Fixing The Commodore

During the course of working with firearms I expect guns coming into the shop to be older, abused, seen hard use or even dropped and broken. I do not expect factory new firearms malfunction and exhibit more than one serious drawback. Such was the case with a handgun I recently examined. The problems were handled in a straight forward manner and the procedure will apply to other handguns of the same type.

The rub is that in some particulars the handgun, the Shooters Arms Manufacturing (shootersarms.com.ph) Commodore, had promise. The SAM Commodore is Commander-length 1911, meaning it has a 4¼-inch barrel and slide compared to the 5-inch Government Model 1911, but with a steel frame. When first introduced, Commanders were aluminum framed weighing about 27 ounces. Today, most 1911 pistols this size are called Commanders and the aluminum frame guns are called LW (Light Weight) Commanders.

The Philippine-made Commodore takes it name from the naval rank Commodore, which outranks a Commander. There must have been some marketing talent involved in selecting the name. The Commodore exhibits good fit and finish. The barrel and the locking lugs seem well fitted. The barrel bushing is finger tight but nice and snug. When the slide is racked the fit of the locking lugs is good and the barrel link seems OK.

A different model of 1911 from the same maker tested a few years ago showed indifferent fit, however, it functioned fine except it did not lock on the last shot. This earlier handgun also showed such a loose barrel link fit the link pin fell out when the pistol was field stripped and examined. The latest pistol was a different matter, I first thought. The Commodore exhibited good fit and fin- Feed ramp polish is indicated. ish and the rib along the top of the slide gave it a nice look, akin to a short Gold Cup.

The slide features an ejection port scalloped out in a manner superior to GI guns and equal to most modern production 1911 handguns. The rear sight is a good design, thicker than average and with a good square notch and dovetailed front sight, superior to staked-in sights. The grips are rubber, just fine in an inexpensive pistol, and properly supported the plunger tube.

Trigger compression is smooth enough and seems free of both creep and backlash, with the RCBS registering trigger pull gauge showing 6.25 pounds of trigger compression. The SAM Commodore .45 is supplied with a single ACT-MAG (act-mag.com) magazine. The pistol exhibited quite a few tool marks after the slide was removed from the receiver. When field stripped the re-

The barrel finish leaves something to be desired. coil spring simply fell off of the recoil spring guide. It was not a press fit. This did not impede function but doesn’t seem ideal. The Commodore features a well designed beavertail grip safety and extended slide lock. The safety has good indent. A warning was the large paddle-type slide lock. Past experience indicates that these slide lock safety designs are prone to problems.

Whether the extra weight builds momentum or the support hand contacts the slide lock and forces it into the slide during recoil, these heavy slide locks tend to cause tie ups in the 1911. The slide lock indent is in the same position as the other 1911s but the other slot in the slide is not. The initial opinion after examination was positive, however, when the firing test came the Commodore proved to be a disappointment. The pistol continually locked open during the initial test with 230 grain ball ammunition.

The slide lock was locking into the slide with no apparent cause. Despite attempting to shift the grip, the problem was traced to the support hold contacting the oversize slide lock. Adopting a very low support hand hold helped, but only by firing with one hand was the problem alleviated. That isn’t acceptable. The second problem was worse. The pistol would not feed any of the hollow point ammunition we brought to the range. Not the loads chosen for testing, not a few XTP loads in the range bag and not even com).

This was a concern due to the high sights and barrel rib but the pistol is all 1911. the Winchester Silvertip, a bullet with a nice rounded ogive. There was no use to waste more money and ammunition by checking the piece with other types. This is anew pistol and should feed JHP ammunition. Other tests that were attempted. Changing the ACT MAG out for a Wilson Combat ETM magazine made no difference.

A Wilson Combat slide lock was tried as their Bulletproof line is excellent and didn’t require fitting (Brownells #965-000-028WB). At $57.99, this fix adds considerably to the cost of an inexpensive hand-

This part was a poor choice for the Commodore. gun but it proofed with 230 grain FMJ ammunition. The original, poorly-designed slide stop should have been caught during testing and evaluation. It might be understandable that American JHP might not be widely available in the Philippines but the pistol malfunctioned in factory configuration with 230 grain FMJ. SAM pistols aren’t junk grade guns in appearance or fit but the first firing impression gave pause.

As for the feed ramp, this can be cured by careful polishing. The owner is going to handle this later and the pistol was up and running with ball. The handgun seemed salvageable. Auto Forward Another problem related to the slide stop is auto forward and has several causes. This defect occurs when a loaded magazine is inserted and the slide runs forward on its own. There are several ways to check for the problem for it.

First, with dummy rounds in a magazine, lock the slide back and firmly insert a magazine with a good slap while avoiding contact with the slide stop. If the slide falls, retry the test inserting the magazine slowly, carefully observing to see if the slide lock catches the nose of the cartridge. If so, the slide lock is too long and should be trimmed down to accommodate loaded cartridges. If this isn’t the cause another problem could be the slide lock isn’t gaining sufficient adhesion with the plunger tube spring.

This is difficult to check. Even a broken spring isn’t always easily discovered. Field This results in a problem as the part picks up inertia and locks the slide during firing. strip the pistol and check the plunger tube spring. If all appears normal, drill a small indent into the back of the slide stop to allow the plunger spring to take a bigger bite of the slide stop. Another area of concern might be the engagement of the slide lock into the slide.

Possibly the indent in the slide has become worn and needs to be recut. It can never be assumed that anew production pistol is reliable. As illustrated with the Commodore problems, sometimes mistakes occur that should never have left the factory. AG