We often hear people poo-poo MIM extractors, particularly the dreaded long extractor that some people seem to have heartburn with in a P Series pistol.

A good friend and student of mine sent me the following pictures.





Total round count on the gun is about 11,000 rounds. The extractor chipped on top but continued to function. He was taking a class from Ernie when he noticed it. He switched out to his back up P226 and finished out the class.

The interesting thing about this is the fact that we hear about how horrible MIM parts are, but this is only the second long MIM extractor that I have seen break since their introduction. And the other was posted by the late great Todd Louis Green right after SIG rolled out the long extractor.

Stuff breaks. If you are a devoted training junkie, have an identical gun that is set up like your primary. Doesn't matter if they are MIM or machined, they break.

Wouldn't have considered that a derailment, because I'm busy making a larger point about how often actual failures occur, what reliability is, and what role a shooter has in this mix.

Indeed, stuff breaks. If you shoot, or certainly if you compete with almost any gun, you're going to bring small parts with you.

MIM simply doesn't deserve all the bugaboo. These things rage on while most of us move on, just like cast/forged, 9mm/.45 and other things that only fetishists stay worried about.

Very much agreed!

If it's not hand forged with hammer and tong over a coal fire, then it might as well be plastic.

Great that it continued to function! 11K rounds is pretty serious. I've been shooting my 226's in uspsa and have really come to appreciate again just how great the 226/229 is. I have 1 229 and 4 226's, plus a 226x5 and have had zero malfunctions with any of them through thousands of rounds. They are great pistols.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
If it's not hand forged with hammer and tong over a coal fire, then it might as well be plastic.

I watched 2 dealers damn near get in a fist fight over whether or not a Garand part was cast or forged,

between the yelling, they would pick the part up and drop it on the floor, the 'ting' supposedly meant it was cast to one guy, forged to the other,

this was when the show was open to the public,

it was very entertaining,