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Springfield 1911 9mm build for wife


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I picked up my wife's new Springfield 9mm Loaded Target project gun a week or so ago. Shot 200 rounds thru a it using the two OEM mags + 3 Wilson ETM mags. I numbered them and shot full mags sequentially. Only one mag had any problems, the #2 OEM mag. It had 2 nosedives, one with the first round dropping the slide and one halfway thru that loading. No other malfunctions. Very pleased with the Wilson ETM mags.

 

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The gun was sighted very high left. As I shot each mag with the same point of aim for the whole mag and then adjusted sights between mags, it seemed reasonably accurate with 147 gr American Eagle. Some 10 round 10 yard groups were in the 1" range. At 25 yards, I didn't fare as well. Best groups were around 4" with me not being able to handle the heavy, gritty,creeping trigger very well. I'll do a trigger job right away.

This gun was intended as a fun gun for my wife (and I). I plan to do some work on it to tighten up the accuracy and put some gingerbread on it. I have a Leupold Deltapoint Pro for it and intend to low mount it. The slide will get serrations on top and black cerokote. The frame will get the front strap checkered, weld on magwell, extended mag release, Wilson BP semi-extended slide stop. Then it'll get cerokoted either a metallic titanium blue or metallic purple and get some thin black grips engraved with my wife's name on the outer show side panel.

I haven't decided whether to put a match Kart match barrel in it or not. I think I'll put a tighter bushing in it first and see how it does. The OEM bushing has .004" clearance on the barrel and .003" to the slide. There should be some accuracy to be had there.

 

 

I received some of the parts for my wife's gun this past week. The Brownells order with the Cylinder & Slide drop in trigger job came in. It has a "tool steel" hammer & sear, disconnector, sear spring, and heavy main spring. The order also had a selection of light recoil springs from 9lbs up to about 13lbs and a STI short trigger.

I installed and fitted the trigger. Adjusting the forward position with the bendable stops on the bow and fitting the shoe in the frame.

The "drop in trigger job" was almost drop in. It needed the disconnector polished on the contact surfaces. The leaf spring contact on the disconnector got some stoning too. The trigger pull ended up pretty decent. It has some "roll" or smooth creep, but it's minimal and it breaks at a pretty light pull. I didn't dig out the gauge, but 3 1/2 lbs would be a guess.

The thumb safety needed to be refit. It needed removal of material from the contact point on the sear. I was thinking I'd either need to weld the contact or get a new safety. But it worked out.
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I was digging thru my box of old 1911 parts and found this bag. It must be at least 20-25 years old. I know it's not legal in IDPA, but I figured I'd put it on a gun and see if I liked it. I can tell you, I don't think it's for me.
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I also installed a Wilson Bullet Proof semi-extended slide stop. I don't know if that's going to be long enough for my wife. We'll see if she has the thumb strength to release the slide. The short STI trigger is for my wife's smaller hands. I like a long trigger. But the STI trigger I had in another gun was very comfortable. So I went with one for her in a short version It's coming along. 20161105_150503_zpse2kcgu8r.jpg

EGW is sending a new fitted bushing, firing pin stop, extractor, and ejector. That should round out the reliability parts.

I've ordered some Slimline G10 grips from VZ Grips, black with laser engraving deep enough to fill with contrasting paint for her name.

I think I want to have the front strap checkered and the front strap/trigger guard radius cut for a higher grip before I have a custom girly Cerokote job. I'm going with a black slide and something flashy for the frame. Maybe a metallic purple if I can find it. Metallic blue if the purple is out of the question.

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I mounted the red dot on a EGW mount temporarily to see if I really want a reflex sight on a handgun. I'll shoot it a bit this way, but I'm not leaving it like this. It's setting 7/16" higher than if I permanently mount it by milling the slide.

 

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The custom fit EGW thick flange bushing came in. It does require some minimal work to install. The edges are all sharp as received. Except the front edge carries a healthy chamfer.

 

The EGW bushing fit based on the measurements I provided was perfect and will wring out all available accuracy from that component.

 

From this picture, it became evident I should do a modern crown treatment on the barrel.

 

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At the range with the fire control components, bushing, and the reflex sight, I got some decent results. Still, I think these groups would be halved by a good shooter.

 

Ammo was American Eagle 147 gr flat nose fmj

 

The center group was the first shots after the work. It was a full 9 shot magazine fired offhand at 10 yards. The subsequent groups were from a rest at 25 yards, beginning at the upper left. I made some sight adjustments between groups. The third group and subsequent were 10 shot mags/groups.

 

The two impressions I came away with are:

1. The reflex sight makes putting the gun on target sooooooo much easier.

2. The gun is surprisingly accurate with a good trigger and tight bushing.

 

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The following target is the 10 yard rapid fire results from the low ready. I fired roughly 50 rounds on this target, mixed rapid fire full mags, double taps, triple taps, etc..

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Prior to the range trip, I also took some time to polish the barrel ramp with a Cratex rubber abrasive and a felt wheel with rouge. The gun had no malfunctions of any kind in the 100 rounds fired from all 5 mags, including the #2 Springfield mag that had 2 nosedive FTF malfunctions last trip.

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Looks good! I keep getting tempted by a mid-range 1911 but I'm trying to save money to put down on a truck this spring as I want to get out of the Jeep.

 

 

You'll really enjoy a 1911 in a lighter round. There's a IDPA class that the 9mm 1911 fits in perfectly. I haven't shot in IDPA, but did IPSC many years ago with 45.

 

So far, this 9mm has been pretty dang reliable and has a lot less recoil than 45. Lots of fun.

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  • 4 weeks later...

 

 

 

I wanted the front strap checkered, but it was short notice for sending it to a smith and get it back in time to finish it for Xmas. But a smith in New Hampshire stepped up and took it on. It's 3000 miles from Southern California but should be in overnight FedEx tomorrow for the trip home. I have mill the bottom of the grip frame off 1/4" and weld on a large magwell base for fast loading and do some mill work to flat top the slide and serrate it. Then I'll have it coated in a custom color Cerokote metallic on the frame and black slide.

 

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I'm planning to gift this gun to my wife for her range fun gun and maybe a IDPA or other competition gun. The plan was to put a good effort into it so I don't look like a smuck when she shows up at the range with me shooting something nice and her shooting the run of the mill stuff. I've gotten a lot of flack in that area and I figured I'd do something nice for her.

So it started as a SA Loaded Target 9mm SS. It just has a EGW fitted bushing and some C&S lockwork parts. I put a DeltaPro red dot on it to test it since I don't own a Ransom. It will get the Dawson fiber optic sights for her.

I had taken it to the range before and it performed well. But I knew it had more in it and I just wasn't getting it out with the trigger at around 4 lbs. I tweeked the sear spring and checked it at 2 1/2 lbs. I don't want to give her the gun that way, Im thinking more like 3 1/2 lbs. But it was an opportunity for me to try some accuracy testing with a very light trigger to see if I could wring out some tighter groups. It did. I think I'll not worry about trying to wring out any more accuracy with a match barrel change, etc.. The ol' Springfield barrel seems just fine.

Also, Im at about 600 round with it and it has only had 2 FTF stops in the OEM mag in the first session of 3, none in the past 500 rounds since I polished the ramp to nearly a mirror. All the other 4 mags (3 ETM Wilsons, and another OEM) have been flawless. The gun has been super reliable and I haven't touched the extractor, although I have a EGW extractor and ejector waiting to be installed. I really like this gun. Maybe I should keep it for myself.

The groups in these pix are all 5 shot. All rested unless stated otherwise. I'm really impressed with this gun.
Here's efforts from just before Thanksgiving.

 

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I wanted the front strap checkered, but it was short notice for sending it to a smith and get it back in time to finish it for Xmas. But a smith in New Hampshire stepped up and took it on. It's 3000 miles from Southern California but should be in overnight FedEx tomorrow for the trip home. I have mill the bottom of the grip frame off 1/4" and weld on a large magwell base for fast loading and do some mill work to flat top the slide and serrate it. Then I'll have it coated in a custom color Cerokote metallic on the frame and black slide.

 

 

 

 

You use a guy in Northwood by chance? I think his last name is Spaulding?

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http://evolutionarmory.com

Somersworth, NH

 

 

 

Looks like he does nice work. The guy I mentioned is someone I met ages ago- he did the transfer on the first handgun I bought and it turned out he was a 1911 smith too. I don't remember much about what he offered but he was a cool guy- GM truck person too! Turned out we were both on the same truck forum (before I came across this place) haha. The 1911 builds your guy does look nice. I love the look of those flush barrels. You wanna give me $4k? haha

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Yeah 4K is a lot. But these guys put a couple $k worth of gun and parts into one of these guns, then a bunch of hours of hand and machine time. In the end, they're really just selling labor. These guys don't make a fancy living.

 

This project gun started with a $1k gun. I haven't added it up yet, but I'm sure I'm around $2k in it in parts and now this checkering. I still have the magwell milling, welding and blending as well as flush barrel crown, minor recoil spring plug machining to get it flush, slide milling for flat top with serrations, slide lower edge chamfer, maybe a few more mill cuts I can think of, then a custom color Cerkote job and finally, install the fiber optic sights. I'll do all of this myself except the Cerokote. But yeah, I can see how they can get $4k into one. I'll be probably close to $2500 into this one, with me doing everything except that checkering. And those gunsmiths have to put beans and bread on the table. They're not getting rich.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've started into some of the more labor intensive work. This work I'm doing myself. More to put my personal touch on it than anything.

The frame got a magwell from Briley welded on. It still needs a lot of shaping.

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I'm not so happy with the shape. More shaping and polishing before off to the Cerokote guy.

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Then I wanted to flat top the slide and do something unique, so I decided to checker it. Lots of mill setup and run time.

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It still needs deburring and chasing the checkering with a riffle. But I'm pretty happy with the effect.

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It's going to be a crunch to get this done for her Christmas present.

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The VZ Slim 320 grips came in today. I really didn't like the Briley magwell shape, but I didn't want to do anything until I fitted the grips.

I fitted them up pretty quick (for me) and started marking the magwell. I don't know about the rest of you, but it takes me quite a bit of time to figure out how I want to sculpt something like this. Sometimes it just kind of develops.

I started with a 12" disk grinder and got the big stuff off. Then I picked up a file. First thing that struck me was the pretty checkering on the grip. I put a strip of duct tape on it. Still worried. I have a huge 18" wide roll of .010" aluminum adhesive tape. I cut a tiny piece for protecting the checkering. You can see the file marks in it.

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This is the shape I ended up with. I'm not very good with organic shapes. But I really pleased myself with the shape. It had to have a forward extension from the frame since the well has some chamfer forward.
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I'm never happy with my file work. I'll hand sand it to remove the file marks and smooth it tomorrow and get to the inside again. I had my friend TIG it again on the inside after I ground about thru all the welds.

I really gotta kick it in gear and get this to the Cerokote guy tomorrow afternoon.

Sneak peek
still has the mask on it from the laser engraver. I have a plan for this.

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