Among Dave's guns I've found quite a number of surprises. Not all of them pleasant. For one thing, Dave had no access to digital information and wanted none. But that's another story.
I've mentioned the 1911's that Dave decided he would interchange parts on. There is another group that have defects of one sort or another. Which I have tackled one at a time. Diagnosed, or tried to diagnose (not being a real gunsmith), and sent away for parts for. Mostly with success. A couple I've had to give up on; some I've been able to sell as broken guns. The buyers being fully aware of what they are buying and I've been amazed by some of these transactions. Yes, surprising as it is, people will knowingly buy broken guns.
One gun that turned out to have a defect I conquered today. The Star Model B:
Technically, this is a Model BS. Which is the Model B with a magazine disconnect safety. Required for import into the US after 1968. But this gun was made much later than that, circa 1986. Commercial sale was discontinued around 1983. This gun was part of a military contract for the Syrian government (Hafez al-Assad, the daddy, the one with the inverted pear-shaped head). However, many in this contract were found to be unacceptable by the Syrians and were returned to the factory. This was during the closing days of the manufacturer and they were doing all kinds of things to stay afloat. Including scratching around the factory, looking for anything they could slap together and sell. Mostly to Interarms, who was buying the stuff cheaply. So this Model BS is arguably a military gun, however initially flawed. Note the unfilled lanyard hole on the left side of the butt.
So my problem with this gun was revealed when I took it out for test firing. Initially, about every other shot would fail to extract and disallowed the chambering of a following, unfired round. After much screwing around repeatedly unjamming the gun, it became a bit more reliable after more firing, maybe jamming up about every third or fourth shot. I put it away for a month, then took it out again. It would fail to extract about every third shot. These have an external extractor. By now, I'd noticed that there were a few scratches in the finish at the top of the slide where the retaining pin goes through to hold the extractor in place. Which suggests this gun has had issues all along, maybe all the way back to Assad. I took the extractor off the slide, looked it over closely, cleaned the slot it goes in, etc. I'd looked at it in situ before, playing around with dummy cartridges to see how it engaged and so on. It all looked right. So I decided that the little spring may not have enough tension. You can increase the tension of a spring by bushing it up from the bottom. As in this case, I tried a bead of number seven shot. That was too much, the extractor had no movement. So I looked around for something small, flat and round. I noticed one of those little chains like came on (fake) rabbit's feet when we were kids, small versions of light bulb chains. I clipped a ball off the end of the chain, flattened it with a ball pein hammer, and placed it in the bottom of the spring recess.
Today, it was back out to the range with this trouble maker. I ran about 75 rounds through it without one gag. Three different loads. Increasing the spring tension no doubt has helped. But I'm thinking, starting out with this gun, it was fresh and all the parts weren't yet broken in. Like the chamber was still frosty and may have contributed to friction between it and the cartridge case. So this is one for the win column.
I've mentioned the 1911's that Dave decided he would interchange parts on. There is another group that have defects of one sort or another. Which I have tackled one at a time. Diagnosed, or tried to diagnose (not being a real gunsmith), and sent away for parts for. Mostly with success. A couple I've had to give up on; some I've been able to sell as broken guns. The buyers being fully aware of what they are buying and I've been amazed by some of these transactions. Yes, surprising as it is, people will knowingly buy broken guns.
One gun that turned out to have a defect I conquered today. The Star Model B:
Technically, this is a Model BS. Which is the Model B with a magazine disconnect safety. Required for import into the US after 1968. But this gun was made much later than that, circa 1986. Commercial sale was discontinued around 1983. This gun was part of a military contract for the Syrian government (Hafez al-Assad, the daddy, the one with the inverted pear-shaped head). However, many in this contract were found to be unacceptable by the Syrians and were returned to the factory. This was during the closing days of the manufacturer and they were doing all kinds of things to stay afloat. Including scratching around the factory, looking for anything they could slap together and sell. Mostly to Interarms, who was buying the stuff cheaply. So this Model BS is arguably a military gun, however initially flawed. Note the unfilled lanyard hole on the left side of the butt.
So my problem with this gun was revealed when I took it out for test firing. Initially, about every other shot would fail to extract and disallowed the chambering of a following, unfired round. After much screwing around repeatedly unjamming the gun, it became a bit more reliable after more firing, maybe jamming up about every third or fourth shot. I put it away for a month, then took it out again. It would fail to extract about every third shot. These have an external extractor. By now, I'd noticed that there were a few scratches in the finish at the top of the slide where the retaining pin goes through to hold the extractor in place. Which suggests this gun has had issues all along, maybe all the way back to Assad. I took the extractor off the slide, looked it over closely, cleaned the slot it goes in, etc. I'd looked at it in situ before, playing around with dummy cartridges to see how it engaged and so on. It all looked right. So I decided that the little spring may not have enough tension. You can increase the tension of a spring by bushing it up from the bottom. As in this case, I tried a bead of number seven shot. That was too much, the extractor had no movement. So I looked around for something small, flat and round. I noticed one of those little chains like came on (fake) rabbit's feet when we were kids, small versions of light bulb chains. I clipped a ball off the end of the chain, flattened it with a ball pein hammer, and placed it in the bottom of the spring recess.
Today, it was back out to the range with this trouble maker. I ran about 75 rounds through it without one gag. Three different loads. Increasing the spring tension no doubt has helped. But I'm thinking, starting out with this gun, it was fresh and all the parts weren't yet broken in. Like the chamber was still frosty and may have contributed to friction between it and the cartridge case. So this is one for the win column.
