cleaning - slide lock

[mike0122]

Hey Guys,

I'm somewhat new to 1911's. I'm a gun person just haven't used these paticular guns a lot. I purchased a Kimber TLE II and ran into my first problem.

I wanted to clean it first thing because it was a bit dirty probably from test firing and being handled by customers. Well, I took out the spring and plug per the instructions of the manual. Then I took out the slide stop.

The slide moved forward about an inch and stopped. Now there is a little play but it won't go either way. The guide rod and barrel move around freely inside the slide.

I did some searching and found a similar post and it mentioned that maybe holding it right side up and shaking it to dislodge a pin. This did not work for me. This is frustrating and also makes me appreciate my Ruger 345's :) I know Kimber is a good gun, and it better be for what I paid :) Can someone give a 1911 newbie a bit of help on this?

[Wes Janson]

I'm not an expert on this, but I do have a Series II 1911, so I think I know what your problem is. What happened is the firing pin safety is in an upwards position, blocking the slide from moving. The safety is a little thing next to the ejector that sticks up from the slide when deployed. It only activates when you depress the grip safety. Solution? First, do NOT depress the grip safety while trying to move the slide. Second, while making sure the grip isn't engaged, try to wiggle around the slide a bit, to get the safety to drop back down. Pull on the hammer a bit, shake it. It should disengage, and you'll be able to remove the slide like normal. Do NOT force anything, disassembling or reassembling. Pretty quickly you'll figure out how to hold the gun so as to not touch the safety, and you won't have any problems with the slide.

[mike0122]

After giving the butt a small hit on the back of a soft chair, that dropped the pin enough to pull the slide off.

Now I'm having the opposite problem putting the thing together, seems that small safety pin is sticking up just enough that it won't let me put the slide back on. Any hints on this one?

[LeadStorm]

If you can't push the pin flush with the top of the frame the grip safety is holding it too high. The main spring housing is what keeps the grip safety from swinging out enough to let the pin go all the way down. File off a little from the main spring housing to allow the grip safety to swing out a little further. Do not remove any material from the pin itself, you don't want to shorten the pin because then it may not reliably disengage the firing pin block. If you don't want to modify anything you can punch out the main spring housing pin and slide out the housing to allow the grip safety to swing out and then put the slide on and replace the housing. I would go ahead and fix the problem so that you never have to have the problem again.

[mike0122]

I assume the spring housing is the part where the safety pin sticks out?

[LeadStorm]

The main spring housing is the part on the back of the grip under the grip safety. It has checkering on it. It is made out of plastic and is held in the frame by the cross pin at the very bottom of your grip. When you remove the pin, the hammer should be down because the hammer has a strut that goes down inside the housing and compresses a spring that powers the hammer. If you haven't done this before, don't let the flat leaf spring under the housing fall out after you remove the housing. It can be a little confusing if it's your first time in a 1911.

[mike0122]

Thanks for your help, I did for the mean time go ahead and put the gun back together. It seems to of came apart a bit easier without banging it but I still have to give it a couple of taps to get it back together. I hope this isn't hurting anything.

My buddy works on his Kimber a lot and since it is a gold match, I would assume it would be similar or even have tighter tolerences. I will probably let him do the work and just watch carefully.

[LeadStorm]

If you need it, I'll find my camera and take a few shots of where to make the adjustments.

[mike0122]

Actually that would be helpful. The more I can learn about 1911's, the better off I'll be. If you prefer, you can email me. Let me know if you need that info. I appreciate the help.

[mike0122]

I talked to Kimber and they basically told me that the safety pin is supposed to stick up just a bit. What they did say was after using it, that should put some wear and tear on the slide and that problem with disapear. They told me the non-breakin way to fix it is to use some web 600 grib sandpaper and sand down that part of the slide a bit.

At this point, I'm not exactly sure what my best option is.

[Sabre]

If the pistol works as-is, personally, I'd just let it break itself in.

[mike0122]

If the pistol works as-is, personally, I'd just let it break itself in.

The only problem is I have to give the butt a couple of hits on the back of a chair to get the slide off, then back on. It does not seem to effect the normal slide operation during shooting.

[LeadStorm]

I sent you an e-mail to respond to so that I can send you a picture.

While you have the slide off check the area at the back of the slide that works over top of the disconnector. Kimber has a real bad habit of really engraving a portion of your serial number there and making the slide so rough that it scrapes brass off all your rounds and deposits the shavings on top of your disconnector. If your numbers are rough, just polish the raised spot down with some wet/dry sand paper to smooth it up.

[mike0122]

I seem to have fixed the problem. All I did was take a sandpaper as suggested, and take off a bit of material from where the handle safety pin would get stuck on the back of the slide. Now it comes apart perfectly.