Fix your WE Hicapa or 1911 2: FIX HARDER

Discussion of GBB (gas blowback) replicas.

Fix your WE Hicapa or 1911 2: FIX HARDER

Postby Beran » Tue Sep 07, 2010 8:57 pm

In the last few weeks, I've been learning a lot about the WE Hicapa and 1911 pistols. Among other things that I plan to share soon is a great little fix that improves the performance of the blowback mechanism, and helps a great deal with gas consumption.

Tired of your single-stack WE 1911 running out of gas after 5-10 shots? Here is your answer. I learned this trick from Jesse (shogun), the tech at Airsoft Outlet NW.

What you'll need:

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Your single-stack WE 1911 pistol.
1. Small phillips head screwdriver
2. Small flathead screwdriver
3. 5/32 hex/allen wrench. (Its probably a metric size, but I couldn't find my metric tools, and the 5/32 worked.)

You will also need:

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Two small #4 lock washers (the screw is the piston head screw... its just there for size comparison, you'll see it later). I like the spring style lock washers, as they are less likely to work loose.

STEP 1
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I'm assuming you already know how to field strip the pistol, so there are no detailed photos of it. Remove the magazine, pull the slide stop out the side, remove the slide. Set the frame, magazine and slide stop aside.

STEP 2
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Remove the barrel bushing, spring plug/recoil spring/guide rod, and barrel. Set them aside.

STEP 3
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Remove the small flathead screw on the rear sight (only on the 1911s with target/tactical sights, the government style 1911s only have the rear hex screw) and the "5/32" hex screw from the rear of the slide. Drop the blowback chamber out the bottom of the slide, being careful not to lose the long spring that goes along the side of it. You should have a collection of parts that looks something like this:

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STEP 4
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Remember not to lose/forget that spring. It's important. Pull the nozzle/cylinder forward, and then angle it up as shown to remove it from the chamber. Once you flip the chamber upside-down, it will look like this:
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STEP 5
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See how wobbly your piston head (the silver plug with the black o-ring around it) is? It shouldn't be that loose, and that's the root of your problem. Remove that little phillips screw from the front of the piston head. Hey! Its our old friend the piston head screw! We remember him from earlier, don't we?

STEP 6
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Put your two washers around the screw, and then put the screw back into the piston head and reattach it to the piston (there's a depression in the piston head that they should fit into with no problem). It's important that the spacers (washers) are BETWEEN the head of the screw and the piston. Adding them to the back will move the piston head forward, and reduce the size of your gas chamber.

STEP 7
Reassemble your pistol. Just do it all in reverse, more or less. I didn't take pictures for this because you should be able to figure it out.


I've done this or had Jesse do this on five of my pistols now. All of them have shown dramatic improvements in blowback and gas consumption. It works on both 1911s and Hicapas, but I have seen some Hicapas with a nylon spacer already installed. Give it a try and let us all know if it works for you, and if you have any questions, post them here.

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Last edited by Beran on Thu Oct 07, 2010 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby PanzerFaust » Tue Sep 07, 2010 9:38 pm

Worked for meeeee!!! Used to get 7 or 8 rounds out of a freshly filled mag if I was lucky, now I'm getting 13 rounds out of it, not bad at all.
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Postby Rain » Thu Sep 30, 2010 4:49 pm

First off, thank you Beran for posting this.

Secondly, I have fixed my WE 1911 Government using this technique, but with a slight modification. I would first like to add that the Washers needed for this modification seem to be size "#4" lock washers. I originally bought some size "#6" washers, but they were too large to fit inside the piston head. Be sure to bring in the Piston head screw into the hardware store to be sure you purchase the correct size. You do not want a washer that is larger than the screw's head. Also, the hex screw on the rear of my slide was a "3/32", not a "5/32".

The main modification that I needed to perform involved filing down the nub on the piston, that the 'piston head' fits onto and the 'piston head screw'... screws into. I did this because I noticed that the 'piston head' still seemed loose after I added the washers. I took it apart again and noticed that the 'nub' that the 'piston head' rests on actually was sticking up into the depression in the piston head, making the head loose no matter how tight the screw was.

After filing the 'nub' down so that it was flush with the inside of the screw depression in the head I reattached the screw along with the washers, and bingo, the piston head was solid as advertised. I just wish that I had some pictures to demonstrate what I did more clearly.

I used a jeweler file to do this.

I used to only get about 8 shots out of my 1911, now I can easily empty my entire clip of 15 bb's. Amazing!
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Postby Cap n pickles » Fri Oct 01, 2010 2:44 am

Hmmm, Maybe this will solve my current 1911 issues.

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Postby Murdock » Mon Nov 29, 2010 12:55 pm

Thanks Beran this worked on one of the pistols.
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Postby Redmoney » Mon Nov 29, 2010 7:12 pm

I can already get two full mags from one filling in my WE(Have no concievable idea how), maybe I can get some better preformance from this mod anyways. I will give it a try. Thanks for the info.
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Re: Fix your WE Hicapa or 1911 2: FIX HARDER

Postby Stinkoman247 » Wed Jul 03, 2013 12:04 pm

I did this modification to my WE baby hicapa 3.8, and wow, the performance went up a lot! The blow-back is much faster and I have more range and accuracy, even though the hot weather probably helped with that too.
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