Little bit of building the next 1911

[Magnumite]

Poking the fire a little bit.

Fitted an EGW flat bottom firing pin stop precut for BoMar rear sights. All upper corners and edges were beveled and smoothed to facilitate install with tighter fitting. All vertical corners relieved and smoothed.

Extractor tip tuned, before and after pics.

Adjust extractor tension. With tension applied to the extractor I rap the back of the adjuster to set the tension. This is akin to hitting the vise when laterally tightening the slide rails

 

[Rockzilla]

BoMar rear sights, alrighty now
coming along good from what these eyes see

-Rock

 

[Magnumite]

LOL…they my favorites, too. The first 1911 I built has BoMars with the .110” front andrear sight post/notch widths respectively. That slide was cut by none other than Al Marvel…way back.

 

[MiddleRiverShootist]

Very nice job!

 

[Magnumite]

Thank you!

 

[Rockzilla]

Marvel the master.
Have full rib BoMars on several 1911" s, Bar-Sto barrels
Ones a pin gun.. Hooked on their sights.. like your builds
1911 builds are up there with the HK's and others. All it takes
Is time and patience.

I know you've heard this over and over.

Great work, keep on pounding I'll send you some of my frames

-Rock

 

[Magnumite]

Frames…Yes! Frames!
Al Marvel was a master…for sure. He didn’t believe in unnecessary ‘fluff’.

A little more to add…
Smoothed out the trigger track in the frame using a Brownells ceramic trigger track stone. All the ‘gravel’ doesn’t need to be stoned out, just smoothed. Before and after pics and the stone ‘in action’. Pics of the stone in the trigger shoe cutout…top, bottom, and both sides.

 

[Magnumite]

A little trigger time…

Beveled the corners of the shoe to prepare for fitting.
Pic with arrows shows right side section (red arrow) with the corner broken, left side (green arrow) with corner as produced.
Smoothing and polishing the inside corners along the bow with round Arkansas stone.
Polishing the back of the bow where disconnector rides and reciprocates.
Outer sides and curves polished but not shown.
The back and sides of the bow were polished with a dremel polishing pad with white polishing compound. I’ll get some pics.

 

[Magnumite]

where the parts hang out between development times…

 

[Rockzilla]

where the parts hang out between development times…

that looks so familar, you need some pill bottles for the small parts

pill bottle, snack bags, sandwich bags a cardboard box.. yep..yep
that's it.


-Rock

 

[Magnumite]

Ed Brown action kit with true radius sear. This is the next step for this pistol

 

[Magnumite]

The box has lots of small parts bags in it. As each part is fitted for function and external blending/configuration it is put in its own bag when removed to prevent damaging dings with other removed parts.

 

[Magnumite]

For those unsure of the true radius concept. Typically, sear faces are cut straight. The hammer hook corner is square. A secondary ‘release’ is cut to clear the corner and ensure a good creep free pull when all else is done well. This set up is seen in the pic with labels “H” (hammer) and “S” (sear) of this post. The negative sear angle is a little too much. It was safe but created a 2-stage type pull so was reduced to half that seen.

The second pic has a rounded sear nose (true radius). This radius is on an arc whose radius is from the sear pin to the hammer nose. This appears to be more of a hybrid application of the true radius concept. But just checking on the comparator…it works.

Additionally, a more ‘recent’ modification I have seen is in the corner of the hammer hook notch. A rounded relief is machined into the corner, “cleaning up” any issue from the hook corner. Extreme Engineering uses this and I even saw it on my Tisas US Gov’t hammer. I like this configuration.

 

[Magnumite]

Trigger fitting…I got a very good fit. Difference between a 10 minute fitting and a fit over an hour is in preparation and “sneaking up” on the the final fitting stroke.

No need to get rid of all the ‘gravel’ in the trigger tracks. Just smooth out and even the texture. I was sure to keep the stone parallel to the bow track and shoe cut out in the frame. I put pressire on the ledges and corners to avoid those gremlins causing a dragging, creepy trigger.

Before and after pics of the trigger track.

 

[Magnumite]

Tuning the trigger. Ended with a very crisp, fast pull set at 3.2 pounds with hammer behaving on a slide drop with a 17 pound recoil spring. This trigger could easily go sub 2 pounds without an issue.

 

[Magnumite]

Other steps on the trigger. This sear is a very good sear so many of these steps were minimal.
The disconnector got its attention.
Here is what I do..
- Deburring and smoothing machined edges. Knife edge stone is used inside the sear cut out. Tilt it in opposite directs to smooth and deburr the sear’s cut out. Use honing or other nonadditive enriched mineral oil;
-Smoothing the sides of the sear;
-Smoothing the disconnector sliding points of contact;
-Rounding the knife edge at bottom of disconnector;
-Beveling corners which rub;
-Touching up bottom of disconnector window to eliminate drag on sear pin;
-Careful smoothing of disconnector head. Add relief on front of disconnector head to improve pull;
Dressing sear and hammer pins. Not much, just a couple light stroke as it spins.

 

[Magnumite]

Fitting the thumb safety blocking stud.

This is a blued safety so I just tried to install it and rubbed it against the sear.

Then I removed it and looked for where the blue rubbed away. The pic is blurry, dang cell phone, but you can see the bright spot on the blocking stud at the arrow.

Then I filed as pictured. Just a couple strokes being careful to keep the filed area parallel with the other parts of the stud.

The scribed pic is approximate angle of dressing the blocking surface down. Some use a jig for this. I use the mark and swipe method.

Here it is after several mark, rub and file events.

Slow going, getting close. Notice the gap between top of ts and slide ts notch. Only use the amount of pressure to raise the thumb safety as you would when putting the pistol on safe.

Pert near done. A file stroke and chase it with a stone a couple/few times (as rea’d) until the ts just goes to the top of the slide’s ts notch.

 

[teratos]

A labor of love! Keep the pics coming!!

 

[Magnumite]

Drama time in 1911 land.

Now for the drama. Long story short - I found out the rear of the firing pin bore was drilled approximately 0.070” low. After cussing a moment or two I checked the primer strike. It hits center on a good AZoom snap cap. Whew…. So not wanting to take a new part to compromised configuration, I decided to modify the firing pin stop until I make one.

I acquired this Baer slide with a Baer frame and Kart barrel in 2016 or 2017 not sure which year. They were acquired from a smith in the midwest in a Gunbroker auction..new parts. Yarrite. Getting the 3 components revealed filing and not done well. Emails, phone calls yielded no response. I left a very negative feedback.

Anyway, I looked them over carefully, but some of the visual cues were not yet burned in my mind. So the set went into the safe. Using a Remington 1911 100th Anniversary slide I found out I got a good fit with the frame and barrel. I wrote that pistol (Baer-emington thread) up on this site. That pistol worked out very well and is one of my favorites. That was early in 2018. The Baer slide stayed in the safe.

That brings us to the Baer slide in March 2022 (now). Well I learned one of those visual cues.

So a couple pics of taking my nicely fitted slide stop, ‘dropping it’ the required amount. I had to raise the ejector relief and file up the bottom. I slightly radiused the bottom of the slide stop. Since I was making metal dust, I relieved the top of the firing stop with a forward angle. This puts the initial thrust lower on the hammer during recoil. This dissipates more recoil energy into the hammer spring before the flat bottom of this firing pin stop has effect. All this energy redirection reduces slide velocity and resultant momentum slap against the frame.

Pic 1 is finished forward relief with one hammer strike.
Pic 2 is one slide cycle on bottom minimal radius.
Pic 3 is forward relief with 4 hammer strikes.

 

[Magnumite]

Well…adjusted the grip safety disengage depth. There is a pic with a red and blue line which coincide two surfaces on the grip safety blocking arm. The surface the red line coincides is the grip safety disengagement surface. The surface coincided by the blue line prevents excessive trigger overtravel, thus preventing the hammer following the slide during cycling.

This post will involve the surface coinciding with the red line. You will see it (during fitting) in the pic with the arrow. As the surface is filed, the amount of grip safety movement required to deactivate the safety is lessened. This is referred to as making deactivation more shallow. Especially important for those who ride the thumb safety.

The desired mainspring housing needs to be installed. This determines the full safe (rear outward) position of the grip safety. Typically, deactivation occurs in the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the grip safety’s entire travel. Some like a little less, but may over adjust and render the grip safety ineffective.

I removed everything from the frame and used only the fitted trigger, grip safety, thumb safety and mainspring housing. The pic with the green lettering “released” is the grip safety pulled back in the full safe position.

Pic ‘1’ is when I filed enough for the trigger to move rearward. This is how many Springfield 1911’s have been coming out lately. The fit is so deep some comment the Springer triggers are excessively heavy and super gritty. It is actually the trigger bow dragging on the grip safety blocking arm. Must be the new help at Springfield.

Pics 2 - 4 show how the disengagement point moves backward. The mark, fit and file trials went far beyond 4 times, especially when creeping up on the depth of didengagement you are looking for.

Just before to the point I am looking for, I start correcting any lateral canting. Then make sure the blocking arm filed surface is parallel to trigger movement. Even very slightly higher at the front. Both of these conditions will allow the trigger return if the grip safety is released before the trigger. It happens. If the front of the adjustment surface is lower than the rear, the trigger can be held back.

When I am finally ‘there’ I finish with a really smooth file, and a smooth paper then a ceramic polishing stone. I keep the sides of the arm deburred during fitting so there is no interference with fitting.