If I understand what I found in previous posts and on Blindhoggs website I need to cut this portion of my slide away to use this type of reverse plug. Just looking for confirmation by picture from one of my betters before I start cutting.
Also, is it possible to tighten up slide to frame fit? The only thing I can think of other than welding and re-cutting is some how bending the rails on either the frame or slide then and lapping again, but before I attempt this I'm wondering if that's possible or if I'll just crack something.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
There is a reverse plug that you remove material in the area you are referencing, but the one you have is not that style. What you need to do is ream the slide the same size as the largest part of your reverse plug . I think Brownells makes the reamer, but I made one myself. It was not that hard to do.
PSS You only ream the slide just deep enough so that your plug sits in just the right position. My reamer is very long so that it can reach the area where I need to ream and still have enough length to attach a handle to it to turn it.
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If you get the Brownells gages you could lower the frames rails. I would not suggest bending the slides rails in via a vice. Heard lots of horror stories of slides cracking. But lowering frames rails is not hard to do if you do your homework.
haha, see, that's why I asked :) Thanks Blindhogg.
Wait. Hell. Now I'm not home and I can't recall for certain, but I'm nearly positive that the larger diameter on that plug is the -same- size as the radius of the outside of the slide. I.E. Reaming it would be the same as cutting it off. I'll measure in the morning, but I swear I had the plug in the front end of it and the radii matched up, which is why I took the picture and asked.
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Scratch my last. I should be able to dig up a reamer. Thanks again.
Min, use a piloted reamer. Otherwise the cut will walk towards the slot between the barrel and spring cutouts.
To pilot a reamer through I would need 2 different pilot sizes, since there are 2 inside diameters to ream through, the first being smaller than the second. I don't understand how that would work.
Unless I'm supposed to come through the front of the slide first to remove that inside ledge, then ream from the rear for the plug clearance?
There are actually two steps to fitting one of these plugs. First you need to ream from the front (Dangerous end of the slide you know where the barrel would come from) to get rid of the lip at the end of that tunnel. That reamer is whatever your ID is of that tunnel, PS THis one does not need to be piloted. Second once the tunnel is all one diameter you ream with a piloted from the opposite side of the tunnel, you know with a super long reamer to get over the bottom of the slide. This needs to be a piloted reamer, THe brownells one is just a reamer of the right diameter that the first half inch has been ground down to the ID of the plug. You could probably buy a reamer and have a machine shop do it if brownells does not sell those reamers anymore.