A_J
10th September 2008, 23:41
Hi, just an indroduction.. new to this forum, and somewhat new to 1911's. I've been shooting for almost 20 years, but for some reason, a 1911 never made it into the collection until recently.. and I've got the bug! I'm already on my second, first was a SA Loaded stainless, and after that I thought I'd give a Kimber SIS Pro a whirl.
I've done gunsmithing on a lot of my other guns, so one of the first things I did was get the Kunhausen boooks and any others on smithing the 1911. And I must say, the Browning design is a thing of beauty. I even went so far as to pick up a junker used 1911 so that I could use it for learning.. I'm totally geeking out on them now :)
But onto other things. I had read sooo many times that 1911s require 200-500 rounds of breaking in.. ok, so they may come tight from the factory. But both had some issues that needed to be addressed.
On the Springer, the biggest thing was the extractor.. very rough cut and mistensioned. The rounds weren't able to feed the rim underneath it reliably. Did some polishing and retensioned, and also polished some other areas - such as the disconnector rail where they stamp the numbers (why stamp them there?) Anyway, it's working much better now, and the trigger has broken in beautifully.
With the Kimber, the first trip to the range went better, but still had some feeding issues with the extractor on this one. Checked it when I got home, and it was a rough cut too, though not as bad as the Springfield, and I could tell from my casings and the leftover dirt on the tip where I needed to dressed. I had also noticed a little snag on the trigger takeup, so being the detail geek that I am, I traced that down to the disconnector - the surface that mates with the trigger bow was not flat and true.. luckily, I had a C&S disconnector already (for trying a trigger job with that junker gun). With the new disconnector, the takeup snag is gone, and the trigger feels much better as a whole. But wait - there's more - as I was stripping the gun, I discovered that I could defeat the grip safety with only about 10 lbs of force on the trigger! Sure enough, the fitting on the tip was overly aggressive and rounded off some. I managed to peen the tip and redress it so that I can not defeat it with my trigger finger, nonetheless, I called Kimber right away, and a new grip safety is in the mail. Kinda scary that it was like that from the factory though. And while I had it apart I replaced the ambi safety with a C&S single sided (it's to be a carry gun and I'm trying to minimize width.) But now, it is cycling much smoother, most of which is probably due to the extractor dressing and the better tip on the C&S disonnector.
So my thoughts so far.. It seems to me that the 1911 design almost dictates that certain things recieve hand fitting and that may run counter to mass manufacturing methods. Case in point is the extractors. I can see no reason why a properly fitted 1911 extractor would be inferior, but it seems that machined or milled extractors put in the mass market 1911s don't get all the attention they should. On both extractor hooks were toolmarks visible with the naked eye. Then there's things like slightly off slide stops causing false locks, the disconnector on my Kimber being wonky, not to mention the grip safety. :scared:
Take all the rough parts, add in milling marks on the breechface, etc.. it's no wonder why these have a reputation for needing break-in, having rough feeding, etc. But to me, it's not a fault of the design, it's mass manufacturing not giving some areas the attention they should get. Now, for someone like me, not a huge deal.. I enjoy the opportunity to master my weapon inside and out, but I worry about newbies getting the impression that the design itself is inferior.. it's just that, like a fine Swiss watch, it takes time and effort to build them for optimum performance, and it just isn't happening on these mass market 1911's. Thoughts?
Keep in mind I'm basing this off of my first two - if I lay down the $3000 for a custom Ed Brown, am I going to get glass like smoothness and function? Or am I in for some tweaking still?
I've done gunsmithing on a lot of my other guns, so one of the first things I did was get the Kunhausen boooks and any others on smithing the 1911. And I must say, the Browning design is a thing of beauty. I even went so far as to pick up a junker used 1911 so that I could use it for learning.. I'm totally geeking out on them now :)
But onto other things. I had read sooo many times that 1911s require 200-500 rounds of breaking in.. ok, so they may come tight from the factory. But both had some issues that needed to be addressed.
On the Springer, the biggest thing was the extractor.. very rough cut and mistensioned. The rounds weren't able to feed the rim underneath it reliably. Did some polishing and retensioned, and also polished some other areas - such as the disconnector rail where they stamp the numbers (why stamp them there?) Anyway, it's working much better now, and the trigger has broken in beautifully.
With the Kimber, the first trip to the range went better, but still had some feeding issues with the extractor on this one. Checked it when I got home, and it was a rough cut too, though not as bad as the Springfield, and I could tell from my casings and the leftover dirt on the tip where I needed to dressed. I had also noticed a little snag on the trigger takeup, so being the detail geek that I am, I traced that down to the disconnector - the surface that mates with the trigger bow was not flat and true.. luckily, I had a C&S disconnector already (for trying a trigger job with that junker gun). With the new disconnector, the takeup snag is gone, and the trigger feels much better as a whole. But wait - there's more - as I was stripping the gun, I discovered that I could defeat the grip safety with only about 10 lbs of force on the trigger! Sure enough, the fitting on the tip was overly aggressive and rounded off some. I managed to peen the tip and redress it so that I can not defeat it with my trigger finger, nonetheless, I called Kimber right away, and a new grip safety is in the mail. Kinda scary that it was like that from the factory though. And while I had it apart I replaced the ambi safety with a C&S single sided (it's to be a carry gun and I'm trying to minimize width.) But now, it is cycling much smoother, most of which is probably due to the extractor dressing and the better tip on the C&S disonnector.
So my thoughts so far.. It seems to me that the 1911 design almost dictates that certain things recieve hand fitting and that may run counter to mass manufacturing methods. Case in point is the extractors. I can see no reason why a properly fitted 1911 extractor would be inferior, but it seems that machined or milled extractors put in the mass market 1911s don't get all the attention they should. On both extractor hooks were toolmarks visible with the naked eye. Then there's things like slightly off slide stops causing false locks, the disconnector on my Kimber being wonky, not to mention the grip safety. :scared:
Take all the rough parts, add in milling marks on the breechface, etc.. it's no wonder why these have a reputation for needing break-in, having rough feeding, etc. But to me, it's not a fault of the design, it's mass manufacturing not giving some areas the attention they should get. Now, for someone like me, not a huge deal.. I enjoy the opportunity to master my weapon inside and out, but I worry about newbies getting the impression that the design itself is inferior.. it's just that, like a fine Swiss watch, it takes time and effort to build them for optimum performance, and it just isn't happening on these mass market 1911's. Thoughts?
Keep in mind I'm basing this off of my first two - if I lay down the $3000 for a custom Ed Brown, am I going to get glass like smoothness and function? Or am I in for some tweaking still?