The Twenty-Year Pistol... .450 SMC 1911 Longslide

[Big Frank]

Frank, IIRC primer flow was one of the problems with Super, and SMC addressed it by switching to Small Rifle primer instead of Large Pistol. IF I can ever get a hold of Fernando Coelho at Panteao, that'd be a question for him.

Hey, does Fearless Leader Mike B. ever post here anymore?

I wasn't sure, but I thought that's what happened. It's been a long time since I read up on the .450 SMC design and couldn't remember.

Here it is in black and white.

Coelho was fed up with the inherent issues of the .45 ACP/.45 Super cartridge case and the damage being done to the potential growth of the .45 Super. One of the case problems was primer flow; you could experiment with different brands of primers and powder, but most of the time primers would flow back around the tip of the firing pin. The solution: switch to a small-primer pocket and utilize a small-rifle primer. Coelho reached out to Starline again, asking the company to make .45 Super brass with a small-primer pocket. That solved the primer-flow problem and Triton Cartridge soon began offering factory-loaded .450 SMC ammunition.

https://www.shootingillustrated.com/content/the-450-smc-a-potent-practical-defensive-cartridge/

[Diamondback]

Update: The slide is now about an inch from battery position! Not as loose in movement as I'd like and still three more inches of travel needed to get full range of movement, but slowly getting there...

[Diamondback]

Inside half an inch to battery, but every sixteenth is putting up more fight than the last one. In the "free movement zone," though, this thing is tighter and less rattly than some FACTORY 1911s I've handled new.

That said, when it's time to build the 5" "Carry" slide, I'm having that fitted by a pro with instructions that all alterations are to be made on the slide side as far as possible to ensure satisfactory fit on a 2-slides-1-frame set.