G
Guest
·I felt inspired by these home workshop posts so earlier this week I picked up a box stock Colt Delta Gold Cup from JM10mm.
My Brownells order came on Friday night with all of the various parts, files and tools.
I have read about.
I should have picked up a manual or "how to" book so I did the next best thing I took out a few of custom guns eyed each part up used my micrometer and went from there.
I used all of these parts:
Brown Memory Groove series 80 SS beavertail
Brown SS tactical Ambi safety
Egw SS over size slide stop
Brown SS extended ejector
Brown SS plunger tube
Hardcore SS Hammer and Perfection sear.
Brown match disconnector
STI strut and cap
Brown mag catch lock
Videcki Series 80 GC match trigger
McCormick tactical checkered mag catch
Brown 30lpi wedge housing
Wolff sear, plunger, mag release, and hammer springs.
Nowlin replacement grip bushing
Tri Wing grip screws
Ahrends rosewood tactical grips.
I was actually quite surprised at how much fitting is required with all of the "over the counter" parts.
The hardest part was removing all of the machining marks inside the dustcover and frame, polishing the trigger track and mag catch race way seemed to take forever.
The second hardest part was fitting the Beavertail and grip safety so that when the lever is in the up position you do not see that "awful" hole.
I assembled the stock (for now) top end and then realized that the Colt series 80 parts were providing drag so I mirror polished and jeweled them.
I final polished every moving part all the way to fine white jewelers rouge and my trigger breaks perfectly @ 3.5lbs. I could feel a very slight hint of "creep" /friction or something like that until I isolated it to the non-polished hammer strut scraping the inside of the MSH tube.
I then mirror polished the inside of the MSH and the strut, the resulting pull dropped to 3.2lbs.
I noticed that while I need to do this trigger job on about 35 of my custom 1911s now as I now hate them all.....
It still felt odd, like something was not quite right as I wnated my trigger to break like the 2lb PSG1.
After careful examination I isolated it to the trigger bow, so I mirror polished the trigger bow and the contact surfaces of the mag catch.
The pull is now perfect at 3lbs and it does literally feel like I am snapping a glass rod.
I brazed the plunger tube on and silver soldered the trigger stop screw in place.
I cut the oversize ejector so that it tosses all of the brass about 1’ beyond my right shoulder, I used the photo in AH of Larry’s gun for the angle then reproduced it on my ejector.
I used the Brownells slide fitting bars and the Brownells ball peen hammer, and then I used the no mar lapping compound to smooth the tightened and fit slide so that it rolls along very smoothly.
I can see how you could easily mess this part up, how do most of you guys tighten the slide fit? Is their an easier way?
I also beveled the underside of the slide rails as in the AH article and smoothed all of the sharp edges, it was a lot harder to do than it would seem as I had to keep changing the angle of my dremel and vise a few degrees at a time so I did not radically alter the edge geometry of each line as I did not want it to be apparent that the pistol had been beveled heavily.
It feels so much better in my hand now that I am still amazed as the Colt frame had sharp edges literally everywhere.
I shot it for several hours this morning and I am undecided as to checker, stipple or serrate the front strap? After shooting my N frames for almost 1,000 rds yesterday I really expected the silvertips to beat on my hands a little.
But, I was really surprised at how “easy” the gun now feels in recoil, it must be either the ultra smooth slide frame fit without galling/rubbing now or the very high grip of the Brown memory groove?
Let me know what you guys think and I will post an update as I move along.
My bead blasting cabinet and milling equipment should be here this week and I am excited to try it out, also how do most guys find this "home gunsmithing" to be?
Next weekend I will undercut the front strap, install a new Barsto 10mm barrel with OD bushing, Aftec extractor, Wilson BP oversize slide stop, firing pin and sights.
It took me 14 hours do everything so far as I have gone very slow so as not to make any mistakes.
How much should I expect to improve with practice?
I am having fun but, it has also made me appreciate the serious amount of work that goes into building these custom guns by the real gunsmiths.
here is a pic of the frame in progress:
![]()
_________________
Think, Plan, Train, Be Safe.
Thanks
David
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David DiFabio on 2001-07-08 19:59 ]</font>
My Brownells order came on Friday night with all of the various parts, files and tools.
I have read about.
I should have picked up a manual or "how to" book so I did the next best thing I took out a few of custom guns eyed each part up used my micrometer and went from there.
I used all of these parts:
Brown Memory Groove series 80 SS beavertail
Brown SS tactical Ambi safety
Egw SS over size slide stop
Brown SS extended ejector
Brown SS plunger tube
Hardcore SS Hammer and Perfection sear.
Brown match disconnector
STI strut and cap
Brown mag catch lock
Videcki Series 80 GC match trigger
McCormick tactical checkered mag catch
Brown 30lpi wedge housing
Wolff sear, plunger, mag release, and hammer springs.
Nowlin replacement grip bushing
Tri Wing grip screws
Ahrends rosewood tactical grips.
I was actually quite surprised at how much fitting is required with all of the "over the counter" parts.
The hardest part was removing all of the machining marks inside the dustcover and frame, polishing the trigger track and mag catch race way seemed to take forever.
The second hardest part was fitting the Beavertail and grip safety so that when the lever is in the up position you do not see that "awful" hole.
I assembled the stock (for now) top end and then realized that the Colt series 80 parts were providing drag so I mirror polished and jeweled them.
I final polished every moving part all the way to fine white jewelers rouge and my trigger breaks perfectly @ 3.5lbs. I could feel a very slight hint of "creep" /friction or something like that until I isolated it to the non-polished hammer strut scraping the inside of the MSH tube.
I then mirror polished the inside of the MSH and the strut, the resulting pull dropped to 3.2lbs.
I noticed that while I need to do this trigger job on about 35 of my custom 1911s now as I now hate them all.....
It still felt odd, like something was not quite right as I wnated my trigger to break like the 2lb PSG1.
After careful examination I isolated it to the trigger bow, so I mirror polished the trigger bow and the contact surfaces of the mag catch.
The pull is now perfect at 3lbs and it does literally feel like I am snapping a glass rod.
I brazed the plunger tube on and silver soldered the trigger stop screw in place.
I cut the oversize ejector so that it tosses all of the brass about 1’ beyond my right shoulder, I used the photo in AH of Larry’s gun for the angle then reproduced it on my ejector.
I used the Brownells slide fitting bars and the Brownells ball peen hammer, and then I used the no mar lapping compound to smooth the tightened and fit slide so that it rolls along very smoothly.
I can see how you could easily mess this part up, how do most of you guys tighten the slide fit? Is their an easier way?
I also beveled the underside of the slide rails as in the AH article and smoothed all of the sharp edges, it was a lot harder to do than it would seem as I had to keep changing the angle of my dremel and vise a few degrees at a time so I did not radically alter the edge geometry of each line as I did not want it to be apparent that the pistol had been beveled heavily.
It feels so much better in my hand now that I am still amazed as the Colt frame had sharp edges literally everywhere.
I shot it for several hours this morning and I am undecided as to checker, stipple or serrate the front strap? After shooting my N frames for almost 1,000 rds yesterday I really expected the silvertips to beat on my hands a little.
But, I was really surprised at how “easy” the gun now feels in recoil, it must be either the ultra smooth slide frame fit without galling/rubbing now or the very high grip of the Brown memory groove?
Let me know what you guys think and I will post an update as I move along.
My bead blasting cabinet and milling equipment should be here this week and I am excited to try it out, also how do most guys find this "home gunsmithing" to be?
Next weekend I will undercut the front strap, install a new Barsto 10mm barrel with OD bushing, Aftec extractor, Wilson BP oversize slide stop, firing pin and sights.
It took me 14 hours do everything so far as I have gone very slow so as not to make any mistakes.
How much should I expect to improve with practice?
I am having fun but, it has also made me appreciate the serious amount of work that goes into building these custom guns by the real gunsmiths.
here is a pic of the frame in progress:
_________________
Think, Plan, Train, Be Safe.
Thanks
David
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David DiFabio on 2001-07-08 19:59 ]</font>
