Your barrel nut is loose if the bolts on the stabilizer are tight. Remove the stabilizer, remove the barrel nut, clean all the oil off it, properly realign everything and retighten the barrel nut with blue locktite on it. Properly reinstall the barrel stabilizer. M1911

 

P22 Barrel movement

Decided to check mine out and found the same thing, 1-2 degrees roation and slight movement of the barrel up and down when the slide was removed.

As I have a California version there is no way for me to tighten up the barrel nut. I checked and retightened the small philips stove screwbolt which had no effect. on closer inspection I could see the complete barrel assembly with feed ramp move slightly inside the breech block.

Just curious if you non california types see the same sloppyness or if tightening the barrel nut clamps everything in there so the movement is restricted. If so then I will have to send it back to S&W and have them tighten it up.

Of course as soon as I started wiggling things around on he gun I found a considerable movement in the reas sight as well with 3-4 degrees of pitch and 2-3 degrees of yaw.

Maybe this is one of those situations where you shouldnt look too closely at the gun or you will realize that you did get exactly what you paid for in a $300.00 gun

Still lots of fun to shoot and have had absolutly no feeding problems the last few sessions with CCI stingers, Winchester Super X and PMC predators

 

10-02-2005, 05:38 PM
1917-1911M

One more thing and you heard it here first. You California shooters with the non-removable barrel are going to have problems. I cleaned and red locktited my barrel nut, tightening it firmly in the process. It is still on tight, the barrel isn't though and the problem is the frame or the barrel or both are being peened by the repeated shots. I will have to figure out how to take it loose and retighten it. The same clown that used my Gunscrubber up must have my wrench also. M1911

Originally posted October 2, 05

 

Decided to check mine out and found the same thing, 1-2 degrees roation and slight movement of the barrel up and down when the slide was removed.

As I have a California version there is no way for me to tighten up the barrel nut. I checked and retightened the small philips stove screwbolt which had no effect. on closer inspection I could see the complete barrel assembly with feed ramp move slightly inside the breech block.

Just curious if you non california types see the same sloppyness or if tightening the barrel nut clamps everything in there so the movement is restricted. If so then I will have to send it back to S&W and have them tighten it up.

Of course as soon as I started wiggling things around on he gun I found a considerable movement in the reas sight as well with 3-4 degrees of pitch and 2-3 degrees of yaw.

Maybe this is one of those situations where you shouldnt look too closely at the gun or you will realize that you did get exactly what you paid for in a $300.00 gun

Still lots of fun to shoot and have had absolutly no feeding problems the last few sessions with CCI stingers, Winchester Super X and PMC predators

I've already written S&W/Walther about this. Wonder what they are going to do now. Simple solution is for you to remove the barrel nut, clean threads, apply blue locktite and retighten. If it were mine I would carefully file some lands on the barrel nut so a wrench would fit it, heat it up with propane some and take it off.

Anyone actually taken one of these off??????? I had to heat the red locktite to get mine off, non California model, now I use blue as the barrel will have to be retightened periodically even with a previously tight and locked in place barrel nut. M1911

 

Well, my ISO's original research and communications with S&W said it was epoxy on our CA models. A short blast of MEP on the barrel nut for 30 seconds and a flume of gas and flame shot out, and the barrel nut was easy to remove. He works for an environmental company and said it was epoxy not locktite.

Now before you CA types get excited - we found out you can not order the slot style barrel nut and have it shipped to kalifornia. Same way no one will ship you an interchangable barrel or a threaded adapter. Once we moved we did not have that problem. And you need to order the wrench also.

We did not have that many rounds through our two P22's before we moved and exercised our option to convert the guns. Still not sure it is legal to modify even after you leave the state.

I would think if the barrel came loose on a CA model that S&W would fix it free, my worry is that we already done that and did we void a warranty. I guess if we ship them back for repair we can always put the old barrel nut back on.

 

How to move front sight to the main slide?

Many thanks for the pointers. I'll strip the pistol and tighten up the barrel nut.

One way to not have the front sight move with a loose barrel nut is to move the front sight to the main slide (i.e. take it off from the front barrel weight/compensator and attach to main slide). I think that's the best way to have it anyway as the the barrel weight/compensator is prone to movement.

Seems pretty easy to do: http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69640&highlight=front+sight+removal

 

The stabilizer gives you the advantage of a longer sight distance, rear sight to front and that should make for more accurate open sight shooting. Nothing should be loose except the rear sight. The stabilizer should not have any movement nor the barrel.

Be careful removing the stubborn nut as the frame will take the torque of whatever you attempt to loosen it with. The frame is not all that strong either. I haven't heard of BATF coming to anyone's house to check on any repairs they may have to make to their pistol. I consider the barrel being loose unsafe and that I would be well within my rights to repair it myself. If that meant removing the barrel nut and retightening it myself, I wouldn't hesitate a second.

Try to loosen that nut somehow before you twist if off. S&W will repair I'm sure if you don't mind the gun being gone a month or so. M1911

 

Got it done just now. It was pretty loose (as finger loose), tightened up the barrel nut. Putting the slide back was a bit tricky ... had to compress the recoil spring and grab the guide rod through the slide.

They ought to have indexed the stabilizer to the slide (e.g. by using two dowels from the stabilizer into the slide), rather than indexing on the barrel sleeve with a worm screw. The indentation on the barrel sleeve is a little off center, which makes the stabilizer (and the front sight) cant off center as well.

To adjust the front sight cant I have to fiddle with the barrel sleve, the worm screw, and the stabilizer. Too many things are moving ...

I only shoot max 21 feet / 7 yards with it. I like the longer sight radius on the stabilizer but it's just not the right place for the front sight.

Waiting to take it back to the range for testing now.

 

Fixed the cant by holding the barrel sleeve in the opposite way while tightening the barrel nut.

I then retightening the barrel weight screws and worm screw that seems to correct the cant well.

I also moved the front sight back to the barrel weight. I just know it's going to move the next time I take it off to clean the barrel ... <oh well>.

 

Well I will post my little trick. My Barrel weight screws are red lock tite and I still can get the barrel off for cleaning.

I have an adapter on the barrel, I tighten my fake can and then give it a twist, 9/10 it loosens up, the other time I need the SO's help. The barrel cover and the weight come out as one piece, you can remove the slide and barrel to clean all you want.

It's a bit tricky to reassemble but after you do it once it becomes a breeze. That also allowed me to mount my fiber optic sight on the barrel weight. I saw a really nice 1/2x28 at a gun show that had an external nut and wrench but it was parkerized (sp) and I like mine all black. Still might get one later to make it easier.

wg

 

Thanks Walthergirl, what is an adapter? I guess I'm at a loss visualizing the setup

 

I will try to get the SO to post a pic, going in for surgery tomorrow, not up to trying to stage the parts and take a picture.

 

here is a adapter

http://www.tacticalinc.com/images/productextras/supadp22-1-500.jpg

 

Ah, I see now. The adapter does the barrel nut function, but can be unscrewed without having to take the barrel weight off. The barrel weight stays worm screwed on to the barrel sleeve.

 

I got the thread adapter and it works well. Instead of using red Loctite, I cut notches on the outer thread so I can fit the original wrench to tighten it. I cut the notches using a basic dremel tool, it's not a perfect notch but the thread protector hides it completely anyway.

For the barrel sleeve, I'll be cutting a smaller notch and use that instead of the factory notch. The factory notch is ever so slightly larger than the barrel fin that fits into it, and allows the barrel sleeve to rotate slightly.

 

Got my P22 back from Smith & Wesson

Got the gun back today with the barrel now firmly attached to the breech block. It only took about 10 days which is pretty good.
The barrel nut had clearly been taken off and had a few superficial tool marks on it from some sort of clamping device (scratched the bluing) but no signs of any heat (damage or discolorization).
What was interesting is that they put a new compensator on. but with the same barrel and slide.
Ill let you know if there is any measurabe improvement in my shooting ability