GSG accuracy issues

[kds857]

Just wanted to remind owners of older GSG 1911-22s that they might want to contact ATI to see if their guns need upgraded parts. Long story short, I emailed ATI, gave them my serial, and they said I needed new parts, and they sent me a new bushing, guide rod, spring and plug.

Mine is a few years old, and while it shot well well (accuracy-wise from around 7-10 yards), it did not shoot great. There are many threads that discuss the GSG's barrel and some say that the bushing does not matter on this pistol because the barrel is fixed, while others say it does matter regardless because a tighter bushing will bring the end of the barrel back to the same place when the slide is in battery. I'm not here to argue who is right, I'll just say ATI sent me a way tighter bushing after I told them about my accuracy woes. Here is what my old bushing looked like:



The barrel did not contact the bushing at all, and i could move the barrel up down left and right with light finger pressure when the slide was in battery. Here is the new bushing they sent me:


Much tighter, and the bushing actually contacts the barrel now when in battery. Haven't shot it yet, so don't know yet whether there will be a difference.

A few notes:
- The new recoil spring guide rod was a bit longer than the old
- The new spring was a bit longer (maybe old one was compressed)
- Tighter bushing causes friction between the barrel and bushing so slide sometimes stops a sixteenth of an inch or so before full battery if I ease the slide forward. I'm sure this is not an issue at all when firing.

And most surprisingly, the new tighter bushing was NOT steel while the loose older one was. (magnet test). Last I heard the steel ones were supposed to be the upgraded ones.

Here is the comparison pic old on bottom new on top:



If I ever make it to the range I'll update this post to see if it shoots tighter now.

Anyways, ATI's customer service was awesome, at least for me. Got the upgraded parts in a few days.

Cheers

[SonofWWIIDI]

I don't have a GSG, but this is an interesting post. Thanks.

[SkyHawk]

Thanks for the info. I have a GSG, got it second hand. I wonder if they will send me parts - I'll take a look at my bushing and call them if it looks loose. It is interesting that your new bushing isn't chamfered like the old one, nor steel - sort of cutting corners I guess.

BTW - do you have calipers to compare the inside diameter of the bushings? I am curious what they are, and also what the OD of your barrel is. Thanks,

[Creampuff]

Yes my slide is hanging up on the last 1/16th of the forward motion as well. Because of this I get light hammer strikes, unless I manually push the slide forward.

I finally got tired of this, and got an entirely new slide assembly. I think it is part tight bushing, and part just luck of the draw when it comes to pot metal parts. My second slide assembly doesn't hang up on the last part of going into battery.

[kds857]

My calipers aren't exactly the best, but roughly, here are the measurements:

barrel: .556 or so
old bushing (**which was oval, not round): up-down .600; left-right .570
new bushing: .558 all around

*** Even with the old loose bushing and shorter recoil spring, I got quite a lot of failures to feed using Winchester M22 1250fps ammo -- it was just too weak for the GSG. So we will see if a longer spring and tighter bushing will cause even more failures. As a side, I've had really good luck with cheapo remington golden bullets 1280fps with almost zero failures as they have a very noticeable power difference compared to M22 and other bulk ammo. Its easy to feel the "pop" and recoil difference.

I'm curious how hypervelocity ammo like Remington Yellow Jacket or Viper would do. Anyone try?

[GM4spd]

I'm curious how hypervelocity ammo like Remington Yellow Jacket or Viper would do. Anyone try?

I tried some and got some very hard wear on the guide rod and stopped
using after 50 rds. I have had no issues with Win M22 of any kind. Pete

[Furncliff]

My best investment as far as accuracy goes came from upgrading to CW parts including a new slide with red dot.



Original parts for the target on the left CW parts on the right.

[delsol]

I bought my GSG new a few years back & never have been happy with the accuracy. I just email ATI to see what I needed to do to receive the up-graded parts. If I here from ATI I will let you guy's know.

[Litespeeds]

I just picked up a GSG modified with CWA parts and will get her out of jail this Saturday. I will take it out to compare with my CZ Kadet II. Hopefully the GSG will shoot as accurate as my Kadet.