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Does anyone know why Sig and S&W use external extractors on their 1911s? I was looking at a couple of each brand today and it just caused me to wonder why they choose this route instead of going with the internal design.

Yleefox

I cannot comment on their reasons for use but extractor tension is much easier to set when you use a spring to set the tension rather than bending the device.

R,
Bullseye

Bullseye wrote:I cannot comment on their reasons for use but extractor tension is much easier to set when you use a spring to set the tension rather than bending the device.

R,
Bullseye

I think you may have hit that one in the X ring, makes sense to me after bending the extractors for my SA's.

bearandoldman wrote:

Bullseye wrote:I cannot comment on their reasons for use but extractor tension is much easier to set when you use a spring to set the tension rather than bending the device.

R,
Bullseye

I think you may have hit that one in the X ring, makes sense to me after bending the extractors for my SA's.

Ditto that.

I find it interesting that no one minds that Sig and S&W 1911's have external extractors but when Kimber put them in their guns the 1911 purists went nuts!

Bullseye's explanation makes sense. I know tuning 1911 extractors is a popular gun smithing service.

Even though the 1911 is by far my favorite pistol, I have to admit that I think the design has a few weak points when compared to modern pistols. Though I have never seen failure, I have read that the 1 piece extractor is a weak point on 1911s, I am not sure if it is true, but it seems logical.

I'm sure BE is on the right track as usual, however I may have come up with a possible answer to my own question. I suddenly had a moment of brilliance and when to their websites. Looked at their center fire pistols and guess what...yep, it appears they use external extractors on all of them. Hummm..perhaps their thought is why mess with something that works for them.

Y

I've seen many 1911 extractors missing the claw end. Tensioning the extractor properly is essential for proper feeding and ejection of a 1911 style pistol.

R,
Bullseye

The deal with Kimber was they couldn't get the external extractor to work right for them. So they went back to the internal one. Smith and Sig have been using the EE for many years so why give up on a winning design.

I have seen only 1 extractor failure in shooting and been in the company of other shooters for hundreds of thousands of rounds. That failure was an external extractor on a Kimber.

My primary wad gun has over 40000 rounds with the same extractor and firing pin. My ball gun considerably less with maybe 2500 hardball and 5000 cast long line loads. The other 4-1911's get a lot less, maybe 200 rds/yr.

The only thing I can attribute the longevity to, is that my gunsmith set them up properly to start with. It sure wasn't my shooting.

With the exception of several of my 22's, I have put more rounds through my 45's than any other caliber I have ever shot. The genius of JMB's design is a marvel to me. I stand in admiration of a man that could design a firearm that is as popular 100 years after it's inception as it was when fresh.

FWIW

I am not familiar with the debate between internal and external extractors. Is one a preferred / proven better design? I suspect there are arguments both ways. I wonder if the external extractor design by its nature .. introducing a "hole" in the slide versus the internal extractor... mean the slide has an inherent weakness?

Like you said there's sound reasons for and against both extractor versions. The weakest point in the external extractor set-up is the pin that the extractor hook pivots upon. If this pin breaks, the extractor claw and possibly the spring is lost. I haven't witnessed any slides cracking along the slot for the external extractor but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened before. I have seen many internal extractor failures but those are easily remedied with a new part and a little tensioning adjustment.

R,
Bullseye

Sig went to external extractor when they switched over to the SS slides. Before that the slides were stamped and had removable breach blocks. The SS slides are heavier and more durable than the stamped steel ones. For Sig this was actually a cost saving move, since they only have to carry 2(?) extractors to cover all of their models now. Internal extractors for the 220 are getting hard to get and have been so for the last several years. I know for a while some were ordering for Germany and having them shipped in, because Sig quit selling them. I know one gunsmith that makes them up now and sells them on the Sig forum.

Had kind of an interesting occurrence wednesday nite at the range.

One of our newest BE shooters (tiny 72 yr old grandmother that started shooting pistol 2 years ago and currently a solid marksman), asked some questions about lubing her Ruger and 1911 after we were done shooting.

I showed her the lube points on the Ruger and most of them coincided with where she was already lubing. She was adding lube a couple places that were not necessary, but wasn't really doing any harm.

Then we got on the 1911. She didn't know how to properly lube that either, so we went on the computer and I gave her the link to the lubing diagram Bullseye helped me put together for GTO in the stickies. She again showed me where she was lubing and a couple places were not needed so we went over those and added a few more. Then we mentioned the extractor and she mentioned she hadn't ever taken that piece out. So I went over the process and took it out. WOW! Two years of accumulation of stuff can sure pack up an extractor. I cleaned it up and ran a few borrowed Qtips down the extractor tunnel to clean it up and it was good as new. I was amazed she hadn't been getting extraction failures. GOOD JOB, JMB (John Moses Browning).

We both use the same smith (Sam) and he is a stickler about being thorough so I'm sure he went over the lubing points, but she wasn't any less excited about picking up her new wad gun than when I picked mine up, so I'm sure some of the advice didn't register. At any rate, she's now good to go and, if possible, even more excited about her equipment.

FWIW

Now there's one of the differences, stork.

The internal extractor is more tolerant of a bit of build-up, but it collects the crud because it is a dead-end.
The external claw/spring extractor is less tolerant of the crud (at least larger bits) but it lets crap blow out as fast as it accumulates, because it is a more open design.

Blue - Thanks for sharing all thta background re: the Sig slide manufacturing. I will share that with my s-i-l (his blown up 1911 XO if you will recall).

Stork - What a great story about your new shooter "friend". Your willingness to work with her.. is a characteristic of all the good folk I have met in my short time in shooting sports.