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I remember talking with New Jovian Thunderbolt when he took a 1911 armorer's class and his talking about fitting parts to a gun.
I was reminded of:
D-P-355a 3.3.2 states, "Interchangeability. Unless otherwise specified on the drawings, all parts shall be interchangeable. Pistols and repair parts shall be capable of meeting the interchangeability tests specified in 4.3.3.4 and 4.4.4 (In normal assembly operations there shall be no objections interposed to preferential assembly of parts provided that all parts are dimensionally acceptable.)"
One thing, in particular stuck out and that was the ejector. It's retained by a notch in the ejector by a pin in the frame.
He described all the careful measuring to properly locate and align that notch in a virgin ejector.
In the Army TM the procedure was to secure the frame in a drill press, install the ejector and drill it in place; effectively using the existing hole in the frame as a fixture.
I am often curious about parts interchange among all the 1911 clones out there.
I know I've watched a lot of vids about how to fit a safety because I'm considering changing the style on my .38 Super. The safety is one of the drop-in parts on a mil-spec M1911A1.
Software Janitor has spoken of fitting a barrel to a slide once or twice.
I legitimately shot the barrel out on my 1991A1. Ordered a "drop in" Wilson match grade replacement. It took hours of filing and sanding and then 500 rounds of ball that I ran through my sizing die twice to get that thing to run.
ReplyDeleteThe barrel that McThag mentions that I fit was a different brand of match barrel. It was not sold as a drop-in, rather had a note "some gunsmithing required", so I expected a fair amount of work with fitment,. I bought a new bushing and link at the same time. I put them into a Ballester Molina, which is not exactly a 1911. It is actually based on a Star design, but it's mostly 1911 parts compatible other than the trigger is pinned and pivots instead of sliding and the design eliminates the grip safety (which I'm not a huge fan of anyway). I had bought the cheapest grade from SARCO (almost all finish worn off). It functioned fine, they had put a new set of Wolfe springs in it and some new grips (ugly) but the original barrel looked like a sewer pipe inside. It took a lot of careful filing. File, test, file test, etc. until it fit. I also peened the slide rails. The thing went from having the typical GI rattle to being tight as could be. And it shoots remarkably accurate, especially given the tiny and well worn sights. I didn't have to run a lot of ammo through it to get it to run. I've heard that Wilson barrels are like that wih a super tight chamber, and that Kimber is even worse that way as far as taking a lot of rounds break-in before they'll run.
Delete-swj