New 1911 Build

[drillsgt]

I decided to assemble another 1911 recently. I've built on Wilson, Caspian, STI, as well complete pistols like Springfield, Colt, Para etc. and decided to try something new. I've been reading about Remsport so I decided to give them a try. I was able to get a government style frame and slide with novak sight cuts, front and rear serrations, serrated slide top, pre-fit frame and slide and 25lpi checkering for 370.00 so it was a pretty good deal. I know some big name 1911 smiths have used them so I wasn't too worried about the quality plus companies like Fusion, DW, and others source frames and slides from them. There are also very distinct similarities in these slides and frames and some other high end custom shops. When they arrived I was impressed with the overall quality. The frame and slide fit was almost there and a little bit of lapping compound got it the rest of the way with a very nice fit. Very few machine marks, my Wilson frame was worse. I'm not a big fan of the ejection port style but it's okay. The machine cut checkering did leave something to be desired. Don't order this kit if you want ready to go checkering. I've had to take a checkering needle file and take all the lines to depth and I lost several top lines because they just were not clean even cuts but it's starting to look good.

Frame and Slide:

After fitting the frame and slide I moved on to the beavertail. This frame came pre-cut with a .250 radius. I would rather cut the tangs myself to ensure a tight fit but this one wasn't cut that shallow. I used a Chip McCormick safety which is similar to an Ed Brown in installation. I used an Ed Brown single side safety.

The easiest beavertail to install is probably the S&A followed by the Wilson. The Ed Brown style requires quite a lot of frame removal and contouring and there is often little room for error. If you cut your frame too much when the safety is in the out position sometimes there is a gap so be careful. In the following somewhat blurry picture you can see one side is roughed in and one side is still stock.

Here is a close-up with the safety roughed in. From here you would just polish it out up to whichever degree of polish you want to get to. I generally take it to about 400 grit and beadblast and look for any remaining file/grinding marks. To be perfect you should also recontour your safety. You can see on the stock safety that about the bottom 1/3 is overhanging the new frame contour, this needs to be dressed back so the safety contour follows the new frame contour.
Before polishing:

After polishing:

I'll post more as I progress.

 

[rockhopper46038]

Nice post. I'd really like to give this a go sometime. To have a 1911 I crafted myself would really be something.

 

[drillsgt]

The beavertail and safety are done, here is picture right after blasting. What you want is a nice tight fit between frame and beavertail and you can see where I have recontoured the safety.

Close-up

The checkering is almost done, a few details here and there to take care of.

So far I have fit the frame and slide, dehorned the front of the frame and trigger guard, fit the beavertail and safety, pointed up the checkering and also fit the trigger (actually the first thing I did).

Starting to look like a 1911, with the features I chose it's going to be spec'd sort of like a Wilson CQB Elite or a Nighthawk Talon (the ejection ports look suspiciously similar to the Remsport ejection port).

 

[drillsgt]

EGW firing pin stop was fit to the slide and extractor, extractor polished and tuned and firing pin tested for travel, so far so good, nothing really worth posting pictures about though.

 

[IndyTacoma]

Looking good! Let me know when your ready to paint that thing. I have an awesome Springfield that's ready for a new look.

 

[IndyGunworks]

I cant believe i have missed this thread up until now. great work, i always like a good build thread.

 

[drillsgt]

Looking good! Let me know when your ready to paint that thing. I have an awesome Springfield that's ready for a new look.

If you need refinishing done call indygunworks, local and good work. I'll post more pics today, barrel fitting, and magwell treatment.

 

[45-70]

Now that's a real build! Very nice job.

 

[~STOLEN~]

i think thats going to look great when its complete...i would love to have the skills to build somthing like this from start to finish..
but for now ill just continue swapping out grips on my kimber lmao
your time and effort will pay off in the end

remember
nothing cool...is ever easy

 

[drillsgt]

Here are some updates I promised yesterday. Here is a picture of the pistol (dirty) but somewhat put together, it's coming along pretty good.

Barrel fitting:
I used what is called a Kart ez-fit barrel. I've used quite a few of these and they really do work well if you don't have access to a mill or other tools to fit a conventional type of national match barrel. With a standard match barrel you fit the hood (the rear part of the chamber area) to the slide and then you machine the barrel feet or bottom lugs to fit over the slide stop and thusly up into the lugs in the slide (and often you may have to dress the lug recesses in the barrel too). With the Kart its a little different. You still fit the barrel hood to the slide but with the Kart it has raised pads on the barrel lug recesses that you file down to allow it to fit up into the slide, the more you file the more the bottom barrel lugs fit over the slide stop axle.

If you are going to install a Kart I would recommend the fitting kit as well. This comes with a file, a starter bushing, an alignment guide and some marking dye (magic marker works just as well).

All you need to fit the barrel is the slide, frame, slide stop, barrel, bushing and what you see in the kit.

The first thing you want to do is test the barrel in the frame. Does it fit in the frame without binding? Does it overhang the feedramp or have the required 1/32 gap between frame ramp and barrel feed ramp? Next you can work on fitting the hood. Put the barrel in the slide with the starter bushing and the guide and slide the barrel towards the breechface, take note of where the barrel makes contact and file a little until the sides of the barrel hood clear (the file that comes with the kit is fairly course a little goes a long way here). The goal is to get it fit with the minimal amount of gap so you have a nice consistent barrel position shot to shot.

Once the sides of the barrel hood are fit you will need to likely work on the back of the hood. It's very easy to mess this up so go slow. You need to shorten the rear of the hood so the barrel will be able to move up into the slides locking lugs. I like to use a file that is a little wider than the hood for a consistent cut. What I do is mark up the hood, put the barrel and trial bushing in the slide, hit the lugs with a plastic hammer and take it apart and see where the marks are. This is going to be very tedious and time consuming as you mark it up, file it, take it apart, etc. There are some jigs and ways to measure to speed it up but I just take my time. The goal is the remove enough that the barrel will slide up into the lugs freely but still have good contact betweek barrel hood and breechface. Getting a good breechface fit is the sign of a professionally installed barrel.

The trial bushing:

Once you are comfortable with the hood fit it's time to start on the lugs. On the Kart barrel on the lug closest to the breechface are two raised pads, one on each side. You will need to mark up these pads and put the frame on the slide with the slidestop, then try to close the slide. I usually tap the back of the slide with my plastic hammer. Take everything apart and see where to file on the pads, mark, tap, take apart and repeat until the barrel is to the tightness you want over the lug. Once I start to get some fit over the lugs I switch to the actual bushing I am going to use as the trial bushing has fairly liberal tolerances. The advanatage to this barrel is you can leave it Les Baer tight or file a little more off to make the slide easier to manipulate, your choice. The goal is to get the frame and slide to line up at the back end with your degree of fit but this may not always happen. Sometimes after fitting the slide may either overhang a bit or be a little forward of the frame so you may have to dress the frame and slide until they look like one unit.

This barrel has already been fit, blasted, and polished but you should be able to still see some remnant of the pad I am talking about:

Take care when filing the pads to not overfile one side or the other. You want consistent lock-up over the slide stop. You should be able to see on your slide stop two symmetrical marks from the barrel lugs.

In this picture I have dressed down the extractor (new ones almost always stick out from the slide) and you can see the fit between the frame and slide.

Magwell: This frame already had the magwell slightly beveled but I beveled it a little more and did a rear treatment since I insert my magazine with the back of the mag to the back of the well and then slide it up into the magwell. To do this you just take a 1/2 inch sanding drum or bit and hold at an angle and just let it sink into the steel moving it back and forth a little bit to ensure symmetry. You can take it to whatever depth you want so long as you don't enter the mainspring housing pin hole.

Front sight. The slide was cut for novak sights and for the front sight there is a flat cut for the sight to slide over however the flat was not cut far enough forward and my sight was hitting the round top and the serrations. So I had to put the front sight in a novak jig, file it back and re-serrate. Works okay now and this was a trial sight anyway, once I confirm height and POI I am going to put in a gold bead front sight.

 

[Josh Ward]

Very impressive!!

 

[drillsgt]

Thanks, not much left to do but stake the plunger tube and grip bushings, serrate the rear of the slide, install trigger components and final detail, test-fire and refinish.

 

[Double T]

I am watching this. Very informative, and impressive.

 

[drillsgt]

Today I worked on some minor cosmetic details like radiusing the rear of the frame and mainspring housing so there were not sharp points there. I did get the ejector fit today. I used an Ed Brown extended ejector. I got pretty lucky with this ejector over some others I have used in the past. First off I always try each ejector leg in its frame hole separately to check for fit (easier to get out that way if fitting is necessary). Then I take my 1/16 punch and make sure it goes through the ejector pin hole all the way through to check for burrs etc.
This ejector fit nicely on the frame with no modifications to ejector legs necessary but wasn't overly difficult to remove. I then marked up the front ejector leg and put in a 1/16" punch through the hole and gave it a couple taps. I remove the ejector and check for the mark on the ejector leg. From here you can just take a small file and cut a groove where the mark was. Don't cut the groove too low or the ejector could move up and down even with the pin in place.
For this install I decided to take a chance and chucked up a 1/16 carbide drill bit to try and drill through the leg. Sometimes the ejectors are so hard that this is futile but for this one I was able to cut a clean notch in the ejector. I tested the ejector pin and was able to tap it in and out easily and don't forget to check that the pin is not protruding out either side which will interfere with the slide travel on the rails. With the pin in I checked travel with the slide on and the ejector didn't bind in the slide anywhere. Again I got lucky as often with replacement ejectors you will have to remove some from the sides and/or top of the ejector for smoth slide travel. I didn't need to dress down the rear of this ejector either as it fit flush right out of the package. I won't do any shaping of the ejector (if any) until I test fire and see how it ejects. All I have done right now is put a slight relief angle on the inside edge of the ejector nose.

The ejector notch

Ejector on the frame

 

[IndyGunworks]

Coming along nicely. I have always used a drill to cut the notch. alot more precise and faster than using a needle file.

 

[drillsgt]

Coming along nicely. I have always used a drill to cut the notch. alot more precise and faster than using a needle file.

Definitely faster but i've run into some that would give a drill bit a run for the money, those little 1/16 bits have a lot of flex already let alone run into some resistence. What's worse is if you have one of those hardened solid pins that won't come out. Tomorrow i'll do the plunger tube and stake the grip bushings.

 

[IndyGunworks]

Definitely faster but i've run into some that would give a drill bit a run for the money, those little 1/16 bits have a lot of flex already let alone run into some resistence. What's worse is if you have one of those hardened solid pins that won't come out. Tomorrow i'll do the plunger tube and stake the grip bushings.

I chuck them as far into the drill as they will go so only a small amount hangs off the edge. JUST enough to where i can insert it from the opposit side and drill w/out the chuck rubbing all around the frame. Drilling through a business card or the most recent way i have tried is putting a 1/4 inch hole in a piece of brass shim material and drilling that way. it allows the hole to act as a "pilot" and takes alot of the flex out. I started doing it this way after breaking two 10 dollar carbide drills.

 

[akethan]

Wow! Very nice Chris.

 

[thindman]

This is very cool to watch. Thanks for sharing. I'm thinking about buying my first 1911 style soon and it's interesting to see how someone can build their own.

 

[drillsgt]

I chuck them as far into the drill as they will go so only a small amount hangs off the edge. JUST enough to where i can insert it from the opposit side and drill w/out the chuck rubbing all around the frame. Drilling through a business card or the most recent way i have tried is putting a 1/4 inch hole in a piece of brass shim material and drilling that way. it allows the hole to act as a "pilot" and takes alot of the flex out. I started doing it this way after breaking two 10 dollar carbide drills.

Good recommendations for reducing that flex with these small bits.