[Veedubklown]

Howdy fellas, back playin with my Bul 9mm 1911, and a couple weeks ago, I broke a firing pin, dry-fire practicing. Not uncommon for 1911's from what I've read, about the the shoulder of the taper taking the brunt of the force, creating a stress point. So, ordered a couple up, (spare parts are awesome). Met the guy I ordered em through at the range, put one in my 1911, function checked it, great.

Get up to my first stage, go to load and make ready, and my gun wont work. Upon closer inspection, I find...



My firing pin, is lodged forward. Pull the pin, and a bur had formed, where that shoulder is impacting my firing pin port. I'm wondering if just a new firing pin spring is gonna take care of this, or if I need to figure out a way to de-bur my firing pin hole? I ran a pipe-cleaner and solvent through the port and channel, and de-burred my firing pin with some scotch-bright. Still sticking. Ideas?

[cciman]

I would leave your breechface alone initially. Does the firing pin move in and out freely without drag-- it may be too big for the slide. Is this a mill spec pin, it may be too big for the hole, or the hole is out of round, is there much play of the pin inside the channel- it may be too small? How many dryfires to break the first pin?

I would throw this pin away.

[Veedubklown]

Yes, the firing pin slides fine, until it gets to the taper of the firing pin. This gun is 9mm, so I highly doubt my firing pin is milspec, since the 45ACP pins are of a larger diameter than the 9mm pins (makes no sense to me, but...whatevs. I found that out the hard way). My firing pin doesn't wobble inside, so I'm not thinking it's out of round or too large.

The firing pin that broke, was the origional, as far as I can tell. This gun is ~15-20 years old, was a service gun before I bought it used. No idea of round count, or how much it had been dry-fired before I got it, and I've dry-fired it, we'll just say, alot.

My firing pin return spring had 2 tapers on it, a bell side where it contacted the shoulder of the firing pin, and a conical side where it sat against the front of the firing pin channel. Just for poops and giggles, I spun it around, and installed it. Problem solved. Got a couple firing pin return springs on order.



I tried to get a pic that could show the tapers in the spring, I'm refering to. Fat side to the firing pin, sticks. Fat side to the breech face, works perfect.