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Old 04-15-2018, 01:12 AM
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Fastbolt Fastbolt is offline
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Originally Posted by Trooper224 View Post
It's due to all the Youtube vids posted by twenty somethings sporting neck beards and lumberjack plaid, extolling the virtues of the old 3rd Gen. pistol they just acquired. I've seen them at the range as well, acting as if they've just discovered something mysterious that no one else has ever seen. It's actually pretty amusing. These days, show up in cop circles with a pistol that isn't made of plastic and they act like you've just walked out of an old black and white movie.

Speaking of extractors: if anyone knows where I can pick up a spare please let me know. I'd like to have an extra on hand, as I became used to the practice when I carried a 1911. It's the only part I can see that might become a wear item down the road.
Those are still one of the parts that S&W ought to have, if only in their KY parts facility. Like the other small parts, they were available in both plain stainless and black (just a cosmetic preference).

If you ever decide you need to replace one, email me. I can offer some info. If you're any kind of a machinist, or can have a good one do the work for you, I can give you the Go/No-Go dimensions for the bar gauge used in filing/fitting the .45 3rd gen extractor. It's used as a simple block gauge to check the distance from the L/side of the breech face to the inside edge of the extractor hook, as the adjustment pad is filed down on the inside of the extractor (allowing the hook to reach increasingly inward). Most extractors are over-sized (on the adjustment pad) and will require judicious filing to make the hook have the proper reach.

The extractor spring tension is a bit more costly to check properly, as it requires buying a Wagner Force Dial Gauge ($150?) that reads in the low/single digit LBS range using the correct hooked extension, which is used to pull on the extractor hook, pulling the extractor out to the extractor's deflection point (against spring tension). There's a recommended range (min/max) for the tension/lbs. There are some optional extractor springs available that armorers/techs could use to get any particular extractor to fall within the correct range in any particular slide.

The 3rd gen extractors were pretty robust, though, and especially the .45/10 extractors. Unless someone abuses one by making it a practice of dropping the slide on a round dropped directly into the chamber, it takes some years and some thousands of rounds to start to wear one. I've seen 3rd gen extractors continue to function normally even after showing chipping (but it's obviously best to replace a chipped one, to restore the extractor to normal spec ).
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Last edited by Fastbolt; 04-15-2018 at 01:14 AM.
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