed nothing until I polished the feed ramp and installed a heavier recoil spring.  Then she never bobbled after that.  Hope you find a good shooter out there!  44 Man

[Lloyd Smale]

tried lyman 230 round nose seaco 225 round nose lyman 200swc and h&g 200swcs in it the lyman roundnose were cast out of wheel weight and the 225 seacos out of 5050 ww lynotype so i dont believe its a hardness thing.

Given your record of bad luck, my first suspicion is the ammo, not the gun.  What kind of bullets are you using and what's the OAL?  Does the gun's manual contain a clause like "Only works with 230 grain hardball ammo"?  Are you using very soft lead in your bullets?  I have a jam-o-matic foul-the-bore-with-massive-amounts-of-lead-o-matic whose problems were completely solved by using hard cast bullets instead of soft swaged bullets.

[Mikey]

Lloyd, that barrel ain't right.  Either get it replaced or get an aftemarket accuaracy barrel and I hope you will be happier.  Mikey.

ps - it still sounds like that barrel is confused about being either a 45 acp or a 45 glock chambering.

[jamesa]

My mil-spec SA is a dream.  Not a single jam and have shot WWII crap from Sportsmans Guiide (cleaned it well afterward!), Wolf, American and Remington UMC!  ONly problem is that I believe it shoots about 4 or 5 inches left at 15 yards, and a bit low.  I can compensate for the altitude, but the windage is a little aggravating.  But not a jam!  Also got it for around $450 with an extra mag thrown in.  Took advantage of SA's coupon in the box and got a holster, cleaning kit and another 7 mags, all of which was good stuff!  Almost got me convinced to get one of their M1As too, but my old shoulder balks at the thought!

[Mikey]

jamesa:  My Springfield Gov't Model shot 7" groups, 7" high and to the left.  I swapped all sorts of spare barrels I had and they all shot the same (which was nutz 'cause they shot better in other pistols).  I bought one of Ed Brown's Drop-in accuracy barrels and was cutting the X with S&B ball at 25m with 2.5" groups.  It was incredible, a dropped in barrel made a fabulous shooter out of that piece.  The pistol shoots ball ammo like it's nobody's business, and she shoots. I'm going to toss some serious lead out of it and see how that does.  There is one CAS bullet I'm interested in and hope to get my hands on soon and see if that shoots as well as the ball.  That barrel fixed my problems, one may fix yours.  HTH.  Mikey.

[greenjeans]

I have two of the GI spec. Springfields, full size and Champion. Have shot cheap factory ammo of all sorts and never had a problem at all. Can't remember a failure of any kind other than the Champion will not keep the slide back reliably with the Chip McCormick mags. Factory and military surplus funtion 100% in both. Never shot any reloads.