Show us your Guns!

[DeaconKC]

Before I retired, I carried a Glock23 for 17 years. Butt ugly, but a fantastically reliable and tough gun that stood up to the abuse of working a High Risk Parole Unit. It was scarred up from the job and I hope someday to be able to get it when the department trades them in. But...the other day we took a 23 in on trade at the LGS I work part time at, the price was right, so I brought it hone with me. This one looks new, will need better sights, but a very nice gun.

 

[scooter]

So,

Before I retired, I carried a Glock23 for 17 years. Butt ugly, but a fantastically reliable and tough gun that stood up to the abuse of working a High Risk Parole Unit. It was scarred up from the job and I hope someday to be able to get it when the department trades them in. But...the other day we took a 23 in on trade at the LGS I work part time at, the price was right, so I brought it hone with me. This one looks new, will need better sights, but a very nice gun.

What sights are considering? New Iron sights, or an optic of some kind?

 

[DeaconKC]

I had Meprolight Tritiums on my carry gun and they were still usable after 17 years. So I will be getting those probably. However the newer one with fiber optics around the tritium vial are pretty nice also.

 

[DeaconKC]

Well, I had a recto-cranial inversion last week. New guy at the gun store I work at is taking gunsmithing courses through SDI online. I had picked up an Aero AR lower sometime back and when Palmetto ran a nice sale on the rest of it I picked that up. The store owner was cool with seeing if the new guy knew anything, so we had him try to assemble the kit.


Mistake...


So anyway I got to the forlorn little beast tonight and found the problem. Hammer spring in wrong, easy newby mistake. Would have been a no hassle fix if I could have kept from launching springs all over creation! YEESH! Anyway after spending most of the time looking for launched springs and pins, finally got the little beast together. After assembling and tuning dozens of the little buggers over the years, I knew what I wanted, KISS principle, extended take down pins, ambi safety and a reliable red dot [Crimson Trace] with back up sights.

 

[EriCal]

My single shots. 1985 Win Low Wall in .22 LR; Ruger No. 1 in .222; Win 1985 Low Wall in .17 WSM, not yet scoped; 1985 Browning Low Wall in .223; Ruger No. 1V in 22-250; and 1985 Win High Wall in 6-1/2 Creedmoor:

 

[EriCal]

CZ 600 Range Model in .308. It took almost two years to get it.

 

[Woodtroll]

My single shots. 1985 Win Low Wall in .22 LR; Ruger No. 1 in .222; Win 1985 Low Wall in .17 WSM, not yet scoped; 1985 Browning Low Wall in .223; Ruger No. 1V in 22-250; and 1985 Win High Wall in 6-1/2 Creedmoor:

I'm a big fan of single-shot rifles. That's a nice collection!

 

[DeaconKC]

Wound up swapping for this yesterday, a Rossi Ranch Hand in .45 Colt. Can't use it in Cowboy Action Shooting, but it's gonna be fun to shoot anyway.

 

[DeaconKC]

One of the perks of working at a gunstore is having something useful come in unexpectedly. Found a Ramline camo stock for my Savage 270, looks much better than the basic black stock that came with it.

 

[DeaconKC]

And another new arrival, picked up a GSG522, a 22 "clone" of the MP5. Can't wait to get it to the range.

 

[DeaconKC]

Wound up with a swap today and wound up picking up a nice condition Walther P-1 [nee P-38 with aluminum frame]. Always wanted one, it will look good along the Luger. Looks like this one was made in 1981.

 

[Diamondback]

Construction underway on that 7" Longslide. (This pic is a partial test-fit only.)

Frame assembly only needs:
*Hammer/Sear/Disconnector group - pending funds
*Ejector - needs decision; getting contradictory tech advice on long vs short for "magnum" loads
*Trigger - have yet to find a GI-style curved in polished or polishable stainless
*Grip safety and slide stop - more polishing on stainless
*Slide stop and thumb safety - sand/grind/polish crosspins for better fit to frame
*Finish - in talks with a local Cerakoter to see if he can use customer-furnished ingredients

Slide assembly will have to wait for funds; the bare slide by itself will cost more than some police trade-in Colt 6920 AR-pattern rifles!

 

[Yahoody]

>*Ejector - needs decision; getting contradictory tech advice on long vs short for "magnum" loads

What caliber are you building? And what are your anticipated "magnum? loads? .45 Super and .460 Rowland?
Both have their own issues if you are building a 7" gun for them.

7" Slide?

In the 30 years I spent building custom 1911s full time, I never bothered with a 7" slide. Never had anyone request one. Wouldn't have built it if they did. Built a good number of 6" guns however. Did notice that Caspian no longer offers even the 6" slides in normal production.

7" slide and barrel will need a magnum load just to make them run with any reliability. At some point (likely back in the 6" dimensions) you'll have some real issues with spring weights as well, among a hand ful of other issues that will plague your project. I know that list well.

Either way your current "tech advice" suggestion that a standard ejector is needed is nonsense. Even 5" guns can use the help of a properly tuned for length, extended ejector. They are an easy addition to a 6" gun to help reliability.

Friendly but unwanted advice I am sure, but you'd be way, way better off building a 6" gun than a 7" and ditching the idea of "magnum" loads.

 

[Yancy.41]

Yahoody,,

I’m a huge 1911 fan. Long slide 1911s are sweet. Did you have a custom 1911 shop?

 

[Diamondback]

I'm building in .450 SMC, basically an improved and less battering .45 Super. The idea was using the extra two inches of slide mass to help tame recoil, and the extra two inches of barrel for better muzzle velocity, accuracy and terminal ballistics. Tyler at Fusion recommended a 20lb recoil spring and 23lb mainspring. (Most folks like Nowlin have basically said "treat it as a Minus-P version of .460 Rowland rather than a Plus-P-Plus ACP."

In essence, going back to the AMT Longslide Hardballer, but doing it better.

I started with the cookbook for Ace Custom's first .45 Supers as relayed by Fernando Coelho formerly of Triton Ammunition when I first started planning this twenty years ago, but all that said was "long extractor" so I was never sure if that meant all the way up to Commander length, or a cut-down from that.

 

[Yahoody]

>all that said was "long extractor"

Obviously a typo on someone's part. No such thing as long extractor. Long ejectors have been around since the first Colt Commanders (1950). Used there for the same reason, reliability.

20# recoil springs and 23# mainsprings? All in a 7" gun. Interesting combo indeed.

20 years? That is a long wait! Good luck!

 

[Yahoody]

Yancy? Yes Sir. Got the T shirt to prove it

I still build a few guns a year for past customers. This is a new Series 70, Stainless, Colt I did last Fall. BarSto, hard fit barrel, Brown thumb safety and mag button, EGW grip safety, Grider trigger, Hogue G-10 grips, Heinie Straight 8s, Bob Perkins ignition set, Wilson 8 round mags.

Machine work done here and p[arts sorted. Machine work was the frame serrations, French border, sight cuts. And now ready to do the build. Takes a bit more than 40 hrs start to finish, plus range time and ammo to know exactly what you have when done.


Finished product. I have been building this same style of 5" 1911, for 40 years now, even the pats list has changed very little.

 

[Diamondback]

>all that said was "long extractor"

Obviously a typo on someone's part. No such thing as long extractor. Long ejectors have been around since the first Colt Commanders (1950). Used there for the same reason, reliability.

20# recoil springs and 23# mainsprings? All in a 7" gun. Interesting combo indeed.

20 years? That is a long wait! Good luck!

Yeah, typo's on my part, meant ejector.

Original concept was an "optimized and handed" pair of 7" on Para doublestack frames--optimized meaning as you hold one in each hand, slide stops and ejection ports outside, thumb safeties inside, and ambi mag catches to use standard right-hand mags on both. The handed pair was first cut, lack of Portsider parts availability. Then 7" slides had been extinct since the end of AMT, forcing a cutdown to 6"... and then a doublestack frame turned out too big for my tiny little 5'6" stubdude hands. Back to singlestack... then the pivot from college to a relative's live-in care and "creative accounting" with my stipend from that keeping the budget stranglehold going. A few years ago I mentioned the stalled project to my FFL smith, and he suggested I take a look at Fusion.... and then a Bumper Crop of Schedule 1-Induced Legislative Idiocy in WA's capitol last session kicked things into high gear getting the frame in-hand before their steaming pile of bullcrap kicked in at turn of the new year.

I actually have buildsheets for projects where the very first versions were in crayon 40 years ago... and one much more recent has gone into "Permanently Canceled" because the Miculeks beat me to literally the last Go Rhino brushguard in the world for a Jurassic Park Ford Explorer. (I tend to approach life like a chess game, slow methodical deliberate planning and steady movement toward Checkmate.)

 

[Yahoody]

> 7" slides had been extinct since the end of AMT, forcing a cutdown to 6".

I'd guess Caspian would still make a 6" slide and if asked nicely may be even a 7".

If it were me, I save a ton of $ and find a used 7" Hardballer and start the build by stripping the 7" slide and fitting it to your (assumed) over size and much higher quality frame.

Easy to find a 7" hardballer in decent shape and cheap because they so seldom actually ran. Then I'd make sure to chrome or coat the slide after fitting to the frame as the early/all AMT stainless was soft and the resulting gauling impressive.

 

[Yancy.41]

Very nice, Yahoody!