Yahoo! Repaired the gap on my .45

Zell · Mar 19, 2012

As some of you know, last Friday I bought a new .45 FS and afterward noticed a wider than normal gap on the sides of the gun where the slide and polymer dust cover meet. The gap ran about 2" back from the barrel's nose then narrowed to normal to the gun's grip. It looked like I had a droopy dust cover on the front of the gun.

Over the weekend I attached a small C-clamp to the top of the slide and bottom of the polymer dust cover. To protect the surfaces of the gun from the metal clamp, I put a small piece of extra rigid poster board on top of the slide and did the same on the bottom of the dust cover to shore it up. I tightened the clamp to the point where the gap disappeared. I then heated-up both sides of the dust cover with a hot hairdryer for several minutes. I let it sit for several hours with the clamp on and then hit it again with the hairdryer. Later I took off the clamp and the gap size is now down to normal.

Wahoo! I don't have to look at a flaw on my new gun and do not have to send it to S&W to have it fixed.

tharper2202 · Mar 19, 2012

i probably would have opted to have S&W fix the gun.

have you shot the gun before doing this? how accurate was it? id be interested to hear how accurate the gun is now that you did this.

smith10 · Mar 19, 2012

Way to go there Zell. Glad you fixed it, and it worked out great. I Doubt seriously that you could incur any accuracy problems from that, other than if the rail now touched the slide. If you are happy, more power to ya.

Helderberg · Mar 19, 2012

Check the slide guides. They are well back from the dust cover up front. As long as the poly isn't contacting the slide you should not have a problem.
Thanks for the update, this is something to keep in mind for future reference.
Frank.

cololab · Mar 19, 2012

It will be interesting to hear if the polymer has a "memory" if the area gets warm.

BklynE · Mar 19, 2012

How wide was the gap? I own a .45 FS and the gap between the slide and the polymer frame is not the same going down the length of the gun. It is a bit wider towards the front of the gun. I've only seen it with the .45's.

Zell · Mar 20, 2012

tharper2202 said:
i probably would have opted to have S&W fix the gun.

have you shot the gun before doing this? how accurate was it? id be interested to hear how accurate the gun is now that you did this.

No, I haven't yet. But I will tomorrow. I suspect it will shoot just like it's supposed to. It's not like I made major adjustments to it. The gap was brought tighter by only a minuscule of a fraction. Enough to make me feel better about my new gun and not enough to make any difference in the gun's performance. We will see tomorrow at the range.

Zell · Mar 20, 2012

BklynE said:
How wide was the gap? I own a .45 FS and the gap between the slide and the polymer frame is not the same going down the length of the gun. It is a bit wider towards the front of the gun. I've only seen it with the .45's.

I wouldn't know how to measure it but mine did the same thing. There must have been a bad couple batches because most of them are fine but many seem to have this problem. I've read about this issue on several other places on the Internet.

Zell · Mar 20, 2012

smith10 said:
Way to go there Zell. Glad you fixed it, and it worked out great. I Doubt seriously that you could incur any accuracy problems from that, other than if the rail now touched the slide. If you are happy, more power to ya.

Thank you. We'll see how it goes.

Martya · Mar 20, 2012

I am not a plastics engineer, but I know just a little about injection molding, so take this knowing that. And I do not know the components or their percentages making up the S&W polymer.

In plastic injection molding you inject a warm polymer into a closed warm cavity formed by two or more die components. Following the completed injection the die is held closed and the part is held under pressure for a time to 'freeze' the shape. In this case there is a metal frame placed in the die first, then the material is injected over it.

The "warm" and "pressure" I mention is a set of closely controlled time and temperature and pressure conditions - ramp up, hold time, etc.) that should result in an acceptable product. Many bad things that can happen when the time and temperature is not held properly - too hot and you get 'burned' plastic and weak spots, too cold and you get poor shape and incomplete fill, etc. When you run continuously with good settings you get good repeatable results, but startup conditions can vary too hot and too cold until the process is stabilized. If the process is interrupted for some reason and then restarted it is not unusual to scrap several parts until the process is re-stabilized. As close as these few 'distorted' parts appear to the proper shape I'm going to guess somehow one or two parts were kept as the molding process was restarted after an interruption that should have been scrapped (assuming your particular condition is in fact a reject at S&W).

What you might have done by heating that area is weaken the long chain molecule bonding. It *might* return to the original shape, it might not; since you didn't have a closely monitored temperature-controlled treatment it is tough to guestimate the final results. If you didn't 'bubble' or burn the material then maybe you didn't hurt it at all.

You could try putting the frame in the freezer for a few hours, see if it returns to the original shape. Or it may return to the original shape if heated again, but unrestrained. I'm not sure of the material, and, as I said, without controlling the temperature of your treatment you cannot reliably predict the end results. But as stated it is probably not a critical-to-function area, so if it worked for you, terrific!

Zell · Mar 20, 2012

Martya said:
I am not a plastics engineer, but I know just a little about injection molding, so take this knowing that. And I do not know the components or their percentages making up the S&W polymer.

In plastic injection molding you inject a warm polymer into a closed warm cavity formed by two or more die components. Following the completed injection the die is held closed and the part is held under pressure for a time to 'freeze' the shape. In this case there is a metal frame placed in the die first, then the material is injected over it.

The "warm" and "pressure" I mention is a set of closely controlled time and temperature and pressure conditions - ramp up, hold time, etc.) that should result in an acceptable product. Many bad things that can happen when the time and temperature is not held properly - too hot and you get 'burned' plastic and weak spots, too cold and you get poor shape and incomplete fill, etc. When you run continuously with good settings you get good repeatable results, but startup conditions can vary too hot and too cold until the process is stabilized. If the process is interrupted for some reason and then restarted it is not unusual to scrap several parts until the process is re-stabilized. As close as these few 'distorted' parts appear to the proper shape I'm going to guess somehow one or two parts were kept as the molding process was restarted after an interruption that should have been scrapped (assuming your particular condition is in fact a reject at S&W).

What you might have done by heating that area is weaken the long chain molecule bonding. It *might* return to the original shape, it might not; since you didn't have a closely monitored temperature-controlled treatment it is tough to guestimate the final results. If you didn't 'bubble' or burn the material then maybe you didn't hurt it at all.

You could try putting the frame in the freezer for a few hours, see if it returns to the original shape. Or it may return to the original shape if heated again, but unrestrained. I'm not sure of the material, and, as I said, without controlling the temperature of your treatment you cannot reliably predict the end results. But as stated it is probably not a critical-to-function area, so if it worked for you, terrific!

That's a very interesting process. Regarding what I did to the gun, I wondered how much would be too much for the molecules in the polymer to handle before their integrity was compromised. I'm pretty confident that the reshaping I did to the polymer was fairly insignificant to cause any problems but I'm no expert and maybe problems will show up today when I shoot the gun or maybe down the road.

In terms of looking at the part of the framed I heated, I saw no damage at all, not even discoloring. In fact, the frame part that I was heating didn't even get really hot. The metal slide got real hot but I expected that. After close inspection, the surface of the frame and slide, in all directions, looks just like it did when it came out of the box. I suspect the gun's performance will be normal. After I bought the gun, the gap in the gun was noticeable but not strikingly obvious so my modification was very slight. I am amazed at how incredibly tough the polymer/plastic is that's used in these guns. If these guns can handle all the punishment they're put through over the years as well as the major shock-waves that go though the gun when it's fired, then I suspect my minor modification to the frame will hold-up.

Thanks for your comments!

Yahoo! Repaired the gap on my .45

Zell

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tharper2202

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smith10

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Helderberg

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cololab

BklynE

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Zell

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Martya

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