I want to polish my breechface and want recommendations as to what to use to do the job.
I use a Dremel with a polishing tip that looks like a pencil eraser.
Remember, polish do not take out the machine marks. if you do, you've gone too far.
In the rare cases that a breechface actually needs polishing, I use a popsicle stick whittled to fit between the guide rails with a piece of 600-grit wet-or- dry paper glued to the stick. Remove no more than needed to address any high spots, and don't change the angle... or you might be in the market for a new slide. Don't go for a mirror polish, and don't try to remove all visible tool marks. Just dress the sharp edges and/or obvious high spots. Shouldn't take more than about 15 seconds.
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In the rare cases that a breechface actually needs polishing, I use a
popsicle stick whittled to fit between the guide rails
I found my popsicle sticks are sometimes warped, you may have to sand them flat first!
You'll find all sorts of articles on this site referring to the polishing of various pistol parts. Most of them warn against the rather common practice of mirror polishing the feed ramps and the breechface.
What do the discriminating pistolsmiths use to polish this part? Why, a Dremel with a Craytex polishing fixture, of course! Now, let me say immediately that the real question here is whether you are actually improving reliability by polishing breechface and ramps.
I think you will find interesting reading in the stickies and elsewhere on this forum dealing with the principle of controlled feed, as taught by Mr. Tuner himself. If the feed surfaces are too slick, control of the feeding can be lost and reliability can be tossed out the window. If you must have some mirrored surfaces, you can always mirror polish the slide flats, because it will not affect reliability whatsoever. But the fingerprints...that's another story!
Just a "For what it's worth" note...
In nearly 43 years... and all the 1911-pattern pistols that I've tuned & tweaked and flogged into obedience... I've spent a total of maybe 3 minutes polishing breechfaces... and probably less than a half-hour polishing feed ramps with anything other than a piece of emery cloth on a fingertip... and never EVER to a mirror finish. Ever.
It's unnecessary, and very often counterproductive.
Thanks for all the good advice. I think I will leave the breechface alone unless a problem develops.
1911Tuner- I have read that when fitting a brand new bbl to a brand new slide that you should lightly polish the breechface. Thoughts on this?
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1911Tuner- I have read that when fitting a brand new bbl to a brand new
slide that you should lightly polish the breechface. Thoughts on this?
Don't know why that would be a prerequisite. I never do it, but to each his own, I guess.
It's on the Blindhogg website, what he says makes sense, but I'm by no means an expert either!
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It's on the Blindhogg website, what he says makes sense, but I'm by no
means an expert either!
Some of my habits have to do with the fact that I don't build or tune with the nth degree of accuracy as my goal. Some smiths work toward that end, but my main claim to (localized) fame is in making the guns as dead reliable as humanly possible, and willingly sacrifice a few percentage points in accuracy to obtain that goal. If a barrel is set up for a light interference fit with the breechface, a little polishing will help. If there's .003 inch of clearance, polishing won't make any difference one way or the other.
Blindhogg is a good guy and he has graciously offered us much insight through his web site on how various gunsmithing jobs are approached. My opinion, however, is that BH has yet to make a distinction between an optimum reliability pistol and an optimum match performance pistol. Many of the tasks he does simply follow the current party line on what a loaded 1911 pistol should be. One tiny example here under barrel fitting:
"The goal for me is to keep the fit as tight as I possibly can make it."
Hmm, well, I guess that he is referring to building a NM pistol, then. But the buck doesn't stop here if that is your intention, because a whole lot of little things have to be fit "just right" to make a big difference in overall accuracy. So, my point is that you have to know what type of gun you are building before you start.