Slide Lock popped out

[J.Johnson]

It was pretty nice out today so me and a few friends went to do some casual shooting. One friend has a Para 1911. After his last shot( the gun was at slide lock), the slide stop ended up in the palm of his left hand. Any idea why this happened? He was shooting pretty fast, if that would have anything to do with it.

I have read about this happening before but couldn't remember why (I am a revolver guy).

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[The Wall]

Did he have installed properly? Is it warn out? Is it broken?

 

[J.Johnson]

For all I know, it was installed properly. The gun is only about six months old, so it wouldn't be worn out. He broke it down today and everything looked fine so he reassembled it.

I did a google search and the only thing I could find was if you bumped the slide lock on the right side of the gun, that it could possibly pop out.

 

[MOUNTAIN WILLIAM]

Unless his gun has a very weak recoil spring it should take a little bit of effort to push the slide stop out of the receiver. I've never heard of one just "falling out".

My best guess is that it wasn't properly installed all of the way to begin with and it wiggled loose during shooting.

Verify that the gun is empty and using the same mag that was in use when the situation first occurred, tip the gun over onto it's left side and "rack" the slide several times to see if the slide stop stays in position. The slide should lock back each time.

If that works ok after a half dozen cycles then remove the mag and repeat the process. The slide obviously can't lock back in this fashion but it will allow the slide stop pin to operate without any upward pressure from the mag. If it's going to fall out, this is where it's going to happen.

 

[J.Johnson]

Thanks for the help. I tell him to try that out and see what happens.

 

[Tweety Bird]

I had trouble with the SL migrating slightly to the left when I first started shooting my Kimber. Turned out I was indexing my right finger directly on the tip of the pin between shots and while working the slide manually during some drills, it was being pushed slightly out of position. A different index position and a new recoil spring made the problem completely disappear. It never completely fell out, though.