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Originally Posted by Take_a_knee
Montana, how do you check the fit between the hood and the slide? Other than the obvious method of just pushing on it to see if it locks up tight.


On anything other than match grade gun, I like to see around .005-.008" clearance around all the rear of the tang & the non-port side & and a couple more on the port side & see that there is no battering on the barrel face from the slide.

(With a match grade gun you would have started with an oversize tang & would have fitted it a little closer especially on the rear surface)

I also make sure that the underside of the tang is chamfered & polished so as not to impede a round going into the chamber.

With today's better commercial guns, the tang fit is rarely bad enough to be an issue.

Another area that usually needs some attention & can impact the barrel/slide returning to battery, especially on a new gun,is the corners of the locking lugs in the slide & on the barrel.

Assuming that the basic mating of the lugs allow good lockup, I always chamfer the back edges of the lug recess on the slide & the front of the lugs on the barrel.......doing this will allow the barrel to both unlock & return to battery easier.

This is accomplished with a file on the barrel lugs then polishing, & with a scraper on the slide.

The absolute max chamfer is 25% of the lug surface & usually about 15% is plenty sufficient.

MM

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Originally Posted by DocRocket


But I still won't carry a sidearm that hasn't given me 200 trouble-free rounds in one session.


I completely agree, & 200 would be a minimum.......but I would qualify that & say not necessarily 200 straight rounds in one sitting.

I allow for cleaning at, say each 50 rounds or so.

Most CCW's are not going to run into a 200 round firefight with their pistol, even if they had that much ammo on them at the time. grin

MM


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Originally Posted by DocRocket
Originally Posted by MontanaMan
I have a 20 year old "parts" gun built with a Mark IV NM barrel that has NEVER, EVER had a single malfunction, & that slide was VERY TIGHTLY fitted to the frame.

MM



I've had two pretty "high end" 1911's that were VERY tight. One a Mark Morris gun, has never given me a lick of trouble since the first round I fired through it. The second, a custom from a very well-known small-volume builder I won't name, came to me from the guy who bought it from said builder. My friend told me the builder had told him it was "very tight", and that he should expect it to bauble a lot of rounds, but that he should put at least 500 rounds through it before sending it back to the builder for final fine-tuning. I read that as the builder requiring the customer to do a significant part of the final fitting for him. I put 500 rounds through it all right, but it was 2 rounds here and 3 rounds there with Type 1 and Type 2 malfunctions all over the place. That gun went back to the builder for final fitting, I paid my friend an agreed-upon price significantly less than he'd paid, and I carried it off and on for a couple years before selling it to someone who was infatuated with the famous builder's name.

I currently run a Springfield Operator and Kimber TLE II as my "working" 1911's. Both came to me fresh from the factory and although a bit "tight", they worked just fine after initial cleaning. I lubed them liberally through the first few hundred rounds, but now they'll run just as well dirty as they will spanking new clean.


Honestly, Doc, I've never seen one that, absent a genuine dimensional or some similar defect, I couldn't make work.

Just a matter of ID'ing the root cause(s), as some have interactions, & then correcting it/them.

Always works best to do all that up front of course.

I just don't happen to believe that any 1911 should require 500 rounds to become reliable.

MM

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Thanks MT man. Do you ever re-fit barrels buy adding a little weld and filing it down?

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Yeah, Colt Mark IV NM barrels were made for Gold Cups & as such, had a narrower tang than a standard commercial or military slide, but the barrels were fairly cheap, readily available & they shoot really well.

In order to use them with standard commercial or military slides, the tang needs to be welded up & then fit to the slide.

A little work, but a cheap way to get a good shooting barrel so I've used quite a few of them.

MM

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Great stuff, MM.

Probably the most common problem I see on 1911's nowadays is 'barrel bump', where the barrel legs impact the cross-pin causing FTF's. A several hundred round break-in will likely beat the parts into submission, but probably not without longer term consequences. On a new 1911, especially a blued one, barrel bump can be spotted after a few magazines.

My new pistol procedure is similar to yours with a few twists, but is shorter...due to my shorter talents. wink


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Originally Posted by MontanaMan
Originally Posted by DocRocket


But I still won't carry a sidearm that hasn't given me 200 trouble-free rounds in one session.


I completely agree, & 200 would be a minimum.......but I would qualify that & say not necessarily 200 straight rounds in one sitting.

I allow for cleaning at, say each 50 rounds or so.


Well, yeah, you're gonna HAVE to clean it every 50 rounds if you're gonna use Unique as your powder of choice!!!
wink

Originally Posted by MontanaMan

Most CCW's are not going to run into a 200 round firefight with their pistol, even if they had that much ammo on them at the time. grin

MM


Right. But there's a method to my madness, and I've taken it to some degree from experience.

A problem those of us who shoot a lot run into is having time to properly clean and lube our guns after a range session. Let's say you shoot your daily carry pistol in an IPSC match this weekend, but it's cold and gusty and gritty so that when you get home you break your usual routine and instead of cleaning your pistol you opt for a bowl of hot soup and a sandwich... then your honey suggests an afternoon nap, and before you know it it's time to get dressed to go out for that dinner engagement you've had planned for weeks...

... and before you know it you've holstered your tried and true faithful sidearm full of crud and dust and gunk from the match, and you have forgotten that because you religiously clean your guns after every match... except this one time.

Then a week later your worst nightmare comes to pass and you have to draw your sidearm to defend your life. Your sidearm, which has had 150 rounds of ammunition through it in a match and hasn't been cleaned and lubed. Will it fire and function as you need it to when the SHTF? You won't know unless you've proven it to yourself at some point.

I realize this hypothetical seems farfetched, but I know it's happened in at least one case. Fortunately, the firearm in question had met the 200 rounds test and although neither cleaned nor lubed, functioned flawlessly and ended the deadly force situation in a positive manner.

It also very nearly happened to me a few years ago.


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thats why I never clean glocks, they work better dirty... whistle



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I have owned over my life time several different brands of 1911.
This is one I have found for the price range tough to beat. Fit and finish are on par with the higher priced Wilson, Night Hawk, and Brown. I like the fact that the company is owned by the employees, I think it speaks to the quality. If your take home check is dependent on what kind of product you put out, I think you are a little more anal about what goes out the door.
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Originally Posted by DocRocket

... and before you know it you've holstered your tried and true faithful sidearm full of crud and dust and gunk from the match, and you have forgotten that because you religiously clean your guns after every match... except this one time.



Doc,

I know that you know that there is only one answer to that dilemma, & it's an easy one at that..........you just need more qualified carry guns. laugh

Poof..............dirty gun problem solved.

MM

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Originally Posted by MontanaMan
Originally Posted by DocRocket

... and before you know it you've holstered your tried and true faithful sidearm full of crud and dust and gunk from the match, and you have forgotten that because you religiously clean your guns after every match... except this one time.



Doc,

I know that you know that there is only one answer to that dilemma, & it's an easy one at that..........you just need more qualified carry guns. laugh

Poof..............dirty gun problem solved.

MM


Beat me to it!

BTW - to the OP...I think I'd put more time into what I want out of the gun and go from there. Not so much worried about finding one that is/will be reliable. As MM alluded to, I doubt there are many out there that can't be made to run - if they don't already (possible exception, and only from what I've read - the Kimbers with external extractors). But there are so many variations with so many different features, it's hard to imagine that you couldn't find exactly what you want just by looking.


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How's that new Ruger doing?

MM

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Originally Posted by MontanaMan
How's that new Ruger doing?

MM


So far - great. Still 100% reliable, but I've only had time to put another 100 rounds of SWC through it. The trigger still feels like it could use a little work, but other than that I'm pretty happy with it.

Sights are regulated for 230gr. Soon as I get low on my current crop of 200gr SWC, I'm going to load 230gr for less-than serious needs. I think I'm gonna miss those nice clean holes...


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Good Deal..............lotta gun for the $$$$.

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I find that the 230 grain makes nice round holes. Of course, I'm shooting hard ball.


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Originally Posted by MontanaMan
Originally Posted by DocRocket

... and before you know it you've holstered your tried and true faithful sidearm full of crud and dust and gunk from the match, and you have forgotten that because you religiously clean your guns after every match... except this one time.



Doc,

I know that you know that there is only one answer to that dilemma, & it's an easy one at that..........you just need more qualified carry guns. laugh

Poof..............dirty gun problem solved.

MM


grin

Yessir. I have a pretty good inventory to put through the rotation, but wouldn't you know the ONE time I screwed it up...


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Originally Posted by DocRocket
[

Yessir. I have a pretty good inventory to put through the rotation, but wouldn't you know the ONE time I screwed it up...


Kinda figured you had a few............. laugh

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DocRocket, Would "EB" be the initials of the cranky, needs 500 more rounds fired, don't bother me, gunmaker you write about?
If so, I hate to hear that as I've long planned on one. Recent learning may have me going a different direction.

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No. Those would not be the initials.

Didn't mean to cause guessing games. I shouldn't have opened that door, and honesty is the best policy. It was Fred Craig who made that gun. I wouldn't say good or bad about him or his guns, I only heard about the troubles second-hand from the guy I bought the gun from. I know a lot of people speak well of Craig's guns, and I will say that after the gun in question came back from him after I'd run it in for my friend, it was rock solid and damn accurate as well as reliable.

Personally, I've only dealt with two custom 1911 guys to speak of: Mark Morris and Bill Wilson. Both of them are standup guys who make a good product. All my 1911 work for the past 8-9 years and for the foreseeable future goes to a guy who goes waaaay below the radar. That's all I know about 1911-smiths.

Last edited by DocRocket; 03/04/12.

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Doc, I agree the most important thing that a self defense firearm can do is go bang when required. I am much like Ross Seyfried in one regard and that is never trust a clean firearm. As Ross wrote that he shot his competition pistol until it literally "oozed" with gunk, before cleaning and that he never ever shot a match with a clean pistol and that he required a minimum of 200 rounds before a match




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