Tallbald
Buckeye
I grew up in the 70's with the idea (popular at the time I guess) that a polished feed ramp on a center fire pistol was a happy feed ramp. Most folks I knew back then would automatically take 1500 grit paper and carefully polish the ramp on their new guns, giving them a mirror finish the factory couldn't afford to give them at a common price point. We didn't have as many semi-autos back then to choose from it seems, but there were the usual 1911's, HiPowers, .22's, Walthers, etc etc. Any self respecting kitchen table gun butcher feared not the results of polishing that critical little bit of steel that oh so carefully guided a cartridge into the Happy Hole. It HAD to increase reliability, right? And over time the jacketed rounds we shot would polish the ramp anyway (we figured) so may as well speed the process up! Right??
Every new gun I've examined in say the last 25 years has a few machining marks on the ramp from the milling process that is needed to give the ramp the curvature necessary to feed the cartridge into the chamber. Now I'm NOT a gun smith, nor do I even play one on TV. But I am a Journeyman Toolmaker with lots of experience in metal forming and crafting metal to work well in parts interplay.
Provided that : 1) The contour of the ramp is not changed and 2) That the angle of the ramp is not altered and 3) That the hardness of the ramp is not changed, is there any down side to a polished feed ramp I am missing?
I suppose that a rough textured ramp could in theory offer some resistance to feeding and thus help capture the cartridge as it exited the magazine, allowing it to more accurately pop up into the breech face behind the extractor. But am it so?
I always wondered about this. Don
Every new gun I've examined in say the last 25 years has a few machining marks on the ramp from the milling process that is needed to give the ramp the curvature necessary to feed the cartridge into the chamber. Now I'm NOT a gun smith, nor do I even play one on TV. But I am a Journeyman Toolmaker with lots of experience in metal forming and crafting metal to work well in parts interplay.
Provided that : 1) The contour of the ramp is not changed and 2) That the angle of the ramp is not altered and 3) That the hardness of the ramp is not changed, is there any down side to a polished feed ramp I am missing?
I suppose that a rough textured ramp could in theory offer some resistance to feeding and thus help capture the cartridge as it exited the magazine, allowing it to more accurately pop up into the breech face behind the extractor. But am it so?
I always wondered about this. Don