Briley Bushings, one of the features of those wonderful pieces crafted by the Performance Center. Back when 'crafted by the Performance Center' actually meant something ahh but I digress...

I've had a couple pieces come across the healing bench recently with some pretty severe issues with the Briley Bushing so I thought I would post some info here for the 3rd gen crowd to better equip you in the care & feeding of Briley Bushings.

So what is a Briley Bushing in the 3rd gen world? What we have here is a two piece barrel bushing assembly consisting of the bushing proper which is threaded into the slide and a spherical ring which fits into that bushing. Together they providing a tilting barrel design a nearly friction free non-springing pivot point at the muzzle...



The Bushing is machined with a very shallow ACME thread and a mating thread is machined into the slide. Bushings are screwed into the slide, aligned across 3 & 9 o'clock then secured with a retaining compound such as Locktite 680. Essentially glued in place. Then once the retaining compound has cured, any excess is wiped up and the spherical ring is installed.

And that leads us to a couple issues...

How to ensure the bushing stays put and, how to get the spherical ring out and back in for routine cleaning, without wrecking it.

For the first issue, how to keep the bushing in place, you must avoid using any penetrating fluids, sonic tanks, or strong solvents when cleaning. Especially anything containing acetone, xylene, or methylene chloride. Stuff like spray brake cleaner, gasket remover or gunscrubber is a no no. Any of that stuff will break down the retaining compound and your bushing will come loose.
I've had one or two here that I could unscrew by just sticking a finger in the bushing, the retaining compound being looong dead.

If the bushing ever were to come loose, it's not a big deal to fix that, just a bit tedious. Every bit of the old rotten adhesive has to be cleaned outout of there before re-installing the bushing...



And that brings us to the little gold ring...

The Spherical ring is sized nominally to be 0.001" larger than the barrel's OD.

The spherical ring is machined from an alloy called "Stressproof".
Stressproof is a specialty steel that is extensively cold worked to remove any and all internal stress from the material. This is so when machining little tiny parts to very precise tolerances there is no internal stress in the steel that will cause your part to change in shape or dimensions as it's carved out of the billet.

The rings are coated through the PVD process with Titanium Nitride and that's what lends to gold color. What's important to know about Titanium Nitride is that it's very VERY hard. So hard in fact that it's clean off the Rockwell C scale and has to be measured on the Vickers Hardness scale. To illustrate, a typical premium knife steel is around 60 on the Rockwell C scale or about 740 Vickers. Titanium Nitride hardness is between 1800 - 2100 Vickers.

Now as to why I bring all that up. It's because when one goes about poking around in there with some kind of tool to remove the ring you run slam into the "eggshell effect". You see, the stressproof steel is relatively soft compared to the TN coating so when you grab it with pliers or pry or poke at it with some other tool you break the coating. And that lifts up a bunch of ridiculously hard/sharp edges that absolutely shred the...Well it scratches up the barrel pretty good and that's in addition to the ring being bent out of round.

Let's take a look at a couple. This is the ring out of a compact 945, I see a very odd uneven wear pattern and a bunch of scratches and tool marks...




And on the pointy end of the slide I note a rolled edge where I surmise a tool was planted to pry with. I also see the Bushing looks slightly proud of the slide, some adhesive residue that looks suspiciously like superglue, and it looks like the bushing has been sanded or polished somewhat, the interior of the bushing is pretty scratched up too...




The fellow who owns this reported he couldn't get the barrel out of the slide. I found out why after I got it apart and measured things. The ring was bent out of round into an egg shape and would bind on the barrel's muzzle end. Once I got it all apart I could not get that ring to slide onto the barrel at all where it should be a close but smooth slip fit.

Here's another ring, this one is out of an, as told to me, unfired CQB and except for the damage to this ring the gun is in utterly perfect condition...



Looks like something I'd find in my gravel driveway under the truck. Barrel finish badly scratched up and it was so bad that once in battery, you had to bang the muzzle against the edge of the bench to get it to unlock. Could not pull the slide back by hand without banging it on something first.

Anyway, the fix on both of these guns was to spin up the barrels and polish out the damage to restore the original finish. Then measure for fitting of new rings.

Fortunately, for the 45 caliber pieces, the spherical rings are still available from Briley. they are the exact same rings dimensionally as used in the current production Briley Bushings for 1911 pattern guns.

Just measure the muzzle end across vertical and horizontal, average the two values and order a ring that's .001 bigger.

Now about getting the ring in and out without wrecking the thing.

Back to our subject 945 compact, how do we get that ring outa there?



Well, first of all ya gotta remove the barrel. Then you're gonna need a tool. I'm gonna use this, (the non-fuzzy end)...



Take and gently push on the ring from the side to tip it out...



Only from the side, left or right doesn't matter, just NOT from the top or bottom, it will bind up...



Sometimes it will go only so far then stick. Don't go for the visegrips just yet. Just reach across to the opposite side and lift up gently...



Keep at it until you have the ring turned out 90°...



At this stage just reach in there and grab it. Rotate it 90° to align with the slots across 3 & 9 o'clock then lift it out...



Reverse the steps to install the ring. Drop it in...




Rotate 90° and flip it into position...



Then it just needs a wee bit of adjusting to ease installing the barrel. Push it in slightly at the top edge just below the front sight. This sets the ring up to align with the barrel as you drop the barrel in...



That's about it.
Key points: never force the ring & no metal tools. If it binds, back up and start over, perhaps from the other side. Always flip it out from the side starting at one of the cutouts in the bushing. Never from the top or bottom.

Ok then...

Merry Christmas all!

Cheers
Bill

__________________
Because they don't make a .46