Available Link Sizes

[niemi24s]

Got curious, for some goofy reason, about how many different sizes of M1911 barrel links were available. Found 7 manufacturers making a total of 27 different sizes as shown fuzzily below:
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p232/niemi24s/scan0009a.jpg
• Marvel & Fusion mark theirs with the number of thousandths (of an inch) the link is above or below the standard length of 0.278 inch.
• The 5 others use a simple ordinal numbering system, and note that Kings' sizes do not relate to those of the other 4 makers.
• Illustrations at the bottom are not absolute - they're just what was obtained from my link assortment, websites, emails and telecons.
• Unsure of EGW link material

Regards

[Canuck-IL]

Nice job!! Thanks for putting that together.
/Bryan

[Hawkmoon]

Just to further confuse the issue, I was fine tuning a pistol the other day. It was shooting well below point of aim, and I found that it had an UNmarked +9 (+0.009") link in it. I dumped out my drawer of "standard" links ... all unmarked ... and for some reason I decided to measure them all. These had come at various times from various sources. All were unmarked. Most actually were .278", but I also found two in there that were +.003 and one that was +.006.

It's a jungle out there. You really have to check and double-check everything.

Oh -- on the pistol that was shooting low, I replaced the _+.009 link with a +.003 link, I still had about .043" of lockup, and it now shoots to point of aim. It was also riding the link hard with the longer link in it. It's better now, but it still might be worth trying a standard link to see what might happen.

[niemi24s]

Thanks for putting that together.
You're welcome - 'twas my pleasure. :p
It's a jungle out there.
Thanks for sharing your experience.

Ever wonder how a urethane (as in a shock-buff) link would work? :D

Cheers

[niemi24s]

This might be a little easier to read than the first one:
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p232/niemi24s/scan0013a.jpg
The lower and upper case letter o's in the location portion represent the link holes.

[Hawkmoon]

Ever wonder how a urethane (as in a shock-buff) link would work?
Ummmm ... no.






And I'm trying hard NOT to think about it even now. :eek:

[niemi24s]

And I'm trying hard NOT to think about it even now. :eek:
Wondered if maybe a slight amount of resilience in a link would help keep the barrel from rising when a round being fed hit the barrel ramp a little low.

But, that same resilience (or the urethane cracking) might prevent the lugs from fully disengaging (or disengaging at all) before the lower lugs hit the VIS. That'd be very, very bad news! :eek:

It was a genuine half-baked idea du jour!! :butthead:

[bushka]

I think a shorter link would slow the barrel rise if your cartridges are hitting the ramp.

This would be like a one speed motor spinning a grinding wheel,meaning,the larger the radius of the wheel-the higher the RPM`s it will spin at its cutting surface.as the wheel wears down,your rpms go down too,because the wheels radius gets smaller.

got that one from machine shop.

a link in compression may give you a bit of delay before the bbl moves much,but I not sure about that one.

[niemi24s]

I think a shorter link would slow the barrel rise if your cartridges are hitting the ramp.
You're probably correct, but there's a limit to how much shorter it can be. Too short a link will prevent VIS contact - and that's not good.
a link in compression may give you a bit of delay before the bbl moves much,but I not sure about that one.
If the link was just barely into compression when the barrel was linked down, I think any low bullet contact on the barrel ramp would cause the barrel to move forward and up at the same time. If the link was a little loose I think the barrel could move forward a little before the link would make it go up.

I don't have a 1911 with this problem. The urethane link idea came when doing one of those "what if" mental exercises - when I should have been out cutting firewood!

Cheers

[George Smith]

You're welcome - 'twas my pleasure. :p

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Ever wonder how a urethane (as in a shock-buff) link would work? :D

Cheers

Well, close.

We did some work testing to select link and slide stop materials.

First the slide stop.
Were machining slide stops from solid so we thought, actually Steve though, lets make an aluminum slide stop!!!!

Um, Ok.

So we selected a gun that the barrel is fit correctly in, locks down when out of battery, barrel rear motion stops on the frame.

Installed an alunimum slide stop. Shot it, worked, shot more, worked.
glass beaded it to see contact points, nothing out of the ordinary.

after 60 rounds, the slide stop showed no appreciable wear.
lesson, if your gun is breaking slide stops, the barrel is probably stopping on the link not the frame as it should.

So a couple weeks later were making links.
So we made some out of alunimum. (not shock buffs thats crazy talk :) but not exactlytool steel either)
shot the gun with an aluminum link and removed and measured.
no stretch after 50 rounds.
Same answer, if your gun is set up correctly the link pulls the barrel down out of battery but it does not stop the rearward motion of the barrel.

Thank you for the chart, we printed it out.

geo

www.egw-guns.com