That Damned Firing Pin

Owners of the Star Modelo B Pistola 9mm will all nod their heads solemnly knowing the travails I went through.

See, The Star is otherwise a darned fine little auto, a scaled-down “clone” of the Colt 1911. I put “clone” in quotation marks as it’s not a direct copy of J.M. Browning’s venerable Philipino-killing workhorse, but a reasonable facsimile. The Trigger pivots on a pin rather than being of the transfer bar type that wraps around the magazine well, the extractor is external rather than internal and there’s no goddamned grip safety. Thank God for small miracles, I guess.

The Star Modelo B is the first pistol I ever purchased upon being old enough to legally do so. I did so in January 2002, five months into being 21. I ain’t one to attach sentimental values to inanimate ojbects, but I do think it’s interesting that of all the firearms I’ve owned and parted ways with, I still have this one.

Anyhow, if you’re a Star pistol owner, you know not to dryfire the damned thing as you’ll break the firing pin, as I had done to mine years and years ago and never got around to fixing as the firing pins cost about half what I paid for the gun ($50 shipped versus $100 for the gun back in 2002). So, I let it sit.

Recent events coupled with unemployment have gotten me reinterested in the little piece.

So, here we go:

Disassembly: The Star Modelo B field strips in the same fashion as a standard 1911. Push in the buffer, remove the buffer cap, twist the barrel bushing, slide back, remove slide stop switch, slide forward to remove, twist barrel bushing the other way and remove, slide out buffer spring, guide rod and barrel.

That’s where the similarity ends. To remove the firing pin, the rear sight needs to be drifted out, revealing a retainer pin. Drift the retainer out and the firing pin and return spring will slide right on out.

Here you can see the broken, stock firing pin. Electronic micrometer calipers indicate the pin is exactly 5MM in diameter. By measuring the shaft of the widest drift punch I could slide into the slide’s firing pin hole, I calculated that the pin is 2MM in diameter. Now I’ve somewhere to start!

I went to Lowe’s and perused their selection of stocks, finding a piece of round bar stock that measured exactly 5MM in diameter. Sweet!

Hack hack hack.

A perfect fit!

So, how to turn the sucker down to 2MM?

I came up with the idea of finding a drill bit that measures 5MM (turns out it’s 3/16ths”) and punched a hole into a piece of scrap 2×4 that I’d clamped down to the drill press platform. I initially tried to use a piece of steel I’d sharpened with my Dremel’s carbide cutter bit as an awl, meeting nil results, so I thought “why not use the carbide cutter as the awl and the drill press as a turner?”

Well, it worked!

Trim it down!

I turned the new pin down to 2MM for a length of about an inch, I tried to get the turning as smooth and straight as possible, but come on man look at the tools I’m workin’ with here.

Here you can see the original, broken pin next to the finished clone version.

Now, I don’t have pics of this next step, camera ran out of batts on me and it was about 2AM and I really had no intention or inclination to drive to Wal-Mart for a four pack of Energizers.

Heat Treating. In discussion with my gunsmith buddy Firemoth, we’d talked heat treating. Per his instructions, I stuck a cheapy magnet to the firing pin and heated until the magnet fell off. In his words this is the “ecolescence point.” The pin glowed a very faint red by the time the magnet fell off. I quenched in used canola oil (again per his instructions, I was worried that canola’s smokepoint would be too low and the oil would ignite, guess not).

I installed the pin, reassembled and eagerly awaited the next day to take ‘er for at test-toast.

It was a beautiful March afternoon southeast of Reno. Reno shooters will automatically recognize this spot as being back behind the Huffaker Hills Trailhead. Squint and you can see the moon above the dominant snowcap.

Load ‘er up and try ‘er out. I loaded one magazine with five cartridges of Winchester White Box 115GR FMJ 9×19.

Insert the magazine, release the slide and touch the trigger…

Click.

Thumb the hammer back and try again.

Click.

Once more and…

Pop!

Awesome! Another go of the trigger and…

Pop!

Double awesome!

Then. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Accepting defeat, I cleared the weapon, downloaded the magazine and picked up my brass.

The two casings on edge, resting on the back lip of the magazine are live, light primer strikes. The two upright have been fired, and you can see the very light strikes thereupon as well.

Looks like I need to make a Rev. 2. I believe I should make both the pin a hair longer, perhaps up to a millimeter and the striking surface longer by about a millimeter and see what happens on the next revision.

OMAKE!
Nevadawesome

Downtown from the hilltop.

Looking southwest toward Mt. Rose.

Second shot similar angle different focal depth, desaturated and level adjusted. GALLERY READY RIGHT x__x