Collet Bushings and Dry-Firing: Fact or Fiction?

[texagun]

I recently picked up a very nice 70 Series Colt Government Model and was showing it to my gunsmith yesterday. He is an old gentleman in his 80's who has been gunsmithing since the 1940's and is very well respected in this neck of the woods. He works out of his home and his shop looks like the old photo of John Browning's shop in Utah at the turn of the century. He was commenting on how tight the GM locked up and said the collet bushing was doing it's job. I mentioned that I always changed out the collet bushing with a solid bushing and he said that was unnecessary and that he had only seen 2 failures of the collet bushings in over 60 years of gunsmithing. That kinda blew my mind. I always thought the failure rate was something to worry about. Then I was repeatedly dry-firing the gun showing him what a nice trigger it had right out of the box. He said repeated dry-firing a Colt was a bad idea because the firing pin would peen the firing pin hole and enlarge it creating problems. I had always heard that dry-firing a Colt was OK and would not cause any problems. Guys that go to Gunsite and other combat schools dry fire their guns literally thousands of times, usually without snap-caps in them. So, what about these 2 issues. Are they Fact or Fiction?

1. Is the issue of collet bushing failures blown out-of-proportion or is it something to worry about?

1. Will extensive dry-firing a Colt Auto without snap-caps cause significant damage to the firing pin hole over time?

Edited to Clarify: I have done a search on these 2 topics, and the opinions on the collet bushing seems to be split. I suspect the failure rate of this part may be much lower than suspected. Also, the issue with damage to the firing pin hole in the slide is the issue I am interested in. I can't find any references to that issue. Most are concerned with firing pin damage, not damage from peening of the firing pin hole.




Opinions welcomed.............................

[flintsghost]

According to the books I had to keep, I built maybe 10,000 Colts up for IPSC and Custom Carry from the 70's to early 90's. All the guns I worked on were Colts, not clones, and a few military varieties. Most were series 70 governments.

I have actually seen 1 (one) collet bushing break. In my experience, occasionally the slide rails and frame rails were not running true to each other and that would stress one of the lower prongs on the collect bushing more than the other. All of the collects that I personally saw break or my fellow pistolsmiths had that had broken (a close friend near gunsite had 3) were all broken on a lower prong. Lots of people pay a lot of "lip service" to this phenomenon but very few, who are honest, can actually say they have seen it happen. I believe it was Jeff Cooper and the folks at gunsite that brought this collet issue to the forefront in the early 70's. As I recall, their statements at the time would have led one to believe that it was a lot more common than my experience or the experience of any of the pistolsmiths I know, would indicate.

Early on in the 70's, a friend and I actually adapted a collect bushing from a government to a Commander. We did that by shortening the excess on the collet behind the bear surfaces, and then turning off the front locking lug of the commander barrel. My earlier tests indicated that a Government could actually function and work well with no locking lugs. That particular conversion was also done for "Roger Barnes" who was a writer for Soldier of Fortune magazine at the time. He ended up carrying it in Africa and in central and South American on "jobs" that he had. When I talked with him a year ago, he was still using and carrying it and the collect was still going strong. I only did that a handful of times for professionals and never got one back...and I gave a lifetime guarrantee to the original owner.

As far as peening of the firing pin hole from the inside, I have never heard of such a thing. The firing pin would have to protrude a considerable distance to lock in the FP hole in order for the contact to be such that peening could occur. The issue firing pin spring would probably have to break in order for the pin to move that far forward and when it does, it will most likely get captured by the hole itself due to the friction between the tapered pin and the hole. At that time you would realize it immediately because your firing pin retainer would fall out of the gun, unless it is a fairly tight fit or held in place by staking or a plunger. I don't think that I would loose a lot of sleep about it as there have been millions of these pistols and clones made and most have been dry fired, probably a lot, especially if professionally carried. Since this is the first I've ever heard of this question coming up, I would feel fairly safe in saying..."interesting theory"...but no evidence of it ever happening. However, if it does continue to give you a bad feeling, simply replace the standard FP spring with a Wolff heavy duty version which is stronger and longer. There is absolutely no possibility that with the HD spring installed the pin could reach far enough to contact the hole unless the spring no only broke but deteriorated.

Hope that helps.

[tenx]

The collet bushing rumor is more rumor than fact. There were some failures, but very few and the problem was blown out of proportion. They failed right away in some guns when something wasn't right from Colt to begin with or after many, many tens of thousands of rounds. I leave mine alone. If it is a worry for you, just inspect them for stress cracks and replace as necessary.

Dry fire all you want. That won't peen the firing pin hole in the slide.

[Hill]

Peening of a firing pin hole isn't unheard of, especially in some older design rifles, but in a 1911 it is very unlikely as stated.

It's one of those kind of cautions that were passed from old gunsmith to new apprentice for generations and for all I know it derives from the real danger in dry firing a percussion cap firearm - the possibility of closing up the hole where spark reaches powder in a black powder weapon. Spark not go through hole - shooter becomes hairless, scalped by the injun he attempted to shoot. :)

It's a thing that was design cured in most weapons over 150 years ago and in a 1911 it would be nearly impossible to do. The firing pin spring would be left out, a .45 pin in a 9mm gun(? is this even doable at all?). Even if the pin taper could reach far enough to contact the hole with any force the wear would more likely be to the pin than to the hole, especially in a civilian gun. With a spring broken or missing the back end of the pin would most likely not present itself to be struck by the hammer anyway.

BUT, give an old man the leeway to believe what he will. It's too late to change his mind anyway, and it'll do you no harm to indulge him