Colt/Lew Horton OACP springs

[73Driver]

I just picked up a Colt/Lew Horton Night Officer's II, I took it home and disassembled it for inspection as well as lubrication. I found no cracks or visible defects. The one thing I noticed was that the slide will move aft 1/16 to 1/8 inch with almost no felt resistance, significantly less than any other of my 1911s. It won't move back on its own from gravity but requires very little pull. After this slight movement, the springs start to kick in and the required pull increases rapidly. This occurs only with the hammer cocked, with the hammer down it acts just like all my others requiring the pressure needed to overcome the mainspring to move the slide. This gun has a two piece guiderod, which I have never had before. I am going to replace all springs with Wolff Springs this week but before I do, I have several questions:

1) Will the replacement of the recoil spring suffice?
1a) If so, how strong a spring?
2) Do I need to replace the guiderod?
2a) Can / should I replace the two piece with a single piece guiderod?
3) Could the weak return cause the failure to feed JHPs? It didn't like Gold Dots yesterday.

I won't use it for carry until my confidence moves up a notch or two.

http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w149/73Driver/GuideRod.jpg

While I have your attention:
http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w149/73Driver/NightOfficer.jpg

Thanks, Sam

[elijdub]

Hey Sam,

I'd start with replacing the springs with the Wolff products. I'm not familiar with this issue, but i suspect that the two-piece GR is a sound design (though i've heard complaints of this set-up from owners of other manufacturers). It might be worth a call to Lew Horton... http://www.lewhorton.com/ ... to see if they're familiar with this happening to anyone else. The gun may even still be under warranty, in which case maybe they'd have a look at it for you.

Since my OACP has a slightly different recoil assembly (the standard "double-spring" OfficerACP set-up), i'm not sure exactly which "diameter" spring you'd need (the dual-spring factory assembly on the Colt OACP uses a smaller diameter guide rod than other Officer models...my guess is that your's is a "standard" diameter). I'd suggest calling Wolff.. They've been very helpful to me in the past, always willing to spend a few minutes going over details.
http://www.gunsprings.com/SemiAuto/ColtNF.html#Officers
My guess is that you'd need to "factory standard, 22 lb. spring", for a full-diameter guide rod, stock number "490xx".

If the spring doesn't cure the issue, it might be worth purchasing a new LH two-piece guide rod (directly from them).... You could always replace that component, as well, with a standard GR, though i'm not certain that it would be a "drop in" part; it may be worth a call to Colt/LH to find out.

Hope this helps! Please keep us posted.

[73Driver]

eli,

Thanks for the input, I will call Lew Horton Monday before I leave for Panama.

Sam

[elijdub]

No problem Sam, please keep us posted, and have fun and in Panama! Hope you get some R&R and it's not just work ;).