Best polishing areas for 1911?

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Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby Bergie on Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:27 pm

I'm working on my second 1911. My first was a Rock Island as a 'practice' round- polished the feed ramp, the trigger sear, the trigger slide sides, and disconnector. Seemed to work well- no malfunctions, and for the most part very smooth.
Now I'm on my second- a Springfield Range Officer. The trigger is incredibly gritty and the slide sounds like it's scraping on sandpaper! So I'm going to tear it down and polish up the areas mentioned above, but I'm wondering if I'm neglecting some areas. I've heard some talk about polishing the strut pocket in the main spring housing (not entirely sure why). Is there anything that a professional 'smith would normally do in order to improve the platform? My main concern is the trigger and frame grittiness as well as the slide.
So can I take my Dremel and some Flitz and polish the slide grooves (both on slide and frame?)
How do I polish the areas between the trigger and frame? (tight area) Tiny files?
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby 870TC on Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:45 pm

Put the dremel tool down. Buy this, http://brianenos.com/pages/slide-glide
Then shoot it more.
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby Bergie on Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:55 pm

Interesting.....described multiple times as "stringy". Doesn't seem like a lube at all if that's the characteristic.
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby Holland&Holland on Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:16 pm

Bergie wrote:Interesting.....described multiple times as "stringy". Doesn't seem like a lube at all if that's the characteristic.

Why?
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby crbutler on Thu Nov 23, 2017 12:16 am

From personal experience and partially why I gave up home gunsmithing... amateurs using a dremel or (in my case) a Fordham tool usually take off too much. Putting metal back on is buying a new slide. The high end custom guys lap the slide to frame fit...no dremel.

If the piece is reliable but rough in slide fit, all smoothing it out will get you is slop, and a less accurate gun. Might as well shoot it to smooth it. Slide glide is available in multiple thicknesses and the thickest will be like a grease...but don't use it around a Minnesota fall or winter... it's too viscous and will cause issues with reliability. Enos even admits such. The slide glide will make it seem smoother as the gun wears in.

The trigger, yes you use small files with that until its slick. Home trigger jobs also need minimalism but if you are not messing with the sear, smoothing it up will help with trigger pull. For me, shipping to a high end custom gunbuilder for trigger and reliability work was much cheaper.

The idea behind slicking up the mainspring and hammer strut channel is then you can get by with a lighter mainspring, which results in a lighter pull, and also tends to allow for a lighter trigger trigger job without beating the sear up and thus failing.

I tried doing a home trigger job, when I got it to 4# with a glass rod break I stopped and after using it for a few months, it doubled occasionally until one time it failed... 14 rounds (para ordinance P14-45) of .45 major loads going off when I dropped the slide taught me the error of me doing this...by scaring me sheet white. You probably are more mechanically inclined than I, and won't have that problem though, but it was just fine "when I got done"... it wore and broke down because I screwed up the sear geometry... I think.

Polishing the feed ramp, the trigger raceways, and the extractor along with modding the ejector to get the ejected case to fall where you want it along with recoil spring tuning are reasonable amateur things. Your question makes me think you probably shouldn't do more than that without some specialized shop manuals like Kunhausen's and some training. In any case, don't use a dremel on the slide rails or the frame rails.
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby mmcnx2 on Thu Nov 23, 2017 1:34 am

I have to assume you're intentionally trying to get a rise out of the group. The fact you ask about using a dremel on the slide can only be a joke. If not, polish the crap out of every surface and then once you've ruined the gun use it for a paper weight.

A new range officer should not need anything other than maybe a good cleaning and lube.

If you are going cut up a nice piece like the RO please switch to Glocks.
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby Bergie on Thu Nov 23, 2017 7:53 am

Butler makes some excellent points, which I'll adhere to..... (no, getting a "rise" out the the group wasn't my intent- but more so a 'I don't know what I don't know' post) So from the replies, it sounds like the slide/frame is normal and I'll put the Dremel away.
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby JJ on Thu Nov 23, 2017 8:02 am

Ugh, dremel. Those things are almost never the right tool, for any job.’smiths do 95% of their polish work, with India stones, and always with an eye for how the parts move and slide directionally. As well, stones will keep your surfaces flat, where a rotary tool may create a shiny finish, it’s always going to have waves.

Put the dremel down, and consult:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0006EVY ... SY340_QL65

Even the most experienced smith, will have a copy of that book on their shelf.
"a man's rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box." Frederick Douglass
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby aprilian on Thu Nov 23, 2017 8:44 am

Even high end guns have limits on how much time the maker can invest in smoothing all surfaces.

1) slide - dismantle entire gun, find out where slide grabs and put Flitz there and then cycle by hand multiple times until smooth enough to slide off when you tip the gun. Clean off all Flitz
2) trigger - buy a stone set with trigger track shaped stones for the track and use 2000 grit paper on the trigger bows to make sure they are smooth
3) hammer strut - if bottom is smooth, no need to touch spring cup (in my opinion)
4) inside main spring housing - make sure the channel is not rough, and make sure spring cup travels smoothly in the chanel
5) feed ramp - only place to use dremel, but only with felt and polishing compound

Buy the shop manual as suggested above. As others have pointed out, you are removing the slightest amount of metal in order to just remove the rough spots which are inherent in machined and stamped parts. Removing more is a recipe for prematurely aging the 1911.
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Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby gun_fan111v2 on Thu Nov 23, 2017 10:43 am

What aprilian suggests in 1) should be applied to every part you want to "fix" - first isolate the parts and check if they need to be fixed.

For example, if you cock the hammer by hand and its travel is nice and smooth - why would you mess with the hammer strut or MSH channel?

Also keep in mind Springfield has one of the best warranty departments out there. You could start with sending it in to get the biggest issues worked out and then tweak a bit to your liking.

Have fun with the process and let us know how it goes
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby Bergie on Thu Nov 23, 2017 9:14 pm

Update: pulled it all apart, but prior to that the hammer was pretty smooth, so left it alone. Just that dang trigger drag is driving me nuts! I polished the trigger side rails and lightly filed the frame rails/tracks for the trigger sides. Less gritty, but still there. (The Dremel went away -didn't want to go crazy with it).
But now here's a question- when investigating for burs, rough patches, etc, I looked at the underside of the slide. It looks like someone took an electronic 'pen' and scribed in the number 775- see pic. (?) I've never seen this done before. Is this normal? The slide inscription seems like it would ride roughly over the disconnector.
My goal was to make this a match pistol to rival my buddies' Colt Gold Cups.
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby Sorcerer on Thu Nov 23, 2017 9:25 pm

I’m not sure if you can make an $800 gun into a $1,400 gun. At a home work bench.
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Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby gun_fan111v2 on Fri Nov 24, 2017 12:24 am

Are 775 the last three digits of the guns serial number? That is the usual place manufacturers put that to keep the frame and slide together as the gun goes through the build and finish process.

Have you seen these videos? I found them helpful.

https://youtu.be/ZyKhTsYfH6A

https://youtu.be/dpiMSZiutT0

Eventually, you can do all this and still run into a bad hammer to sear engagement that cannot be corrected without a special jig or a gun smith.
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby Seismic Sam on Fri Nov 24, 2017 2:07 pm

Sorcerer wrote:I’m not sure if you can make an $800 gun into a $1,400 gun. At a home work bench.


I 100% agree!! Based on my hand assembled and fitted 50 GI Model #1, when the Master gunsmith gets the slide and frame, they do NOT fit! It's the smith's job to lap the rails and grooves until they DO fit, and the fit is incredibly tight but 100% reliable. When I got my 50 GI I racked the slide the 1st time, and the gun made a slight "sucking" sound. That was the vacuum between the rails and slide being broken! :( :o :shock: At any rate, that's how Guncrafters does it, and since Alex Zimmerman and Victor Tibbets had a couple of decades of experience each at Wilson before they founded Guncrafter's, obviously that's how Wilson does it too! That sort of divides pistols into two camps, where with the hand-built camp the parts are machined to NOT completely fit, and with the machine-produced camp the parts ARE machined to fit to begin with. Two processes, two sets of tolerances. In real life it's probably more complex than that, and something like a Colt Gold Cup National Match could be a "machine produced gun" with very close tolerances. With an "every day" priced auto, there is probably room for good improvement by polishing some parts, particularly those with tool marks on them. While I do have a Dremel, I've never used it with an abrasive stone bit in it on a gun! With most entry-priced EAA's the feed ramp needs polishing and perhaps increasing the depth of the ramp radius very slightly, and for that I used a felt bullet that has plenty of JB Bore Paste rubbed into it. This may take half an hour to do it, but you can't gouge or scratch the metal in any way. Apart from that, I am an amateur ONLY, and there's no way in hell I'm going to alter sear or trigger surfaces in any way. And yes, you do need special jigs to do that, and if you try it by hand you'll shot your foot off, Ralphie!
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Re: Best polishing areas for 1911?

Postby Bergie on Fri Nov 24, 2017 7:41 pm

Sorcerer wrote:I’m not sure if you can make an $800 gun into a $1,400 gun. At a home work bench.


Maybe if I spent another $600 in finishing work......!
I ONLY use a tiny amount of Flitz and a soft cloth 'drum' on my Dremel when I use it on guns. NO grinding!
I had a Rock Island that I wanted to make into a Gold Cup- never gonna happen. So I'm trying the 'beginners match pistol' the Range Officer.
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