[1917-1911M]

Since a rimfire IS a rimfire, it might not be in Walther's best legal interest to make the extractor fit too snugly on the rim. Ammunition manufacturing tolerances could cause an unpleasant surprise when the bolt closes.

Every .22 I have has a tight extractor except the P22. Walther didn't make the same mistake again with the S&W M&P 22 they make. The rim is locked in place with a substantial extractor and enclosed breech face.. M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

I have no doubt you know more about these things than I do. Honestly, I've never had a reason to examine an extractor that closely, other than to ensure it was clean.

Unfortunately the P22 has a design issue regarding the breech face and it has a long pivot on the extractor. You are right about not binding the rim. We've discussed this thoroughly years ago but new folks come on-line and buy new pistols all the time so no comments/questions are out of line. Gun safety is serious business. There are folks that know far more about this than I. But, this is still an issue with the P22.

The official reason for the big gap is the pistol is sold worldwide and must fit all rim thicknesses. I've never seen any .22 ammo with a rim that would require the huge gap the original extractor has but I haven't seen all the .22 ammo in the world either. What I did learn is that big gap allows the spent case to pop out of the pistol in any direction including right between your eyes. This was a huge topic about 5 years ago. And, the new Q model I recently purchased had extremely poor ejection direction. The trick is to have the extractor tip holding the rim on one side while the ejector punts the spent case out on the other side. The rim having to pivot over the extractor is what makes for consistent ejection direction. On the P22...nothing holds the rim tight or in place. The whole bottom of the breech face is open. When hand cycling to clear the pistol if you aren't fast the round will simply fall off the breech face.

A shorter pivoting extractor doesn't just move in toward the center of the case, it can move rearward also insuring a tight fit against the rim. This tight fit does not mean that you can place an extractor that will bind the rim. If you look carefully at a round moving from the magazine on the P22 you will see the breech face begin to shove the rear of the rim of a cartridge that is fully rearward in the magazine. If the nose of the round is up....this movement will force the nose of the round back down as the rim drags along the inside of the mag lips so that the nose of the round will engage the feed ramp. The breech face continues to shove the round forward until the rear of the cartridge clears the mag lips. At this point the rim of the slanting round pops up out of the magazine as it clears the lips and slides in under the extractor and up the breech face as the slide closes and chambers the round. So, the rim is slanting rearward at a critical moment and while you will simply bind slow movement of the slide when hand cycling the same cannot be guaranteed when firing and you are right about the rim possibly being pinched....only it would be worse than if in the chamber because when this is happening the round is not even close to being in the chamber.

Other .22 rifles and pistols deal with this in a variety of ways. Some have undercut extractor, some curve the hook to keep it from binding and most do a better job of securing the rim on the face of the bolt or breech block. At least that has been my experience. The new M&P has it right. The extractor has been moved higher up to allow the rim to square with the breech face before engaging the extractor. The pivot is shorter and a bottom leg on the breech face recess holds the rim in place full mag, empty mag or when unloading. The P22 could be designed this way but everything changes..mags, feed ramp, breech face, extractor, bottom of breech block, etc. So, that isn't likely to happen. M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

I shot the pistol today and it didn't blow up or come apart so I guess all is well with the re-profiled trigger bar ears and ejection was much better with the peened extractor. I was shooting some old bulk Federal and Winchester, both of which do no function well sometimes. They were popping out of there 100% with the shorter recoil spring. M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

I have some land for sale here...some guys showed up the other day that might be interested in buying it. One of the guys is a machinist and they plan on setting up a training area for teaching shooters. The machinist makes gun parts and they intend to make a line of parts for various firearms. So.............I asked could he make some extractors if I showed him prezackly what to do. Sure he said. If this works out I'm making extractors that properly fit the P22 so everyone can get one. Looks like an ideal situation for milling breech blocks and safety drums with precision also.

But first....they have to buy the place. M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

Below is a little history on the extractor mods and changes over the years. M1911

The original Walther P22 extractor. Notice the square cut and the size of the gap as measured from the face of the breech block to the extractor face.

The "gap" that existed with the original extractor and the reason for poor ejection direction. I know the extractor spring is not installed in this photo but it makes no difference regarding the point that is illustrated.

The "new" extractor offered by Walther. The only redesign and the newest extractor offered by Walther for the P22. Notice the additional length of the tip and the undercut which allows the gap between the breech face and tip to be reduced. This concept came directly from our work here as the following pictures will show. Walther cannot duplicate our efforts exactly as that would involve custom fitting for specific types of ammunition. They have made a huge improvement with the new extractor and if yours needs a little more fine tuning, this model makes it very easy.

Remember, the extractor "does not" extract a spent casing when firing. The blow back gasses do that job. The extractor is necessary for removing unfired rounds when unloading the firearm, etc. The extractor also should play a very important part in ejection direction. What happens is the spent case, flying rearward very fast due to burned powder pressure is blown from the chamber, hits the ejector on the left edge of the cartridge rim. This causes the case to bounce forward and to the right and in the process be ejected from the firearm. With a properly designed extractor the rim on the cartridges right side is held captive by the extractor causing the ejector to "pivot" the case over the extractor's tip. A large gap here keeps the extractor from being able to perform it's critical role.

What our shooting has shown is the that the large gap of the original P22 extractor allowed the cartridge to float around and bounce off the ejector in any direction causing poor ejection authority and direction. If the extractor to breech face gap is reduced by peening the tip rearward, or making your own tighter tolerance extractor or installing the new Walther extractor with the reduced gap, then the extractor actually begins to play it's part in causing the rim to catch on the tip and the case to "have" to pivot over the extractor tip when bouncing off the ejector. The result, consistent ejection direction and with more authority.

The new Walther extractor with a round sitting on the breech face. Notice the reduction in the "gap". Walther understands what we were doing here and got with the program. S&W was furnished the new style extractors and a number of folks requested and received them. Unfortunately, the gap is still excessive.

Above is a contraption I made where I filled the existing pivot hole in the extractor and drilled another more toward the front. This closed the gap, was ugly but worked great. Compare this prototype to the VQ model shown below.

Many years ago and in a distant galaxy I figured out what the problem was and posted this picture of how to peen the tip to reduce the gap thus cure ejection direction. Note: The red portion is the part of the original tip that has been peened rearward to reduce the gap. In the process it has also become very sharp. This is good. Notice also that the tip hasn't been peened, rounding it inward, but remains in a proper shape for grasping the rim of a round. NOTE: The new extractors can not be peened, the tip us unsupported and will break off.

How to peen threads were posted along with before and after photos.

A step by step thread was posted on how to file your own perfectly fitted extractor from the barrel wrench.

The fit was so good that a round would actually be held against the breech face. Ejection direction was perfect. Then: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1 DogFish said, "heck there is nothing to this" and milled some absolute beauties, for free. I got two, pictured flanking an original above, and they are both in operation today. He left just enough material on the face for each owner to easily file for the right tolerance in their pistol. Oh man these were perfect. I couldn't have expected Walther to have done any better. And that is a short summary of the history of correcting ejection direction with properly fitted extractors. Walther can't install an extractor with the tight tolerances of the custom ones above because the P22 is sold world wide and must fit all ammo rim thickness. This should provide you with enough history to illustrate the problem, the solution and show S&W reps that Walther does have a new extractor. M1911

Pictured below is the new VQ extractor. Nick at VQ sent me one for sending them the idea. Works pretty good too.

Just doesn't quite close the gap though. If it did it would function like the 1Dogfish model and ejection would be much better. A 1Dogfish currently rides in my new Q model. I am always amazed at how well it extracts and throws a round out of the chamber even when slowly hand cycling. Above is the story of where we are today regarding extractors. Revised Walther or VQ, your only choices.

 

[1917-1911M]

I was making some slo mo videos for Crete's thread this morning while wife was getting ready for a women's thing she is having tomorrow. My lighting wasn't as good as Crete's but these were the first slo mos I'd ever attempted. They turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. Will post soon. Want to get the kinks out. Like, when you hold the pistol out there and then look as the screen to see if you are the right distance from the lense....minutes of boring slo mo occur. I'm thinking I need to stage the shooting, place a stool or something where I can place the pistol in a pre known position so it will be front and center....not too far, not to close.

One thing I did notice was beautiful spent case ejection. Nearly all went in the same direction, same trajectory. Think I have a lightly peened new Walther style in this Q model.....but I fool around with stuff so much I might just have a bent nail. Anyway, I want to add to Crete's thread and what I'm thinking is I will fire from the side and top with my regular modified Q model with the stock recoil spring and then stick the spring from another pistol in it, 4 coils clipped, and see if the slide hammering back on the wimpy spring causes more movement. Then I'm adding a Bull barrel Ruger to the mix to see how it rides when fired. I'm also thinking I will put some type of graph....pegboard which I have some of....behind the pistol so we can count the holes it jumps up and down. I'm not going to be aiming like Crete....I'm going to be shooting fast and furious because I want to see action and not a lot just holding the shootin iron...errrr....I mean zinc.

Wish, you are moving too fast. We need to slow down and address your issues one by one. Paper ammo specs do not match out of the pistol specs. That is for sure. M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

Crete's thread that should be. M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

not what i would call drastic, but yes i did something to it. i just took it apart and didn't put the mag safety spring back in upon re-assembly (part #24, the double spring located near the trigger)......chambered a round and then dropped the mag, it fired every time. i tested it upright, upside down, canted left, canted right...after 6 or 7 test fires, i was satisfied that it would shoot without a magazine.

any ideas on the extractor or ejection problems?

Oh we have ideas......lots of ideas. For one when you remove the mag safety foot and spring your magazine will lock fine, your pistol will fire but the magazine is loose and flops about. This could impact feed. Removal of the safety has been done 100's of times over the years and most people put them back in. I do however remove the inner spring. The device works fine with the larger spring and that makes mag insertion easier, less wear on the mag release, etc.

I don't know if it is the primer, the lead composition, the powder or what but similar "on the box" velocity and energy" data does not match real world shooting. I linked a site called by the inch recently which recorded velocity and the P22 is one of the pistols used. This measured velocity and energy of a number of rounds out of 2" to 24" barrels. I think I put the formula for calculating energy in there somewhere. All I know is RGBs kick like mini mags and both work nearly 100%. I rarely get a dud RGB contrary to other folks. I do get some in all ammo. I even have been buying some ammo that should be pretty hot.....and isn't out of the short barrel. So I don't know the answer to why this or that. As Searcher posted...different ammo is what it is....unfortunately we aren't able to purchase prezackly what we would choose these days but it is getting better.

When I get my new parts I'm thinking I will see how many coils need to be removed to make some of this weaker ammo work 100%. I cut too many off the last challenge. Worked fine for getting down there where some pretty wimpy rounds will cycle and regular hv ammo stills works fine. I haven't been able to figure out how to put two clipped coils back on the spring. I'm also thinking that a shorter spring will make the pistol jump more so everything is a trade off. I expect real target pistols are tuned for certain ammo. Crete's big ole wobbly contraption sure seems to wobble a lot......but the man can still shoot somehow. Back to your issues later.....gotta go help with the womenz stuff.....translated...plant flowers, mow lawn, get out the leaf blower, neaten up the 3.5 acres. Shoot later when the womenz are distracted eating those little cakes and stuff. M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

Removing the middle spring from the safety foot is the first step. I then lightly polish the top and bottom of the expanded tabs on the mags. Do not shorten them, just polish so that there is less damage to the bottom of the polymer safety foot from a rough edge and a smoother surface to unlock from the mag lock. 600 grit or 1000 grit emery is what you want to use. Just polish, don't remove material that would make the tabs shorter.

Very careful when peening the Walther new extractor. it can be peened but it require a lot of light strikes otherwise the tip will break off. I have not tried to peen a VQ extractor. I know exactly what should be done with the extractors to correct ejection direction but have no idea how to manufacture extractors. Guess it takes some type of CAD machining contraption. The tighter the tolerance the better the ejection direction. However, the rim cannot bind between the breech face and extractor when sliding into position when released from the magazine. The rim slides in at an angle before squaring up on the face of the breech block.

One day I'm going to give a little study to what could be done to replicate the Walther made S&W M&P .22 breech face which is perfect for extraction and ejection. M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

I agree,

Not the he needs anyone to agree, but I just went through it myself for the first time. I broke a extractor on a BD. it was easy
I thought I was Peening light, but I was wrong. The VQ replacement works fine with good ammo.
I removed the inner spring as recommended, and the mags drop fine.

Just my .2

My experience also. Less pressure on the mags and release and yet the disconnect safety works 100%. Sure is a tricky little ledge to rest the spring on. Walther.....what were you thinking? Extractors, I broke one too way back and I knew they had to be tapped lightly. I was looking at one I didn't spend much time on as pictured in the, well whatever that thread is I'm working on regarding the M&P nose piece for a P22 and the tip of that extractor needs a little cleaning up. It works fine though. I was successful in peening it rearward just a bit. I have to keep trying this as both my 1DogFish models have gotten away from me....Son has one, Sister the other.....guns too. I haven't tried peening the VQ but it could stand a little tightening up also.....unless we can come up with a M&P nose piece that is easily installed. M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

I'll pm you so we don't take this thread entirely off topic. M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

Leroy pm'd me and asked would I whack up his extractor. Sure I said, send it down. I haven't whacked on it yet but it set me to thinking about something now that I had a new extractor from a recent P22 and the fact that Costa got all my regular new ones and some other extra stuff I had laying around. So, I'm thinking this would be a good time to document a few things. I didn't want to go to the trouble of tearing any pistols apart but I wanted to take a better look at these extractors before I put my microscope together.

I also got tired of trying to hold a round on the breech face while holding the extractor and point and shoot Canon camera. So, I super glued a round onto the face of an old breech block S&W had been kind enough to send me for free in the past for experimenting. Above you can see how I shoved the round up against the top of the recess and centered it. The real way to do this would be to chamber a round, stick some super glue on the breech face, close the slide and add some weight through the muzzle to fasten on the bullet as it would sit in the chamber. But, that was too much trouble, besides, there is really no way of knowing exactly where a spent case might sit on the breech face just prior to hitting the ejector. So, this is the way I'm doing this. The case measures 0.224" and is a Winchester Super x.

Next I needed a way to attach extractors in their proper location. I did this by inserting the retaining pin through the extractor and then seating it in the recess provided for it on the right side of the breech block. A rubber band completed the fastening process. A double check of everything indicated that the extractor was squarely seated. Note, the roll pin for the extractor is larger on the bottom end. This pinches it into the much harder extractor without enlarging the hole in the zinc slide. At least that is my take on it. Perhaps it goes the other way so it can't fall out the bottom. Walther doesn't provide us with this type of detail. So, I just have to make it up..as I go. Probably should take a closer look at this one day.

Above is an original, stock extractor showing the large gap that seems to be the culprit regarding spent cases flying everywhere but where you want them to go. Much has been written about reducing the gap between the face of the extractor and the front of the rim. Tests have shown that a lesser gap does indeed correct ejection direction to a consistent direction.

But what is this? This is leroy's new style extractor fitted to the breech block. This is the newer style breech block by the way. There is still a huge gap. If you read back in my assessment thread on my BC P22Q model you will read that while the pistol looked great it was the worse ejecting P22 I had fired in a while. Hot cases once again hit me in the face. So, now this makes me wonder if Walther has shortened the previously tighter tolerance extractor or if there is that much variation in which mold makes which extractor? I will hammer on this tip later and break it....er,,, I mean peen it and see if I can close that gap a bit.

As you can see both extractors are all the way against the side of the case. They are not going to move further inward unless the case moves off center. Hopefully by then the spent case is on its way out of the pistol.

I'll take some pictures of a VQ extractor installed the same way and see what it looks like. Other folks have my 1DogFish extractors so I can't picture them at present. The rim above measures 0.042" in thickness which is on the thicker side of .22 rims I've measured. Other rounds run from 0.038" up to 0.042". But rim thicknesses vary even in a 50 round box. The gap between the new extractor and the front of the rim is 0.032". And, as you can see is almost as wide as the original extractor. No wonder my new pistol was hitting me in the face. I guess this is what MGMike is talking about when suggesting that you can't make a silk purse out of a pigs ear. I any event I will picture what peening can do to reduce the gap, how a VQ sits and talk to the machinist down the street about all of this including the breech block mod on a genuine milling machine. M1911

Peening is slowly reducing the gap. I need a smaller hammer with the new anvil I am using and one has to wonder how strong peened metal is. The steel in the extractor is very hard and brittle when it comes to peening so I have to go slow. Many light taps....then right when you get to the quitting point the problem is to stop.....and not give it one more whack.

Which brings us to the VQ extractor. A very nice extractor but they also did not reduce the gap enough. I realize a round slides up the face of the breech block at a slight angle and you don't want the rim to be pinched even though the extractor is spring loaded....however, I've run a few 10,000 rounds through some much tighter tolerance extractors with no issues at all which brings me to something that is long over due......just how well do those VQ real steel extractors peen??? One way to find out.

The VQ extractor peens quite nicely and seems to be much more malleable. I actually hit it pretty hard a few times and nothing broke. The circular undercut actually seems to help the tip give as it is peened and knocked inward a bit. I will work on this some more but right now it is 12:30 pm and I need to go to work before the boss fires me.........uh,.....wait....I am the boss. Good, I just fired myself. Think I will go do some shooting.

 

[1917-1911M]

No good news from the machinist. Machining is cost prohibitive.....so is the machinery. Need a surface grinder with a magnetic chuck for the breech block and some other $20K machine for this and that. Back to the old files and bricks I guess.....M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

Slo motion of stock VQ extractor Let's see if the peened one works any better. Will make a video soon. Also of how leroy's performs before shipping back. The Walther one is much harder to peen without braking the tip as the metal is brittle and there is less supporting steel under the tip. The original is easier to peen. Might do that one to. Should document ejection direction with that one in my pistol too....stock vs peened. M1911

 

[1917-1911M]

OK, some videos. RGB and various extractors, 10 rounds. Canon SX280HS slo mo. Can't figure out how to work GoProHero 3+ in slo mo.... M1911



An original, square cut extractor with the large gap.



Ejection of the same extractor after a minor amount of peening to reduce the distance from the extractor tip to the front of the cartridge rim.



Pay attention. Don't do this. Can you see what is wrong before I even fire the pistol. First time I've ever done this. Glad I have an O ring in there. No damage but I always wondered what would happen if a pistol was fired like this with no buffer.



Video of Leroy's stock, new style extractor with the large gap. It isn't performing much better than the original square cut. Will post videos of his extractor function tomorrow after peening it and a video of the whacked on VQ extractor I've been messing with. Got to get Leroy's back in the mail to him. I know he is going through withdrawals.



Viedo of Leroy's peened new style extractor. If you want your extractor to cause the case to be strongly ejected to the right, tighten the tolerance between the extractor tip and face of the rim. I have had some so tight in the past that the case was thrown 30' out to the right. After shooting in a booth and having spent cases bounce everywhere due to their velocity I tamed them down a bit. The cases above are being thrown 6' to 8'. How far they are thrown isn't the issue. If you compare the stock videos you will see cases thrown back at my head, up, left, forward, on my hand, etc. All of that is what you do not want. If your cases routinely eject 16" to the right....that is great. My LCP throws them straight up, on top of my head and slightly to the left. Not much in favor of that, it is 100% reliable or has been for 4,000 rounds but I haven't figured out or really attempted to assess what is going on there. But I bet the extractor plays a big role in it. Remember on the P22 the extractor does not extract the spent case, blow back gasses take care of that but it is obvious the extractor plays a large part in ejection direction.


I've noticed some of these videos take a while to start rolling. PB must be busy.

 

[1917-1911M]

In my recent assessment of the new P22 QD I mention that the wall of the chamber at the extractor cut is thicker than in the past. That could certainly hold the extractor out and away from the small rim on a .22. I didn't have a close look at it and presently have my QD completely disassembled until I get time to finish my trigger job. Before that it was 100% but I never tried extracting a live round. In the past I have found that a stuck case will not be readily extracted by the P22 extractor unless I press down on the front of the arm. Just the way it is designed. In a recent thread regarding manual extraction issues I thought this might have been the issue....the extractor cut being too thick for the design of the extractor. You solved it the way I would have approached it although I probably would have found something I could wrap 330 grit emery over that fit the slot just right even if it were a stack of feeler gauge blades. Then neatly polished off a bit of the bottom of the cut. Don't go too thin though like Walther did in '99 or the metal will break off.

Walther could have had a look at the extractor issue and determined what the problem was, repaired it and left the rest of the pistol alone. The trigger bar has nothing to do with it. Your extraction and feed issues could be extractor and or magazine issues. The extractor does not play a part in extracting a spent case when firing. It does play a part in how the spent case ejects on this particular pistol. The one thing that is not 100% on my QD is ejection direction. I'll soon fix that though. I usually find that these rushed factory smiths are not up to my standards anyway. And they certainly don't have any equipment to do some of the mods....because, there isn't any commercially available. I'm still puzzling over a new way to stone my primary hammer hooks on the new set up. Something easy and precise. I'm on to an idea.....just haven't gotten to it yet. The gutted target P22 is back together and working nicely. I put a new hammer spring in it to get the trigger and firing pin strikes up to snuff. 2.5 lb trigger now with the new spring. A little moly powder will drop that a bit. 1917

This is what my trigger bar ears look like when I lay them back.....and 10's of thousands of rounds later there will be only a very little witness mark on the slide. If I have to ever send mine in I will tell them to not touch em.

 

[1917-1911M]

My experience is that the rear sight on my pistols has to be set off to the left. There is also a bit more wear on the left side finish. I think the extractor riding up on the chamber forces the slide to the right accounting for more left side wear. I've read many times that Ruger has somewhat the same policy regarding non stock pistols. They will remove your aftermarket trigger group and replace it with stock parts.

I guess they don't want to sort through problems a pistol might have on top of any an owner might have introduced..I think that is fair enough..On the other hand they should be very familiar with the trigger bar ear problem and the hammer tip and understand that neither has any effect on the extractor issue you are having. Walther redesigned the hammer due to it once already. And they are still working on the trigger bar ears. On my QD they have stamped the top of the ears rounding them better than any of their past efforts. Are they still indenting the underside of the zinc slide, yes and I've re-profiled the ears on my latest to eliminate it. I also removed the tip from the face of the hammer. I do have a stock hammer face on my 5" model and it works fine...the slide does not move smoothly over it but the 5" has enough rebound to not be bothered by it.

I doubt the techs in Ft Smith know the history of this pistol...all the little things like self rotating safety levers, frame screws that vibrated loose and now come with thread-locker on them, barrel nuts that would not stay tight and got an O ring put on it at the factory, non chamfered chamber entrance, etc., etc.

The O ring over the recoil spring originally came about to act as a buffer and help stop the older style slides from cracking. I think it helps. I still install one even on the thicker Q model slide. It does not interfere with anything. I can feel the softer impact of the slide when firing with one installed.

My wife bought a new Mercedes.....as far as I'm concerned it is ten years behind in the little things. And the electronics, heat, fan speed, radio, etc. go back to the VCR complexity era. Cup holders that are too small and where the handles face each other limiting the two to only one cup in actual function. And USB ports, they couldn't be more difficult to reach. I'm thinking Germans are very slow to make changes....guns or autos. My F 150 does everything better. It even rides better in my opinion. 1917

 

[1917-1911M]

I could not get it to manually extract a round either though. After some testing and tearing apart, it was apparent that it was a barrel block issue. The slot was not cut deep enough to ever allow the extractor to catch the edge of a round. I only really found this after ordering the volquartsen extractor, and it didn't help. The shell had to come partly out of the chamber before it could be grabbed.

I sent this info to Walther,

Someone called Ft Smith one time regarding something not done properly on the CCP and was told....."we didn't think anyone would notice".... They don't know this crowd.

Above is a picture of the extractor cut and related steel thickness at the chamber on my new QD model. Note how thick it is compared to the next picture. That light area is not at an angle, it is the flat surface of the chamber steel adjacent to the extractor cut. As you can see while it is not as thick as the chamber rim steel, it is pretty thick. This is a good thing as long as the extractor is working properly and on my pistol it appears to be doing so. If you look very carefully, Walther has left the metal at the extractor cut thicker than in the past. But, does this now cover up the rim of a case, can the extractor tip reach the rim????? On my pistol it can. The reason is that the flat area at the cut has had a few thousandths of material milled off which leaves a gap for the nose of the extractor to drop in front of the chambered rim. How does is work? It seems to work fine for several types of ammo in my pistol but the tip of the extractor does catch pretty far out on the rim. Does it stay in this position when firing so that the spent case will eject properly.....not sure....the only thing my new QD did not do properly was eject consistently. It is likely this little change might make the VQ extractor not work well since it does not have a tip like the stock extractor does.

Here is another Walther short barrel and is typical of what I have seen over the years. Some of them were cut a bit too thin and over time the tip of the extractor would damage the steel. At worst, a chunk of steel would break off here and yes I have a picture of that too somewhere. At another forum the group was puzzling over why a fellows P22 was acting up with Stingers...I took one look, joined to tell him his chamber had blown out and to stop firing it. It was allowing the rear of CCI Stingers to blow out the side. Yeah, that will get your attention.

This picture shows a couple of things. First, for some reason the last three hammer springs I've installed in the target pistol have all overwound....I'm going to have to check something there. The pistol has had the hammer strut removed. By doing this you loose DA but the trigger resets in 1/8" and with an over-travel and pre travel stop you have a very nice target trigger...after some sear work as well....but why the overwind? Does the hammer strut stop rearward movement of the hammer during firing and fast slide cycling. I will check when I put the QD back together. The strut pulls the trigger bar/trigger rearward in a stock pistol but does it stop the hammer. Parts of it are pretty wimpy for that sort of work but this needs more study on my part.

The picture also shows an old ejector on the bottom with peen marks....I didn't add those. And the new ejector on top has larger holes for larger pins. Bet they didn't think we would notice that. Does the Q model have the same ejector with the larger pins....I'd have to look back at my Q model assessment but right now I'm not going to.....just commenting on changes. Like the firing pins that once had very sharp shear edges on the right side from stamping. They are now nicely stamped with no sharp shards of steel. And the extractors, one of the new models and one of my experimental ones from about 2005. I filled the pivot hole with JB Weld, cut the pivot hole close to the business end of the part so that it would clamp down and hold a round on the face of the breech block. Worked too and made for nice, consistent ejection direction of the spent case. The other extractor on the right is the original and it had a huge gap between the face and a rim....spent brass would fly left, right, up, forward, flip onto your hand and hit you right between the eyes. Way back there was thread after thread about this problem. Funny thing is....my stock QD exhibits some of this same behavior, more so than recent P22s. That is probably because my extractor is also not properly fitting against the rim of a round. I will check it upon reassembly but won't bother Ft Smith with the repair.

I sent all of the history and my experiments to VQ and asked them to make us some extractors that would tighten up the gap.....they did....I just wish they had tightened up the gap a bit more. As you can see, there is still some air in there. you can also see that if the chamber cut for the extractor isn't done properly that the reach of the extractor and the rim protrusion is very small. It would not take much for the system to not work if things are off a bit. With the change to milling at the extractor cut....VQ might need to make a few changes to the shape of their tip.

So Walther finally revised the extractor but they didn't tighten it up on the rim either. Hard to see but the gap is about the same as the VQ part.

And, here is a picture of the extractor fitment on my new QD.....see the big improvement the Walther rep says they have taken care of on the new pistols.....how about - not - looks like the same ole same ole to me and now it also appears the tip won't even reach a rim. OK to sum all of this up somewhat...Walther has left the chamber thicker at the extractor cut. To make sure the extractor tip can seat in front of a chambered rim they have machined the rear of the chamber perhaps 0.010" forward so there is a gap for the tip to fall into. How does it work????? Mine will manually extract with a clean chamber....firing, consistent ejection is not so good, more like the old days.

Here is a picture of the breech face of the Walther made Smith M&P .22 full size pistol. Check out that short pivot, no nonsense extractor....razor sharp like you would find on a Ruger and note the foot on the bottom that supports the rim and keeps it precisely positioned on the breech face until ejection. Boy or boy....this would certainly improve the open face P22 breech with the long pivot extractor. So, Walther knows how to do it..... I could go on and on but this is a little bit of just extractor stuff. Trigger bar ears, that is a whole nother story. 1917

 

[1917-1911M]

Send em $500 and you will be up and running again. Pictures held hostage. No thanks. That site is history to me and a lot of other folks now. 1917