The DIY 1911 thread... I think I'll call her Becky

[IronFreak]

I'll live in Texas one day, for pleasure or to revolt.....Or both.

[TeXJ]

I'm too cheap, I was thinking about taking my $600ish Ruger 1911 and getting a trigger job on that. Then it would be a sweet shooting gun for $650ish.

Doing it this way I guess you get the thrill of doing it yourself and not have a serial number attached to it?

Here in Texas, there is no gun registration, so if you bought a gun used from an individual, then you could have a gun with no paper trail.

[IronFreak]

so take that $1300, are we in the Kimber quality range etc? If you can land there for $1300 and say "I built the biiish...." I'd be happy, but that's just me. I enjoy the build as much as the ride...if not more.

[jalopi]

If I'm going to spend $1100-1300 on a gun, Id rather do this and make it truly my own weapon.

FTFY, unfortunately it looks like this is gonna be the actual price when everything's said and done :(

$500 of that is just the slide and barrel... and it's not even the top notch stuff (in between mid and high tier. I've read that you do NOT fuck with the quality of the barrel/bushing or the slide on 1911s or you're gonna have a bad time). That figure is including the cost of the jig though, so the number does go down as you add ladies to the harem :D

[IronFreak]

So what exactly is going on here with the big plates? Do you have to make the slide and barrel yourself or something? I haven't been around guns much since I was a kid and I am having trouble wrapping my head around what I am looking at here.

Its an 80% lower. Meaning its only 80% finished. can be sold without serial number. The purchaser has to finish the lower themselves. Stealtharms just provides the means of doing so without expensive milling equipment.

[Vincent Brick]

So what exactly is going on here with the big plates? Do you have to make the slide and barrel yourself or something? I haven't been around guns much since I was a kid and I am having trouble wrapping my head around what I am looking at here.

[IronFreak]

Keep it up, I'll let you work out the bugs then jump in haha! I want to get into a lot of this stuff more, I have been following Jesse James, goes by the Popeofwelding in IG. that Dude makes some INSANE pieces. Love the detail that's involved. If I'm going to spend $600-800 on a gun, Id rather do this and make it truly my own weapon.

[jalopi]

So... TIL this:



is almost as accurate as this:



Which is nothing short of amazing considering the Fowler caliper cost nearly 5,000% more than the Harbor Freight caliper. The dial caliper is infinitely easier to read though, so it's worth the cost IMO.

Found that out when I got the package in the mail - couldn't resist taking the new caliper out for a spin. Went to measure the rail depth that I'd currently cut - the Fowler read at .042". Just for hahas I pulled out the HF caliper, counted the notches, did the math and came up with .046" O_O

Yeah, it's off by .004 and by machining standards that's not good, but damn if it's not impressive for a $1 plastic caliper made by a 12 year old (probably).

Anyway, once I'm done with work for the day I'll get to working on that demonstration video

[IronFreak]

Sub'd - I'm very close to picking one of these up. In for results.

[Dj Buttchug]

sub'd This gonna be sick

[marshallnoise]

In.

[acolella76]

This is awesome. Subbed for inspiration!

[jalopi]

Don't tease yourself bro, we both know that's never happening in this state... at least not for a while anyway. The state police have made it very clear that they don't want anyone here getting CC permits and we don't have enough rich people in this state that care about firearms to balance the scales and push back against the political agenda... that's really all it boils down to.

Besides, if the CC permit system gets overhauled in this state I'll have to start ordering parts for Aimee (I think that's what I'm gonna call her. Can't decide if I wanna do a 3.5" or 4.25" barrel for her) and I can't afford that many ladies right now.

Anywho, on a lighter note, my caliper should be arriving today :D

Just gotta finalize my barrel/slide decision on brownells and put the order through

[rmdashrf]

1911 build thread! Subbed!

SB100 hopes to change MD ccw. Maybe not this year, but it's progress.

[jalopi]

So the first thing I did yesterday was set up a "gunsmithing" table on an old desk in my storage area.



Really it's just a vice right now, but eventually I plan on getting into reloading & casting bullets (though the casting will most likely be done in the garage with the door open, because word on the street is that breathing lead fumes is bad for you )

Then I decided to try and close that .008" gap up with as little force as possible using a c-clamp



Mission accomplished



After that I took the clamp off and headed into the garage to drill the sear & hammer pin holes



So I don't know if my press table/base is slightly off or something, because the holes I drilled are slightly off (I think). I followed the directions and made sure to only drill one side at a time, but this is as far as I can stick each drill through the frame



The drills clearly go into the holes on the other side, but I guess they're not *perfectly* aligned enough for the drills to completely pass through. Guess I'll find out if I 'dun goofed' when I go to put the sear/hammer in.

So, onto cutting the slide. The first impressions... not particularly great. neither of the videos I posted in the regular gun thread give an accurate representation of how this thing really works.

Gave it a quick test run last night just for hahas and found out that you get ~ALOT~ of chatter with this thing. Going by the instructions in the pamphlet (or the instructions in that girls' video) takes off WAY too much material. I ended up dividing each of the notches into thirds/quarters instead of half, as taking each notch (or half notch) at a time is waaayyyy too much material. I'll take a (probably shitty) video tomorrow to show you guys what I'm working with.

Regardless.... it does seem to work. There's a few things I'm gonna do to tweak it (teflon tape on the turn knob thread and on the cutter hold down screws) as I had issues with the cutter hold down screw backing off enough to let the bit turn sideways and cause a little bit of carnage on the frame rail (though it's not too bad, appears to be cosmetic)



I'm not gonna finish the rails up until I get my dial caliper in (just ordered a Fowler standard/metric caliper as the shitty plastic Harbor Freight vernier caliper I currently have isn't gonna give me that tight, silky smooth fit that I demand from my ladies. According to the one I have my current rail depth is around .04"... only .02" more to go! (until I can use the barrel cutter on the frame, not gonna go any further than that until I get the slide in)

Still up in the air on what parts I want to buy, but I think I'm gonna go with a 5" Kart "EZ fit" barrel (for some reason the steel they use takes well to DIY unjacketed ammo, or at least that's what people on the 1911 forums seem to say) as the full match fit barrels seem like a shitshow to fit from what I've seen. The slide'll be a Caspian SS with Novak cutouts, serrations only at the rear.

I think everything else is gonna come direct off of Wilson Combats' website, as theirs seems to be one of the few coherently organized websites out there (Brownells is nice, but only if you know exactly what you're looking for, which I kind of don't)

Gonna order as much as I can in stainless as I'm not sure what my approach to finishing is gonna be. Becky's a real attention whore, so it'll probably be something along the lines of polished nickel or titanium nitride :D

Updates as they come!