Calling the 1911 gurus...

[Ian]

I'm still in the market for some high sights, actually haven't found any yet. At 15 yards I can point shoot with the suppressor very well, so it's good enough for now.

More adventures. Being a southpaw, ambi thumb safeties are a requirement for all my 1911s. This Colt didn't have one. After a wait for them to come off backorder status, I finally got a Kimber stainless-steel ambi safety and went about fitting it. My my. Took me about five hours to get it right. For all the wonderfulness of their design which requires no modification to the RH stock to retain the RH thumb lever, Kimber safeties have another issue (had to fix this on their production guns, too). The "flat" side of he left half of the safety curves like a banana away from the frame, presumably so it doesn't scratch the frame as it is operated. The problem here is that the curve is so dramatic that the detent plunger rides off the inside edge of the safety and wedges between the safety and the frame, creating a lot of extra drag and side-loading on the grip safety pin. Tilting the safety at an angle like this also affects the sear to safety relationship and creates a little binding when applying the safety. The fix is to fixture-up the safety in a vice and actually bend the flat part between the grip safety pin and the tab that goes inside the frame. Once that is straightened, the extended thumb lever must be bowed outward so it doesn't clash with the detent plunger tube. THEN, and only then, can the safety tab be filed to fit the sear. Once all that is done, and the tongue/groove pin interface tightened to eliminate the RH lever flop, the system is smooth as silk, snicks on and off very securely, allows no sear movement when engaged, and requires very little effort to operate. It's just a lot of work to get it right. At least I knew what I was getting myself into when I bought the part.

 

[L1A1Rocker]

At least I knew what I was getting myself into when I bought the part.

Can I get you a hammer?

 

[Pistolero]

If you have access to a press (I bet you do) I would try to use the press to bend that safety, three pt bend. I have a Kimber 1911,
although not current production, and the safety is just fine, has been since the late 90s when I bought it. It is common to need to
recontour the precise angle and curvature where the plunger runs to set the stiffness of the "on" and "off" motions, but I
have been amazed for decades how rarely I need to actually fit a safety where it blocks the sear. Apparently the tolerances
of most guns are so good that I find that easily 95% of safeties will drop in and function correctly as far as blocking the sear
motion correctly. Never have had one bent like that, either. Sounds like it may have happened in manufacturing.

As a general statement, I always recommend Ed Brown small parts for 1911 replacements. I am always impressed with the
reasonable prices and spectacular manufacturing quality of Ed Brown's parts. I used to shoot with Ed Brown in the matches
in Missouri, back in the 80s when he was still competing, and he was a intense guy, seems to spill over into his work, although
I imagine that his kids are mostly running things now. He had a DRO on his Bridgeport back in about 85 when that was
AMAZING high tech stuff.

Not cheap:
http://www.brownells.com/handgun-pa...ambidextrous-wide-thumb-safety-prod74653.aspx

Disclaimer: I have never used this one, but knowing Ed Brown's parts quality, I would bet that
this is a fine piece. Fully machined, but double the cost of the cast ones, though. Retained
with a modified hammer pin, not under the grip.

As far as high sights, I have done a bit of searching on the web, and even called Ruger, to see if they might have a threaded
barrel and high sights in the works, but no luck. I see guns with high sights on them, but nobody offering high 1911 sights
for sale.

Seems like this project has taught you a whole lot about the 1911 design, and some of why I don't get too misty eyed when
folks fret over the latest 1911 being "not a real Colt". I have a number of real Colts, and do like them, but I have also worked
on a number which were badly made, some on the extreme. Like a 10mm Delta with a Gold Cup width (narrow) hood in a normally cut
slide!? I welded up the hood and refit it, undercut the barrel and fit a match bushing, which greatly improving the accuracy.
Somehow a 1/16" gap side to side at the hood and a bushing loose in the slide and loose on the barrel
wasn't helping the accuracy. What a surprise. (not)

IMO, anyone seeking a solid, affordable "good example of the breed" 1911 today should buy a Ruger if money is an issue.
The Kimbers are good guns but the stupid firing pin safety combined with the excessive cost of most these days, pushes
towards the Ruger. Simple, extremely well executed example, no stupid add-on firing pin safety, amazingly low price.

If money is no issue, nobody matches Dan Wesson 1911s ($1200-1700) until you hit the $2800-$3500 Les Baer, Bill Wilson,
Ed Brown, Nighthawk Custom end of the business. Colt? Well, yeah. A good used one at a reasonable price - sure. Watch build
quality (as Ian has seen) The newer ones seem to be pretty well put together, but Colts today has very, very little to do with
the company which made these guns for the majority of the 20th century.

By the way. If anyone has a Colt Officer's ACP with the original spring plug, PM me. That
plug WILL break and I have a patented replacement that I marketed for a few years. Still
have a few in stock, but don't make the effort to market them much these days. At one
point Colt contacted me to see if I could provide them to them, but since mine are fully
machined, I couldn't meet their low single digits target price. Even going to
investment casting couldn't hit their price, so they did a different design.

Bill

 

[Ian]

I paid $59 for the Kimber safety, and while I had to work on it a bit, it had the outside profile I like, so there was less to grind/file/sand off and re-blast. I'm a little averse to paying $140 for an ambi safety that still needs a lot of profile work to suit me unless the pistol is contributing to my paycheck in some way, though the Ed Brown unit definitely doesn't have the issue that the Kimber safety has.

It was the late '90s before I was old enough to buy a handgun, and another few years before I could afford one of my own, so the two Kimbers I've had were from 2003 and 2006 respectively. I learned my lesson on the first one about the ambi safety, had a WC fitted and reprofiled by a gunsmith and it plain sucked. The second time I bought a Tactical Pro II with that part already taken care of....except for me having to tweak it. That's the last aluminum-frame 1911 I'll ever have. I probably have two full weekends in getting the trigger stirrup channel polished enough to eliminate the triple slip-stop action of the trigger pull. Not bad for a $1000 1911 I guess. OH, and that firing pin safety, "STUPID" simply isn't a strong enough word. I think everyone should have the experience of stripping a Kimber to the bare frame and putting it back together again, just once. Makes a Ruger Mark II look like a cake walk.

If I ever feel the need for another 1911, I'll either build it from good aftermarket parts or just buy a RIA and replace all the stuff I'd end up replacing anyway.

 

[Pistolero]

Building one is WAY more hassle than you imagine. Take if from someone who has modded and repaired and upgraded
them for 3 decades and has built exactly one. What a pain in the butt.

Get a Ruger and be done. They work right out of the box and are really nicely made everywhere, one of the best you will
see anywhere at far, far less than any that really compete with it, quality-wise.

The firing pin safety is, as Jeff Cooper said about another type of firearms 'improvement',
"an ingenious solution to a non-existent problem". Ruger solves this wholly mythical "problem"
the most elegantly of all, with a titanium firing pin and slightly stronger firing pin
retraction spring.

The US Army noted that if the gun was dropped more than 6 ft onto concrete and
hit exactly muzzle down, inertia could fire a chambered round. If this occurs, the
bullet will be fired at zero distance from the muzzle into concrete. The bullet will
not exit as a bullet, but will turn 90 degrees and exit radially in all directions as small
fragments. You could injure an unprotected eye, sure, but nobody is going to be "shot",
in the normal sense of an accidental/negligent discharge.

Bill

 

[Ian]

I'll keep that in mind, Bill. Always good to know where to go to get a quality product these days.

What's your secret to living more than 300 years?

 

[Pistolero]

Bad typing, doesn't actually make you live longer.... just claim to.

Fixed it.

Also note, that when you stop and think, it is actually quite difficult to figure out how to
drop a handgun 6 ft onto concrete, since it is mostly carried and used from 3 to 4 ft from
the surface.

 

[Ian]

Yup. And IF you manage to drop it from six feet onto concrete, and IF it happens to land directly on the muzzle, and IF the stars align so that the firing pin actually makes the primer go off, the pistol will fire straight down into solid concrete and hurt nothing else. Nothing is quite as silly as engineering an elaborate and expensive solution to a non-existent problem.

 

[Pistolero]

As an engineer, no doubt an engineer was tasked to "solve it", but the fake need
to solve it was generated, without a doubt, by a lawyer somewhere.

Bill

 

[freebullet]

What a ride.

Trust me when I say your better off doing what your doing, or even building one from parts than to buy the ria.

I can manipulate the left side safety with my left thumb without loosing grip on the gun so, I've never add the ambi. Figure if I'm down to only the left hand for shooting I'll just leave the safety off at that point.

Hand fitting sucks but, if you take the time to do a good job it's worth it.

 

[Ian]

Good thing is most of the rest of this Colt is well-made and decently fitted from the factory, so I won't have to do any more work to get it "up to speed" for me. The plastic trigger bothers me on principle, but it doesn't have too much over-travel and works just fine so I'm not going to change it.

 

[freebullet]

YET!

 

[Pistolero]

Does it have a plastic mainspring housing? I had two of those crack on my LW Commander, not critically,
but not good, either. Finally located an aluminum MS housing, aftermarket and put it in years back, no issues
with it. Plastic trigger itself is no issue, as long as the bow is well made and fitted.

Bill

 

[Ian]

Yes to the plastic mainspring housing. I'll keep an eye on it and store the pistol hammer-down.

 

[freebullet]

I want to say the ria has a metal msh, I'll check Tuesday when it comes back. I will very likely add a 1pc magwell msh over the summer. When I do you'd be welcome to the original. It's a government frame.

Now your just a trigger & some sights away from perfection.

 

[Ian]

If it cracks I'll just send it back to Colt.

(Hardeeharharhar!!!!)

 

[Pistolero]

I replaced my first MSH with an identical plastic one, which also cracked within a couple years. Now
understand that this is my primary carry gun, and stays cocked 100% of the time, the hammer is
only down for very short periods when I am actually using it for practice.

After the second one cracked through the pin hole - not a critical failure, IMO, but not something I
liked, I did not want to add a steel MSH to my LW Commander carry gun, so looked for and found
a nice checkered aluminum one, which has been in service for 5 or 6 years now with no issues.

Bill