Please understand that I am not a master gunsmith by any means. What I present below is my experience and my opinions. If I have misstated anything, please let me know.
I finally got to fire my 1911 that I have been building from scratch these past few weekends. I was amazed at the results, since this was my first effort to build one from the ground up, so to speak.
I used a Wilson frame and a Les Baer slide. Some of the problems I ran into were bizarre to say the least and I really sweated out some of the solutions. The Les Baer slide came with an undersized firing pin hole.
If this is common, please speak up, because I never saw it before. It is not possible to get the correct size drill bit into either end of the slide to open the hole, and drill bit extensions are way to large to fit.
This is what I did: I took the "snake" cable from my dremel and fitted the smallest bit adapter I had. I then carefully positioned it down the muzzle end of the slide, making sure it was parallel with the slide. I began by using a round diamond tip abrasive to slightly open the hole for the drill bit to follow. With the bit touching the hole, I carefully turned on the power with my other hand and gradually created a recess in the existing hole for the drill bit.
I then took a break because my nerves were semi-shattered. I did ok in opening the hole enough so the drill bit wouldn't grab and fly out of my hand and do who knows what damage to the inside of the slide. I then fitted a brand new drill bit of a diameter slightly bigger than the firing pin - I don't recall off hand what bit size it was. I lowered into the hole and turned on the power.
I had liberally oiled the area with cutting fluid. The drill went right through the hole, opening it up perfectly. After polishing the area and removing the chips from the firing pin hole side of the slide, the firing pin went through perfectly.
I am not sure my nerves could take another one of these attempts. There has to be an easier way to do this.
Before I go any farther, let me break down the time I spent on each part of the assembly, along with some comments.
Part # 1. Fit frame to slide. NM frames come from the factory with oversize rails. Since this is the first time I fit one of these, at first I thought that the time I logged might be excessive (4 hours), but after thinking it through, I decided it was a fair evaluation of how long it would take, given that all of it is done with safe sided files and a lot of measuring.
Comments, mistakes made:
I did a good job in fitting the slide to the frame. It is excruciatingly time consuming because it involves a little filing and then a lot of measuring since you have so many surfaces that are affected. I used a safe side rail file, available from Brownells. I'll go out on a limb here and submit that without this file you cannot come close to do doing the job correctly. You will end up cutting the frame rails unevenly and be very unhappy with your work.
The one tool that I do not possess and that I will most definitely purchase if I do this again is an inside mike capable of measuring the width of the rail slots on the slide. You can only measure the outer end with a set of calipers, and this does not guarantee that the (inside of the) rails were ground parallel and square (mine were not) and this caused me much consternation when I reached a point that the slide would not budge any further on the frame.
Having been able to mike the rails would have immediately let me know where the problem was (I did figure it out). The common error here would be to take off metal from the sides of the frame rails - which would ultimately give you to much side to side clearance once you finally got the slide and frame to mate - at which point your heart sinks to your feet and you thrown the gun at the wall.
Moral: get the right tools, no matter what the cost. They are cheaper than buying a new frame and starting over, or having the frame rails welded - which creates its own set of problems.
Needless to say I got the slide and frame mated. I did make a mistake. I took about 10 thou too much off of the top of the frame. Not a terrible mistake, but as I will detail further on down the line, it has its repercussions.
Part #2 Fitting NM barrel to slide and frame.
Heaving read Kuhnhausen at least 100 times, I was determined to get as close to 100 % lock up was possible. I ended up with 75%, which I think was fine for a first attempt. I chose a gunsmith fit barrel (Kart) because I have already fit the so-called "drop in" variety, and wanted a bit more accuracy (I got it in spades - more info to follow) and also the experience in understanding the complete cycling process. You can read the same 6 paragraphs until you are blue in the face, but until you fit the upper and lower lugs yourself, you can not fully understand precisely how the barrel locks and unlocks, and what factors affect accuracy and reliability.
I spent about 4 hours carefully cutting the upper lugs - again with the proper two safe sided file. Without it you are toast. I was thrown aback from the get go because there was sooo much material that had to be removed to get the firing pin hole centered properly.
Other tools that are absolutely required here is the little rectangular bar of metal with a "U" ground in it to perfectly center the barrel in the slide. I forget for the proper name for this tool but it is necessary for this job. It will let you know immediately if you have taken more material from one upper lug side than the other, since you will see a half- moon leaning on its side when you look through the back of the slide with an empty piece of brass to see if you have the firing pin hole centered properly.
Blindhogg mentions this tool and the entire process in his excellent tutorial on barrel fitting. I have also read it at least 20 times before I lifted file to metal.
I got my 55 thou lock up as suggested by Mr. Kuhnhausen. 45 thou is a minimum to shoot for - but 55 gives excellent lock up.
4 hours might be a bit excessive time wise for this process - I probably could do it in 90 minutes the next time, now that I am aware what the lugs should look like when working from a NM barrel.
By the way, the barrel I purchased had an undersized lower lug link pin hole in it. Finding the proper reamer (0.145) is nearly impossible - I did not find one having called virtually everyone west of the Rocky Mountains. Even the reamer manufacturers would not custom make one for me. If you find someone that has one, I would suggest offering **anything** in exchange for its use. Brownells no longer stocks them, they used to get them from Nowlin's. Nowlin's told me they had been unable to obtain them in over a year. Go figure. I ended up using a drill bit run by hand very slowly.
The upper lugs were easy in comparison to the lower lugs. I spent another 4 hours on them. I used the lug cutter with the 0.195 cutter from Brownells. that gave me a good starting point. I then carefully shaped the lugs and polished them with my dremel and polishing points. As a source of information to perform this super critical task, I used 3 excellent resources: Blindhogg's web site, J. KuhnHausen's book on the 1911, and Wilson Combat's "Customizing the 1911" video series.
All provided sufficient detail to help me get the lugs cut correctly. But it took a long time. I took extra care here because this is especially critical in creating an accurate 1911.
Mistakes made: I inadvertently cut one lug a bit higher than the other. This showed up immediately as a drag mark on ones side of the barrel as I locked/unlocked the barrel. My intuition was especially strong that day and after careful examination of the lugs I found the small area that had excess metal and matched the lugs.
I now had a barrel that would lock and unlock perfectly - until I installed my barrel busing. I elected to purchase an EGW "angle bored" bushing. If I have one nemesis when working on 1911's it is the barrel bushing. I have fit about a half dozen of them, and they still reduce me to a whimpering fool.
I have no problem fitting the bushing to the slide. I get a reasonably snug fit - but not one that requires a hammer to remove the bushing. Fitting the bushing to the barrel is another matter entirely. I decided to try for a 0.001 clearance between the barrel and bushing. If anyone has been able to do this, I sure would like to know how. I can't, even with the relief angles ground on the top and bottom.
I had misplaced my expansion reamer so I chucked the bushing in my lathe and took a couple of light passes so the bushing would just fit. When I tried to fit the barrel to the slide I ended up with enough barrel spring that they could have used my slide during Olympics diving competition. I started working on the lower portion of the bushing, relieving it a bit to see if I could get the required clearance. No way.
By this time I found my expansion reamer so I started to increase the bushing to barrel clearance 0.0005 at a time. By the time I had 2 thou clearance (that's 4 thou overall, 2 thou per side, I had a bushing that would almost permit lockup.
I then continued relieving the front lower segment of the bushing until I got rid of the spring. My gut tells me I did not need 2 thou clearance on each side, but my shooting tests later revealed that it did not matter - I must have done something correctly.
It took about 2 hours to fit the bushing. Knowing what I know now, I think I could knock that in half next time.
Other areas of fitting:
Trigger: one half hour
Grip safety: one half hour
Thumb safety: already fitted (using from another 1911)
Debur frame: one half hour
Cut hammer hooks and sear: 1 hour
Fit and adjust extractor: one half hour
Fit and adjust ejector: one half hour
About 15-16 hours to get to the point where I had a functioning hand gun.
Part #3. fit the sights.
This is another area that gives me the willies. The slide came with a Novak low mount cut in the rear and a standard Novak cut up front. Both cuts are slightly undersized and you need to very carefully open them up so your sights can fit correctly.
The rear sight cut is huge. After some thought, I decided to only work on the rear portion of the dovetail sight cut - it is smaller and far easier to cut. Again, working with a 60 - degree safe on two sides dovetail file is the only proper way to do this. And you must proceed slowly. Unless you have done this many times, the probability that you will cut precisely square is low - at least with my hands.
What I did to determine whether or not I was cutting squarely was simple enough. After every couple of passes with the file, I tried to fit the sight from both sides. This would let me know if I was leaning too much in one direction. More than once I have only tried fitting the sight from one side to find that at as I pushed the sight in, once it hit the wider portion of the dovetail it would fly across the room - along with my composure. Out comes the torch and I braze up the dovetail and start over. No fun.
Since most rear sights are held in with a set screw, this dovetail is set up somewhat looser than the front cut. Somewhat means - a very little. In my book, you should not be able to push the sight into the dovetail by hand. If you can, you have cut too much. Relying solely on the set screw is a recipe for disaster as far as I am concerned. I believe you should have a snug fit that requires a light tapping with a plastic mallet to get the sight in.
Some may disagree with me on this. After all, you want to be able to adjust the sight's windage at the range if necessary. Fine. But if the set screw is small and you over tighten and strip it, you are out of luck. I prefer to have a rear sight that uses the set screw as an extra precaution against movement, not as the primary means of securing the sight. I have had factory guns that I had a lot of trouble with because the dovetail was cut too wide in this regard. I ended up using shims under the sight to achieve the level of snugness required.
Also make sure you keep the file absolutely flat when you make your cuts. I held mine at a slight angle and cut a small notch in the rear, causing the sight to cant up slightly. Since I am still at the "too tight" phase, I can correct this without any concern.
I cut the front sight much tighter. As far as I'm concerned, it should take a good effort to get the front sight in. you don't want it shifting on you and you shouldn't have to rely on lock tite to keep it there. Again, my opinion.
It took me about 90 minutes to cut the dovetails and mount the sights. At that point I was done.
I have not decided on how I am going to finish the metal yet, but I have no intention of putting paint to metal until the weapon has proven itself with a few hundred rounds, giving me the opportunity to make whatever adjustments are required without having to worry about dinging the finish.
I headed up to the range with my new pistol, eager to see how it fired. It would not chamber the first round. My heart dropped. I had properly set the extractor tension, but the round was jamming half way up the barrel.
After a couple of tense moments, I realized I selected an old magazine with a weak spring. I loaded a Wilson mag with a fresh spring and it began to cycle.
After a couple of mags to let things settle in, I adjusted the rear sight - it was shooting a bit low. The barrel needs to be throated - its one step I forgot to do and will most definitely attend to it next weekend.
After running about 40 rounds through it to watch it cycle and see where my ejected brass were dropping, I put up a target. No word a lie here, I put 3 rounds in one half inch at 15 yards - and I only have 80 rounds though this new pistol.
Things are looking up as far as I'm concerned. I still need to do the throating and a bit of work on the extractor, but it began to feed, shoot and eject reliably right from the get go. Can't wait to get another 400-500 rounds through it so I can really get serious with it.
IIRC, there are two different diameter firing pins, the larger? is for .45 and the smaller? is for .38/9mm. I heard that some manufacturers only use a single diameter pin, the smaller, I think.
Yes - sounds like you are getting the hang of this stuff.
A couple of points to mention:
#1 the firing pin - it is likely that the slide is cut for a 38/9mm fireing pin - most of the high-end makers are doing this now to reduce primer flow, however you now have the .45 size fitted so no harm done. - Lesson learned
#2 the thumb safety - I hope that you have done the function test and it does indeed work properly - just because it was fitted to one gun usually doesn't mean it will work properly in another it almost always needs to be fitted to the sear - even if you change the sear out in the same gun - if yours does work - you got lucky.
All in all it seems like you have figured things out with the proper lerning curve.
I am really very safety conscious. I did indeed safety check the grip safety.
I find it to be the second hardest area to fit (probably because I have over cut two and had to braze them up and start over).
I also safety checked the thumb safety. Everything is fine. I do appreciate your concern and help.
When I learn how to embed a photo in a post, I will indeed show some photos. I am still completely undecided how I will finish this puppy.
I have done plenty of two tones. I'm not sure that's the way I want to go with this one. Once I finish Parkerizing it in a week or two, I'll decide what color.
Yeah, I was browsing through Kuhnhausen last night and saw the reference to the smaller diameter FPH for 9mm/38. Learn something new every day.
Now if I just could reclaim my shattered nerves from drilling the hole out. Damn. Where did I put my bottle of Wild Turkey? If I leave it out, my wife drinks it. i can't hide nothin' from her anymore. Maybe I'll empty out a can of brake fluid and fill it with Wild Turkey. I could keep it in the garage - someplace she never goes.