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I recently had an excessive number of ejection failures with my Kimber Eclipse Ultra II. Additionally, this little 1911 has always had a habit of kicking brass straight back at my forehead a third of the time, resulting in tiny nicks that bled profusely when I forgot to wear headgear at the range. It had become so unreliable that I had to switch back to my Bertta PX4 Storm .40 for concealed carry until I could get the reliability issue resolved.

I ordered a new extractor from the factory and installed it myself, but it didn't help. I was on the verge of taking it to a gunsmith when I did a last-ditch search on the internet and discovered a simple solution: pull that extractor out and give it a bit of a bending tweak.

It worked. My baby is running like the well oiled machine it is now and the brass is kicking out to the right as it should.

Wish I'd found this tip a lot sooner.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=ENFoZPF2-FM[/youtube]

If you're a "cut-to-the-point" guy, 7:15

Good info... Thanks.!

This is my first 1911...even though I've had it over two years now I'm still learning. And these compact models are much more finicky than the full size bricks. Very reliable and stable if you have everything "adjusted" right, otherwise they're apt to frustrate. Kinda like Linux systems.

AndyC wrote:Wish you'd asked a lot sooner - but glad you got it fixed

I had to do a similar thing for a guy on Sunday at the range.

Brand new Springfield 5" 1911 wasn't feeding at all - the extractor was under wayyyy too much tension, so it wasn't allowing the case-rim to slide up under it at all; we pulled it out and used the extractor-tunnel to bend it gently back, after which it ran like a champ.

I had the opposite experience with another Springfield 1911 recently. It wouldn't eject the last round. Instead, it extracted it and drove the casing backwards partially back under the feed lips, and the recoiling slide crushed the mouth of the case - really ugly.

Inspection found that the extractor had NO tension - none, zero, zilch. Bringing it back to spec with an extractor bending jig, and a Weigand tension gauge fixed it right quick.

It would appear that Springfield could improve their product significantly by putting a little QA effort into the extractor area in the future.

I should go to the range with you. I like free gunsmithing. Inherited a S$W Model 19 with a 10" barrel last year that has a sticky extractor star. Dreading tearing that one down. People have no idea how complex a revolver really is. Like a Swiss watch.

tfrazier wrote:I should go to the range with you. I like free gunsmithing. Inherited a S$W Model 19 with a 10" barrel last year that has a sticky extractor star. Dreading tearing that one down. People have no idea how complex a revolver really is. Like a Swiss watch.

Before you go taking apart things you might have trouble getting back together, you might try dousing the extractor star and extractor rod with one of the strong solvent gun cleaning sprays (Gunscrubber comes to mind) while pushing the extractor rod in and out and letting it drain, then lubricating the extractor rod and pushing it in and out a few times.

If the problem is sticky powder residue on something that should be sliding smoothly, there's a pretty good chance that will fix it with no disassembly at all.

Thanks! I'll give that a shot. And for the record, the only revolver I've ever disassembled (and put back together) was my old Ruger GP100 which I carried for a year during my LEO days prior to switching to a 92F. That was a revolver with brilliant design as far as simplicity and user friendliness for field stripping and cleaning.

Thing fired smooth, too, despite the heavy trigger pull.

I won't be trying that with the model 19...if it has to be dismantled I'll take it to a pro as advised.

Sell me your Eclipse. I have 3 cases of beer and a nice slab of brisket. Two best things man can ask for.

68Charger wrote:Sell me your Eclipse. I have 3 cases of beer and a nice slab of brisket. Two best things man can ask for.

Throw in $1,300.00 and you've got a deal. I looove my Kimbers.