Cracked barrel on 1911, anyone ever seen the likes before??

[Pulp]

I was shooting my Springfield 1911 the other day, every shot seemed normal. On third shot, slide only came back about 1/8 inch and locked up. I took it home, shined a light down the barrel to check for stuck bullet, could see empty brass. I put a dowel rod down the barrel and drove the action back enough to clear the brass, thinking maybe split brass or something. A gunsmith will probably love me for that move. :lol: Then I looked at the muzzle end and found this:

[Broken External Image]

I don't think the shot before was a squib, but I won't rule it out. I'm sure I heard it hit steel, but I was sure I had a clean match at EOT, and found out I didn't. The load was a not quite maximum charge of TiteGroup under a 200 grain bullet.

Any suggestions?

 

[Glocktogo]

Springfield has had metallurgy issues before. I once saw the entire front half of a Springfield slide shear off. Send it back to them and they should replace it for you.

 

[ldp4570]

I was shooting my Springfield 1911 the other day, every shot seemed normal. On third shot, slide only came back about 1/8 inch and locked up. I took it home, shined a light down the barrel to check for stuck bullet, could see empty brass. I put a dowel rod down the barrel and drove the action back enough to clear the brass, thinking maybe split brass or something. A gunsmith will probably love me for that move. :lol: Then I looked at the muzzle end and found this:

[Broken External Image]

I don't think the shot before was a squib, but I won't rule it out. I'm sure I heard it hit steel, but I was sure I had a clean match at EOT, and found out I didn't. The load was a not quite maximum charge of TiteGroup under a 200 grain bullet.

Any suggestions?

I'd be on the phone first thing Monday morning talking to SA about this, and tell them you were using factory ammo. I've never seen one split like that. Looks more like poor steel than anything to do with your ammo.

 

[Honeybee]

that and quit loading hot loads. the only one they impress is you.

 

[Shadowrider]

If it was a squib I would think you would be able to tell that there is a bulge somewhere along the length. I'd box it up and send it back.
While working in machine shops for over 20 years I bet I only saw a bad heat treat batch twice. Every once in a great while a lot of steel just won't come up to strength at heat treat. You can go back and look at the chemical analysis certs and see that everything is in spec, but the steel just won't do what it's supposed to. It probably had some sort of inclusion or stress riser in the bar stock it was machined from. Neither of these happen very often, but it does happen on occasion. SA will make it right.

Edit to add: Looking at it again I see a black "mark" (looks like a letter C) at the muzzle. What is that? Can't tell from the photo but it almost looks like something emedded in the steel. If so that's a blatantly obvious bad piece of steel. Usually you can only see this kind of stuff with dye penetrant or mag particle inspection and I seriously doubt they do that on parts like this, but they probably should.

 

[1911Nut]

Call SA, they will fix it for you... Tell em you were shooting factory ammo...

 

[HiredHand]

Looks like its time for a Bar-Sto barrel.

 

[Mitch Rapp]

JB Weld.

 

[ronny]

Edit to add: Looking at it again I see a black "mark" (looks like a letter C) at the muzzle. What is that? Can't tell from the photo but it almost looks like something emedded in the steel. If so that's a blatantly obvious bad piece of steel. Usually you can only see this kind of stuff with dye penetrant or mag particle inspection and I seriously doubt they do that on parts like this, but they probably should.

I agree! That looks very much like an inclusion.

 

[Buzzdraw]

We'll know more when the entire barrel is extracted from the gun. Crack definitely is not in the location where most 1911's fail when a squib is followed up by a full charge bullet. That failure at 6:00 almost looks like a crack along a forging line. That's assuming that SA is using barrels machined from a forging these days, instead of from bar stock.