norinco and kart ez fit barrel???

[hutch1510]

I have had my 1911 norinco for a few yrs and have been trying barrels for fit for quitte awhile... so far none have been perfect... SO anyway a kart EZ fit barrel says it has "2" pads on top where you can fit the lock up ( iwould imagine it was number 1 lug"... however since it is usually number 2 lug on the slide of norinco, usually on the peg of being in spec "to the rear" will a kart still work to possably get "equalized lug engagement???? seems all (3) of the barrel lugs would need pads to fit to slide.... just need to know before i place an order for one... i want all 3 lugs engaged, not just 1... if this requires a hardfit barrel i will buy instead of the ez fit ... anyone with experince with these barrels please chime in...thanks much...ccr

[1911Tuner]

First...The pads are for tight vertical engagement. Equalizing the lugs means equalizing the breech lock horizontally. The two aren't related.

Second...The barrel engages vertically, but locks horizontally, and the gun isn't locked when it's static, in battery. It locks when it fires. The description is in the original patents.

Equalizing the lugs usually requires adjusting the barrel lug faces to agree with the slide lug faces...by cutting back the barrel lug face that engages and leaves the others kissing air. Sometimes you get lucky, and you can whittle one back and bring the other two into play.

Due to the upward tilt of the barrel at the rear, the first lug wall vertically engages deeper than the other two...followed by the second lug...with the third lug providing the least amount. Of the three, the first is the most important because of this vertical depth, and because it's the strongest, most supported one. If you can equalize lugs 1 and 2..with full vertical depth on #1...you've got a good strong lock that's better than 90% of the factory pistols you'll buy, unless you get into the high-end semi-ciustoms.

What you're shooting for is for the slide's rear lug face to bear as low on the barrel's lug as you can manage. The closer to the corner...at the junction of lug and barrel...the better. Ideally, both mating lugs should contact like that...but ideals are often hard to reach, and as long as the slide's lug bears low on the barrel lug, it'll do nicely. When the slide's lug bears high on the barrel's....you get a lot of stress on the barrel lug, with lug deformation and setback occurring earlier...with attendant headspace increase.

The Kart Easy-Fit system is designed to work best with pistol specs which provide full or nearly full vertical engagement. If the gun is well within spec, they work as well as a hard-fit barrel, and aside from the fitting method required...there is no difference between the two. Both are excellent from an accuracy standpoint, assuming correct fit. I like to see at least 90% vertical depth, but 80% will do for most applications as long as two lugs are bearing the loads in the horizontal plane...and the #1 lug is included.

Most Norincos that I've been involved with...8 of my own and about a dozen belonging to other people...will provide enough vertical engagement to use with the Easy-Fit barrel. Those that don't can either be fitted with the hard-fit...though the firing pin strike may vary a little from on-center...or you can peen and lower the rails enough to get what you need with the Easy-Fit. Note that this isn't a simple swaging of the rails to reduce vertical play between the slide and barrel. It's a labor-intensive lowering and recutting of the rail ways to lower the slide. It requires a lot of hand-fitting to the slide and frame in order to bring it all back into workable dimensions. Not a task for a first-timer. I spent almost 15 hours on the last one that I did for a friend...and that was just to get the slide and frame adjusted. I had to drop the slide almost a full 64th inch just to get 90% of full vertical...so it was a fairly extreme case. Most aren't that bad. At last report, he's very happy with the gun's performance, so at least it was a worthwhile effort. I like Norincos, and wish they were still available new...but once in a while you've got to ask yourself if it's worth the expense and the effort...especially if you have to pay somebody to do this sort of repair.

[hutch1510]

thanks tuner, as usual i will have to print your answer and reread about 100 times to get it...i know i want number 1 lug as deep as possbile for full lug engagement, i just want to be sure i can also get atleast 1 other lug into play also...i definatly dont want to screw with the feet, which maked the kart attractive...and i like the use or ordnance steel rahter than stainless... i do not like stainless for barrels....so it sounds like the kart ez fit may be a go after all....

[hutch1510]

tuner 1 thing i did just notice was that while the lugs on a stock norinco barrel are deep .060, when go to install with a proper link, it does not allow much more than.040 vertical lug engagement... so question, do you know if the kart easy fit barrels have the taller lug feet specs, than a stock norinco barrel? my slide and frame are not sloppy or overly loose, but it for sure looks like if i had a barrel with longer feet it would be easier to install... just curious if you knew if the dimensions to a kart ez fit, are different than a stock norinco barrel, as for engagement to be moreso, and still maintaing nice feet to slide stop engagemnet as well as having lugs make more engagement... long story short, a taller barrel lower lug section.

[hutch1510]

actually i thought about it and realized i always thought the kart pads were on the face of the lug, so as to adjust "horizontal" lock up, now i realize that the pads are on top for "vertical" lock up... i want both vertical and horizontal adjustments as thats the only way to get atleast 2 lugs contacting horizontal, and vertical,,,, so it looks like a hardfit would be the only way to achieve this, i just hate having the rear slide move rearword, before engaging number 1 lug, and find thats the hardest part to finding the corret barrel.

[tophatjones]

I just fit a Kart ez barrel a couple weeks ago, using clay to indicate the vertical and horizontal lug engagements. Feel free to ask me any questions and I'll try my best to help.

[1911Tuner]

Hutch...no, you can ewqualize the horizontal engagement with the Easy Fit, too. Most of the Norincos that I've rebarrelled have the second lug engaging before the first, and on average by about .002 inch. Just dress the face a little until you pick up the first lug, or get so close that a couple hundred rounds will seat it and bring it in.

Note that I said...usually. This isn't always the case, which is why it's important to know where the slide lug rear faces are in relation the the barrel lugs' front faces. I've fitted a couple that didn't need anything for horizontal equalization. I also know that somebody wins the Powerball every so often.

Or...as a wise, wise man noted: (Can't recall who it was.)

"I only know what I can measure."

One other thing...Vertical play isn't the determining factor in vertical engagement as much as aggregate vertical stacking from the slidestop crosspin centerline and the bottoms of the slide's lugs, and the height of the lugs themselves. What you want isa for the slide's lug to bottom on the barrel slots between lugs so that the force is taken as low on the barrel lug as possible.

If your barrel lugs are .060 inch tall...and the slide's lugs are only .045 inch tall...the force is hitting .015 inch high on the barrel lug...even if the top of the barrel lug is bottomed out in the slide's lug slot. While that's better than both lugs bearing high on one another...it's not as good as having the slide lug bottomed out on the barrel, with the barrel lug taking the stress low on its face.

If, after using the pads to fit the barrel...you have a lot of pad left...the slide lug is bearing high on the barrel lug. A tight vertical and horizontal fit...no fore and aft play of the barrel in the slide...will help a lot in delaying barrel lug setback...but still not an ideal fit. I've done a few that...after swaging and peening the rails to tighten up the slide/frame vertical fit...I had to take the pads completely down to the radius of the slot...and even take a little out of the slot to get the barrel to vertically engage and let the slide go to battery. Not a common thing...but not all that rare, either.

[hutch1510]

I just fit a Kart ez barrel a couple weeks ago, using clay to indicate the vertical and horizontal lug engagements. Feel free to ask me any questions and I'll try my best to help.

yes very interested, what type of 1911 did you fit barrel too??? and how long did it take?

TUNER, as usual thanks very much for the information, i am going to go ahead and order the kart e-z fit, and give it a shot, yes i know of the number 2 slide lug "often" being to the rear, on the plus side i have (2) slides, 1 original to the nork, and a "new" slide from canada, having 4 barrels that i bought from time to time, i can see a fairly big difference in the specs, i think i will probably use the new "norinco" slide, it's out of canada, as it seems more in spec with the lugs, the only thing i dont like about it is it has "etched" norinco mkarkings rather than the old "rollmarks" but it does have lowered and flared ejection port, both have the same very moderate vertical and horizontal play when on slide, which is fine as it's gonna be a "carry" piece anyway, thanks for heads up on being able to adjust horizonatally as well as vertical.... i have a KIMBEr barrel that fits the new slide "perfectly" however the lugs are so shallow as it looks like >040 lug engagement would not even be possible... why would they "use" such a barrel???

[1911Tuner]

the lugs are so shallow as it looks like >040 lug engagement would not even be possible... why would they "use" such a barrel???

Likely because they've got the specs manipulated to place the slide lug corners low on the barrel's lugs...as in the top surface of the barrel is bearing on the slide lug. If that's the situation...and the other lugs are also horizontally engaging and absorbing their share of the brunt of recoil... .040 is adequate for all but the hard life of an IDPA/USPSA shooter that sees 50-60 thousand rounds annually.

[hutch1510]

interesting, so it would be a safe bet neither of my norinco slides would be countoured for this...in other words it would only be good on a Kimber slide properly dimesioned for it,,,, thanks for the heads up tuner...........