.45 Shell casings bent

[Gandalf]

On Tue, 26 Oct 1999 17:22:44 GMT, in tx.guns you wrote:

#I just took out my recently inherited model 1911 Colt 45 out to the
#range. What a great pistol! It performed flawlessly.
#
#Since I have no experience with them I was concerned to see that each
#ejected shell casing was bent at the opening so it almost looked like
#the letter "D" with about a .25 inch flat dent on one side only.
#
#Is this normal? If not what could be the problem?
#
#Thanks in advance.
#
#Jim
#
#
#Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
#Before you buy.
Virtually always, this is caused by the ejected casing hitting the ejection
port. Perhaps you have heard of 'lowered' ports, or 'flared' ports on 1911 45
ACP's. Basically, it means removing some metal to make the ejection port larger.
Sometimes, a contributing factor can be a poorly tuned ejector and/or extractor,
but this results in the same situation: the cases hit the ejection port. If you
plan to reload the shell cases, you may want to consider having a good gunsmith
who specializes in 1911's enlarge the ejection port. If you don't plan to
reload, it may not matter. Almost all of the older 'GI' type 1911's (and this
includes imports based on the 1911 design) have the smaller port that causes
this common phenomenon. As long as functioning is OK, you may choose to ignore
this 'problem'. BTW: if you do decide to have the ejection port enlarged, fire
some ammunition through the gun, and then take it to the gunsmith. There will be
telltale marks of brass on the ejection port, and will help the gunsmith in
enlarging the port to allow cases to eject without hitting the side(s) of the
ejection port. Generally, most gunsmiths remove metal from the lower edge of the
port (lowering) but your 45 may send the brass towards the rear of the ejection
port, another common spot. The less metal removed, the better.
Oh, one last thing: if the gun has collector value (since you mentioned
inheriting it) you shouldn't really modify it in any way, as this greatly
reduces 'collector' value. If the gun is strictly a 'shooter' or has already
been re blued, etc., further modifications won't matter. But you may want to
check into this first.

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[Jim]

Thanks for the great advice.
Jim