Answer

Maybe the carrier latch spring is week or missing? Also, as I understand, you’re adjusting the carrier and not the carrier latch? Might try adjusting that.

There’s about a billion parts in this gun and all of them need to work right for the gun to work. The only thing that should normally be able to bend the carrier is a human working with it, or maybe forcing it for some reason. Is it possibly getting damaged when fired (I can’t picture how though)? If the carrier is weak, maybe a replacement is in order.

The 1100 I had wouldn’t feed when cycled manually, but worked fine when fired. The problem I fixed with that one was not feeding correctly from the magazine onto the carrier, and it turned out to be a dinged magazine follower. Replaced that and everything fed fine. I don’t think I ever looked at the carrier rising too high so I can’t help a lot. Just working through this in my mind. Good luck, Jeff

Answer

So the carrier was bent out of shape? One thing in that gun that possibly has that much power is the bolt when it is surging forward. If there is something under the tip of the carrier, keeping it from going down, it may bend. That “something” under the carrier could be the next shell partially sticking out of the mag tube. You may want to check the secondary stop. Also ask the customer whether such incident happened in the field. -TL

Question Follow Up

TL, that something was the carrier latch being pushed forward by its spring as the tongue got up over the top of it. I agree with you. Only the bolt surging forward could exert enough force to displace the tongue. It you take an 1100 trigger group out of the gun and push the carrier up it will go up high enough to allow the tongue to get on top of the latch. In the gun the travel is limited by the (receiver?) if the tongue is in the correct geometry. With the tongue bent upward enough it will override the latch with the trigger group in the gun.

I have a working theory. If the carrier/carrier latch engagement was not sufficient (positive, total amount, whatever) and the carrier overrides the latch and the tongue of the carrier gets on top of the carrier latch then the bolt coming forward would force the carrier down and probably bend the tongue upward as the carrier attempted to slip past it. But it kinda sounds like the chicken an egg theory. What came first, the tongue being displaced enough to let it happen, or the carrier getting over the top of the latch and the tongue then being deformed? I will try to post some pics over the weekend. Dale

Answer

I think your working theory is sound. I reviewed my notes. Bob did mention in the video that one of the known issues with 1100 was the carrier over riding the latch. The engagement would need to be slight positive. He didn’t elaborate on the consequence of such event though.

Chicken might come before the egg, or might not. But one sure is that when there is chicken, there will be egg, and vice versa. If you don’t want any of them, you will need to slaughter the chicken and crack the egg. Perhaps you may need to replace the carrier and the latch, as they may have been bent out of shape. At least they will need to be inspected, and be refitted if necessary. –TL

Question Follow Up

I have a complete carrier assembly on order. But it just sticks in my gut to just change parts without a clear understanding of the failure mechanism. The carrier isn’t broken. I’m thinking I didn’t get the engagement positive enough, it overrode the latch and ended up as it is. Ken or Bob, would either one of you gentlemen please give insight on this problem?

Answer

Often the shooter tries to load the magazine without pushing in on the carrier latch and the parts get bent. On some it doesn’t take as much force to bend things as it should. Sounds like you understand the operation and the fix. You may have to replace it as it could be on the soft side and is bending easily. Sounds like you fixed it correctly the first time and it is back. You can try to fix and align and fit the parts again and give it a go if you want. FYI Bob never looks at this site. Ken

Reply

Thanks Ken. I deepened the engagement and made the surfaces more positive so it could not override. Trying to load without pushing the carrier release button would have bent the tongue down. It was bent up. I am going on the theory that it slipped out of engagement then the tongue overrode the top of the carrier latch and then when the bolt came forward it forced the carrier down with the tongue still stuck on top of the carrier latch. However the “chicken and egg” part of the situation still has me baffled. However I have come to accept being baffled as part of my daily existence. Say Hi to Bob for me. I just took in a pretty nice old Colt 357 Magnum for repair. I’ll take pics and send them to Bob. For some reason I didn’t think Colt moved the firing pin to the frame until the Python Model but, this one has it.

Dale