Pawn shop find: AMT Hardballer **PROBLEM UPDATE**

[Walter Rego]

A buddy and I each bought AMT Hardballers in the fall of 1980. His the 5" model and mine the 7" Longslide model. Both came with full checkered walnut stocks. His always ran flawlessly, mine needed to have a gunsmith polish the feed ramp and barrel throat and tune the extractor. After that it had no problems. I set mine up as was the fashion at the time with Pachmayrs and rubber mag bumpers. It is very accurate with the H&G #68 bullet and a target charge of Unique.

 

[olivehead1]

So this is interesting. I did all the standard function checks in the shop before buying, including launching a pencil across the store a couple times. I'm sure I dry fired (no pencil or snap cap) a couple times as well. After cleaning tonight, put it all back together and dry fired to function check and drop the hammer, and the firing pin got stuck and the firing pin stop fell out. A light tap with a brass punch freed the pin, and I duplicated this a number of times. Then the light bulb went off and I put a snap cap in and dry fired a number of times with no issue. Shot a pencil across the room, too, without issue. I'm thinking this gun is the victim of too much dry firing without snap caps, etc., over the years. So as long as I only dry fire with a snap cap, or shoot with live ammo, I think I'm good to go.

Question: How do I permanently correct this problem so that one day a month from now or ten years from now if I decide to sell or trade it off, I'm not left with egg on my face when it's dry fired and sh*t starts sticking and falling off? I already tried several new FP springs from the parts bin and no change.

 

[6string]

Sounds like the firing pin is binding when fully forward.
If you press the firing pin fully into the slide, with no spring or stop, does it stick in place or freely drop out?

I'd check the firing pin and the stop for any peening or burrs.
You could also check for the same in the firing pin hole in the slide, maybe even the breech face.
If a simple polishing doesn't fix it, perhaps try a replacement firing pin.

Jim

 

[SPEEDGUNNER]

It is a pure 1911 and pretty much a stainless copy of the Gold Cup before Colt made stainless guns. The main problem with AMT was their quality control. If you bought 50 of them, 20 would be perfect, 15 would have problems but could be made to run while the other 15 would just be too far out of spec to be useful. Things like you could push the slide stop out no matter what position the slide was in. A long slide AMT I looked at sometimes had the hammer fall when you dropped the slide. If you held the trigger back, the hammer would stay back but if you didn't, the hammer would follow. Not good if you dropped the slide on a loaded magazine. A friend of mine worked on an AMT Government Model till he was blue in the face and never did get it to work reliably. He even tried swapping out parts with another AMT and still couldn't get it to work. He swore that if you took a grip screw off the one that didn't work and put it on the one that did, the good one would stop working. But if you got one of the good ones, they were very accurate. The stainless alloys they had back then were subject to galling in the rails but as long as you kept it well lubricated it would be fine. I hope you got a good one because if you did, it is a nice piece of stainless handgun history.

^^^THIS^^^

 

[Alpo]

You asked about age. I bought a Hardballer frame in 1981. It is A17XXX, so your A06 is obviously older.


I used a GI parts kit to build it, and everything fit fine. Works great. Put a Colt Ace conversion on top to make a dedicated 22 1911.

 

[stansdds]

AMT produced some pretty neat firearms back in the day, too bad that their quality control was spotty at best. Another issue is the stainless alloy they used for receivers and slides. If I recall correctly, it was 17-4 PH, which is fine, except it creates a galling issue with the sliding contact surfaces. White lithium grease is pretty much a requirement for these pistols.

As for parts, standard 1911 parts usually fit just fine.

The firing pin sticking during dry firing can be the result of a number of things. Old, dried, gunky lubricant in the firing pin channel. A broken or weak firing pin spring. A bur on the firing pin. Or the interior surface of the firing pin hole is peened.

 

[olivehead1]

Sounds like the firing pin is binding when fully forward.
If you press the firing pin fully into the slide, with no spring or stop, does it stick in place or freely drop out?

Exactly, the hammer hits the pin, it goes forward against the FP spring tension, and remains fully forward and protruding as much as possible through the hole in the breech face. If I just put in the FP without the spring and press on it with a punch, depending how much pressure I apply dictates how stuck it is; e.g., medium pressure means I can push it out with a punch along and not tap with a hammer. Under pressure from the hammer dropping on it, it most often requires a light tap with punch and hammer. I gave the FP a little polish but that didn't significantly change performance. Again, I put a snap cap in there, no problem and it functions like I'd expect, presumably because the FP strikes the "primer" and can't go fully forward to stick. Even hitting a pencil eraser is sufficient to prevent it sticking, and it shoots the pencil half way across the room. But it shouldn't stick dry firing without a snap cap, so I'd like to correct the issue. I've handle quite a number of 1911s, and never encountered this.

 

[MyDads38]

Bought one, had all the problems listed above; took it to a gunsmith and after a week, he told me to get rid of it!! Would never shoot more than a few rounds before jamming up. Worst handgun experience I ever had :-(

 

[olivehead1]

Bought one, had all the problems listed above...

So you had the sticking FP issue? What did the gunsmith say about that, i.e., why was it sticking?

 

[gwpercle]

I found an AMT slide at a gun show a long time ago and put it with an Essex frame and Colt parts. It is the best shooting 1911 I've owned. My only complaint is the stainless front sight.

As Mick Jagger would sing... "Paint it black"
Or , as I did ...paint it white with Bic White out...the rear sight being black , the flat white front was a bit easier for my older eyes to pick up .
Gary

 

[olivehead1]

Update: I went to LGS and pick up an Ed Brown heavy duty firing pin and installed it right there at the counter. Seems to have done the trick.

 

[tndrfttom]

You asked about age. I bought a Hardballer frame in 1981. It is A17XXX, so your A06 is obviously older.


I used a GI parts kit to build it, and everything fit fine. Works great. Put a Colt Ace conversion on top to make a dedicated 22 1911.

My long slide SN is a 17XXX; very close to Alpo. The parts list is dated January 1, 1982 and there is a very faded stamp on the box that looks like it might say May 11 82. I've shot this a lot in local pin matches with some pretty hot handloads. I broke one rear sight and the barrel split with no other damage.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

I have had mine since 1978, good shooter. AMT pistols seem to have an uneven reputation, I had to send my slide back to the factory, even with the rear sight all the way up it shot too low. Got my slide back ( or a replacement), fine since. I used to shoot IPSC with it, won several matches.
The grips look lighter than my factory grips, also mine came with Allen head screws. Stainless steel and Pachmayr grips are a natural combo IMHO.

 

[Drm50]

I had a Hardballer & Hide Out in 45acp as well as Baby Auto Mag 22mg.
It's been back several years but I think they all had slab grips of checkered plastic.

 

[Walter Rego]

As Mick Jagger would sing... "Paint it black"
Or , as I did ...paint it white with Bic White out...the rear sight being black , the flat white front was a bit easier for my older eyes to pick up .
Gary

You can kind of see what I did with the front sight of my Hardballer in Post 21 above. I found a thin piece of red plastic, I think it was a lid from a can of peanuts or something, degreased the rear face of the front sight and used a tiny artists brush to apply some Crazy Glue to the blade. Then I quickly pressed the plastic into place. After a few minutes I trimmed it with a razor blade. It hasn't moved in 39 years.

 

[F75gunslinger]

For the firing pin issue ( although i see that you have already fixed it ), if you want to mess around with it as a project, clean both the pin and the firing pin channel with something that will eat away any type of old oil residue. My guess is that over time, oil built up in front of the firing pin in the channel and on the pin itself.Without a primer,snap cap,or pencil to hit it basically pushes the 2 residues together and they stick. Only a guess, but that would be my first step to see if I could fix it.

 

[stansdds]

My long slide SN is a 17XXX; very close to Alpo. The parts list is dated January 1, 1982 and there is a very faded stamp on the box that looks like it might say May 11 82. I've shot this a lot in local pin matches with some pretty hot handloads. I broke one rear sight and the barrel split with no other damage.

That is a 2 piece barrel, see the parting line around the chamber just in front of the bottom lug? When made correctly, 2 piece barrels work just fine, most Browning Hi-Power barrels are made in this fashion. Poor materials an/or poor brazing and the 2 piece barrel will cause problems. Since that barrel split down the bore, it is likely poor materials, hot ammo, or an obstruction was shot out of the barrel.

 

[gwpercle]

Update: I went to LGS and pick up an Ed Brown heavy duty firing pin and installed it right there at the counter. Seems to have done the trick.

Awesome !
Time for a range trip and report !
Gary

 

[Rock185]

olivehead1, With the firing pin issue apparently resolved, hope yours works reliably. My brother bought a new Hardballer back in the day. Can't remember what the factory grips were. His Hardballer was just never was reliable with any ammo we tried. We were not knowledgeable enough at the time to diagnose the issue. Guess he got one of those not-so-good ones.

 

[stansdds]

I'd wager that those AMT 1911's that could never be made reliable suffered from dimensional issues with the receiver, such as pin holes and magazine catches not located exactly where they are supposed to be. That messes up the geometry of the parts the pins hold and can create a nightmare when it comes to trying to fix them.