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

[J. R. WEEMS]

AMT

This one came with rubber- wrap-around grips-- they went in the box . Have had no problems with this one using full power hand made loads.

 

[texmex]

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.

That is exactly what the guy working on mine told me. He had never run into a 1911 that he couldn't make work before this one. His test to determine that a 1911 would feed was to load a magazine with empty cases and hand cycle them through. If it will feed empty cases, it will feed just about anything as long as the recoil spring is matched to the load. Some of the Essex frames we looked at had problems with improperly made magazine release holes and improperly located slide stop holes. Many bullseye shooters had 1911s made on Essex frames that were very accurate. Like AMT, if you got a good one it was great. If you got a bad one it might be more trouble than it was worth. They were inexpensive enough back then that you could just buy another one. Some of those guys went all out on their bullseye guns with sharply stippled front straps, fine checkering on the rear of the slide/extractor and extended front sights. Sort of like benchrest shooters, no detail was too small to address.

 

[6GUNSONLY]

When the Hardballer first came out in the late 70s, my LGS got two of them. I bought one, my buddy who worked in the shop bought the other one. His ran perfectly, mine had feeding problems, even with ball ammo. Sent it back to AMT, but the problems persisted. The guy who bought the other one was a pretty advanced amateur gunsmith, especially with 1911s. He tinkered with it some and got it pretty reliable. I eventually traded it to my brother-in-law, who still has it and loves it. BTW, mine came with checkered wood grip panels.