Thinkin about building a 1911. Can anyone tell how difficult it is? I'm a novice. Is it possible to put one together without any gunsmithing?
The short answer is probably not. But, it depends on how tight the tolerances you are shooting for is. You can buy a kit frame and parts from Brownell's and put the whole thing together in your basement, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you have the appropriate tools and experience to custom fit some of the parts... JD
Build of a 1911? Hello all/Responce to Dragunov It's not all that hard, but how up on the 1911 are you? Have you ever taken one dowen to nuts and bolts? Do you have good books to support that? I've built one, but I am a freak for 1911! I have good support and documents, you might wanna get those first! PM me if you want additional information?
Well I have looked into this a bit and the answer is yes and no . Could you buy parts and just put them together ? Perhaps but in the end it may cost you more than it would to buy a lower price end gun that can be very good , for instance a RIA or Charles Daly 1911 or even the basic Springfield can be had at reasonable prices . You could say call up Caspian "http://www.caspianarms.com/index.php" and buy a frame , slide and barrel all together and ask them to make sure they mate up correctly but this alone would get you in the $500+ range , then one of the most importatant areas of the weapon are the fire control parts needs to be fitted for safety reasons "Hammer , Sear , Disconnector" if these are incorrectly fitted you could have a dangerous gun that could go full auto on you . You can purchase kits from Cylinder n Slide http://www.cylinder-slide.com/ and the parts are all set but these will cost over a $100 Things like triggers and mainsprings , mainspring housings , grip safeties , thumb safeties , slide stops should all either drop in or be fit with a touch of sanding by hand with wet/dry . www.MIdwayusa.com has almost everything you need listed for sale , go there and try adding up all the parts costs and see what you get . All in all unless you truely want a custome gun I don't think it's worth it . Heck if you just want a very nice accurate , reliable 1911 shoot me a PM and I have a Charles Daly full sized with a 5 inch barrel in blue I am selling for $400 . IT has a sweet trigger pull straight from the factory and yes she feeds hollow points . I have a couple of Pics if you're interested .
I actually have a RIA .45 1911A1 now, and yes, I've torn it down almost to the bare frame and cleaned it. Your right about this model being cheap, i got it for $300 at Keisler's Firearms in Jeffersonville Indiana. I thought about building a .45 stainless with a 6-inch slide, like the one in Terminator 2. I just wasn't for sure if I could do it with little experience and a basic set of tools.
Forgot to say, thanks for the links, been looking for some stainless parts such as grip safety, trigger, thumb safety, mag release, etc to put on my RIA. It's the standard 5-inch 1911, all black, gonna put some stainless parts on it. It should look pretty good black and stainless.
If you decide to change out the mainspring housing get a Swenson and save yourself some $$ , I put an Arched one in my Daly EMS "Midsized" and it slid right in no problem . The Swenson is anywhere fro $10-$30 less than the other brands and a mainspring housing isn't what I would call a major part anyway . Heck Colt and Kimber's new guns came with Plastic ones and I think still do .
Thanx, the mainspring housing was one of the parts I am gonna change. My RIA has a straight one (black) but I think I'm going to put a stainless curved one on there. I held a friends 1911 with curved mainspring housing and it fits my hand a little better. Also thinkin about ambidextious thumb safety also stainless.
O One thing when you swap the mainspring from one housing to another or just asseble one "if you get a totaly new assembly" I strongly suggest putting the housing in a vice to compress the spring into place and wear a pair of safety glasses. If that little plug gets away from you and into an eye well kiss that eye Bye bye and get use to being nicknamed Cylops or Patch . That is one strong little spring and the cap is somewhat pointed .
I built mine from a Doublestar frame (centerfiresystems.com) $99 Centerfire also has ARMSCOR 1911 parts (Armscor makes the parts for many 1911 badges) Got a slide and match bbl with Wilson Combat sites at a funshow (er, gunshow) for $80.00 and all the innards from friends free! Your talking bout mebbe a $200 gun that shoots betteren any of my nines http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1229/6309647/12253703/245323460.jpg[/IMG ONE thing I recommend strongly is read as much as you can, get the Army manual on 1911 maintenance and whatever else you can get, even surplusrifles.com has an excellent how-to manual. And before you start, get a cafeteria tray and put a rubber mat in it for your small parts and disassembly/reassembly area yodar
I'm not sure whee you are getting Wilson slides and match barrels for 80 bucks but I'd sure like to get a trainload at that price!
I plan on building up an Officer size gun myself when I have the time to devote to it, and that may turn out to be a retirement project. Anyway, with just a little basic price shopping done, I pegged $1,000 as my budget (hopefully less). To me this kind of project is less about price, and more about satisfication.
If you do build one (or fiddle with the sear, hammer, safety in an already built one) before you shoot it the first time, remember to never load more than two rounds in case the gun decides to double (or go full auto). A "must have" book IMHO for people who really want to know how to work on the 1911 is The Colt .45 Automatic: A Shop Manual by Jerry Kuhnhausen.
I built my Officer model, sort of. I bought a used and badly finish worn Colt Series 80 and just replaced everything. Some parts had to be fitted and I had to learn some new things, but it is done now. Well, almost done. I'm having Wilson Combat Armor Tuff finish applied. I should get it back in a month or so - just in time for Christmas!
