Brass scratching the slide

[Chris111146]

Hey guys,

Another newbie 1911/10mm question for you guys: is it normal for brass to scratch the slide (the back right of the ejection port)? If not will it be something that will go away once the spring loosens up after I put more rounds down range, or should I contact a gunsmith.

Thanks,
Christian

[sqlbullet]

Every semi-auto gun I own gets brass smudges from ejection.  The more "texture" the finish has, the more smudgy it seems.  When I see a gun without them I assume it hasn't been shot much, or it gets really, really cleaned after range day.

I have heard from guys here that some of their guns don't do this.  10mm is the only handgun caliber I own besides 22.  Maybe the lower impulse rounds don't do it.  All my AR's do it as well.

[Chris111146]

Funny I have never seen a gun that does it and I have 10 myself. I'm in college so I'm still living at home and my dad has 50 firearms or so, none of which I'm have seen with the peculiar brass markings however we are not 1911 people.

[fltbed]

This is a common occurrence with any auto loader with a high slide velocity.  (like the 10mm)
BTW, it's not the brass scratching the slide.  It's the slide scratching a little brass off the case.  If it really bothers you, a little cold blue will help clean off the brass marks.

Jeff

[Chris111146]

Interesting. The vast majority of our other pistols are 9s so I guess that could explain it.

[Bruno747]

My RIA did this, and it took shaping the ejector and shortening it a bit to get it to both keep the rounds going into the same area, and have it stop hitting the slide.

The amount of color left by the brass was also diminished once I put a proper recoil and mainspring in, as well as swapping with a square firing pin stop. Those things combined got it to be pretty reliable about ejection.

[Chris111146]

How did you shape the ejector out of curiosity? Did you have a gunsmith do it?

[14 GT-500]

Both my 1911 10s do and my .45s and 9mm don't. So I do think it has a lot to do with the 10mm round and the high speed of the slide.

[Bruno747]

How did you shape the ejector out of curiosity? Did you have a gunsmith do it?

Take this with a grain of salt. I am not far from the definition of a "Bubba Gunsmith"

I was going to take it in until I researched it, it's pretty simple with a smooth (fine) sharpening stone, and careful hands. Plus an extended ejector is cheap. if you are worried, pull the original, rework the new one and if it just doesn't work out for you, put the original back in.

There is a good diagram in this thread
https://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=404865



Mine had one of the crazy long extended ones. With a max OAL round, I had issues getting it to clear the barrel when emptying the gun. So I shortened it until they would clear easily, which I think made a big difference. Perhaps I am way off base here, but it seemed so far forward that the casings were being slung out while the slide was still moving very fast. Imparting lots of spin on it that was unnecessary.

In my theory (I say my theory because I have not researched this part) Because the rounds are ejecting so early by a extended ejector, they are spinning too hard and hitting the slide which gives the random landing pattern with casings. They are actually bouncing off the slide. By adjusting the ejector to slow this (shortening it), shaping it to not fling upward so much on the slide with a lowered ejection port. (check the diagram in the thread linked above for how to do this) they became very patterned when I follow through. Remember, the heavier recoil and mainspring the firing pin stop helped slow this spin too.


It also seemed to be that the extended portion was too thick, or rather, sat too low, so I took a bit off the bottom of the extended portion which fixed one of my jamming issues. When I started to really look at why the gun was jamming I noticed the rounds couldn't actually reach the lips on the mag because they were hitting on the ejector.


Take your time, and I think you can do it. Im a success story with this surely you can be too.

[Chris111146]

Okay thsnks, I'll try that at some point.