Actually you are partially correct.Kuhnhausen's first book can be confusuing because he talks about both ways.The old milspec guns were set up to stop linkdown on top of the frame bridge.The thing is these were shot with standard ball ammo at low pressure.Today's hollowpoints are usually much hotter,and the Supers and 9s are ever hotter.I think the verticle stop is superior.In the old method,the barrel will link down on top of the bridge and stop downward movement,but,rearward movement is stopped by the link.Hotter ammo gets the barrel moving quicker,and puts more stress on the link if it has to stop the barrel.It can even get severe enough to rip the lower lugs from the barrel.The ideal setup is for the barrel to stop rearward travel on the verticle surface just before the barrel comes down on top of the bridge,and the link is slightly compressed to the point you can feel the SS pin have a touch of drag if you rotate it.No pressure on it is ok too.The bottom of the chamber shouldn't hit the top of the bridge,but be right there with no noticable gap.This is gospel for the hot rod rounds.If your ramp gap gets below .025 or so,you move the bottom 1/8" or so foward and reramp the barrel and blend in to the sides,but you can't move the rollover point farther into the chamber.
A rough chech of extractor tension is to put a loaded round in the slide (no frame or barrel) and slip it under the extractor.Rotate the slide on the barrel's axis and the round should fall out.Now repeat with an empty case and it should stay.Some of the gunsmith's websites go into this in more detail.
Reread your Kuhnhausen book.Consider the first 1/2 or so original spec.When you get to the Enhanced Performance area things seem to counterdict the previous stuff.This and the second volume deal with the 'improvements' to the original design.Hope this helps
[This message has been edited by rex (edited 11-16-2001).]
