So I get this "drop-in" 400 Cor-Bon conversion barrel for my Colt 1991A1, and I still haven't gotten it to work.
Am I the idiot, am I missing something really obvious?
First the barrel diameter was bigger than my bushing, so I had to sand/polish it for HOURS to get it to fit. It wasn't just the end of the barrel or the final half-inch - it was the entire length I had to work on.
Oh well - that was irritating, but a little bit of fitting wasn't the end of the world, and I'd rather have a tight fit than a loose one (so true for many things
).
But when I took it to the range, it fired on the first shot (woo-hoo!), but did not fire on the second shot (boo-hoo). At first I thought it was a hangfire, and let it sit for a while pointed downrange. I pulled back the hammer and let it have another one, and it fired. Hmm - stange. I was shooting Cor-Bon factory ammo, and I found it unlikely that it was a problem with the ammo.
This happened several times again. But rather than trying to hit the primer several times, I took out the rounds that didn't fire and examimed them (after waiting for a while on each one, of course). On one of the primers, there was a very faint imprint of the firing pin, and on another there was none.
Clearly, it is not the ammo, but the gun.
Can any of you tell me what the problem is? Is it more "fitting" of my "drop-in" barrel that is required? Is the space between the chamber and the firing pin too great? What the hell do I do?
Oh - just to add more confusion. I noticed that the primers on some of the cartridges were "blown out" in that I could look through the primer from the back and see light. Could some of the pieces of the primer metal perhaps have somehow been blown back into the channel the pin rests in and have interfered with the firing pin? I find this really unlikely, but I've never really seen that before, so I thought I would mention it.
The other changes I made when I put in the new barrel were: A stronger recoil spring, a buffer and a full length guide rod.
Anyone have advice? I bought a drop-in kit because I cannot afford to take this to a gunsmith, and nor do I want to. If I wanted to do that, I would have done so in the first place, not bought a "drop in" kit.