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.

[Big Frank]

I've been putting it off for years but eventually I want to get Acc-U-Rails installed on my full-size Para with an aluminum frame. Instead of rattling like a pair of maracas it with be tight and smooth. Maybe next year.

http://www.acc-u-rail.com/railpics.htm

[Diamondback]

Interesting.

Funny, my first response when you say "Accurail" is to think of a model railroad manufacturer I used to buy a lot of 1950s boxcars from in high school...

[Sponsor]

[Big Frank]

Interesting.

Funny, my first response when you say "Accurail" is to think of a model railroad manufacturer I used to buy a lot of 1950s boxcars from in high school...

A lot of links for that come up if you search for Acc-U-Rail. One gunsmith used to do these, then passed on the business to another gunsmith. It's another one of the many gun related businesses nearby in SE Michigan. The area is also home to Brass Aluminum Forging Enterprises who make tons of AR uppers and lowers, UTG (Under The Gun), Cammenga military compasses and Night Fision tritium sites, Glow Rhino, Mag-Na-Port, Detroit Ammo Co. and too many others to recall offhand.

[Diamondback]

Can't forget Ned Christiansen and his M-Guns portfolio of gunsmithing tools, either.

Depending on test-fit we're now at either just over or just under 1/4" from Battery, depending on whether or not I'm willing to shove the slide on so hard it takes a mallet to get it back off. We've reached the point where my "Easy Cleanup Dykem" Sharpie is no longer giving me useful information on where I need to file from scratches in the ink.

[Big Frank]

One time at work I was painting someone's big black toolbox on wheels. Someone else said to me, you think that's paint don't you? Of course I did, because I'm not too bright sometimes. It was a metal can of blue Dykem with a brush attached to the inside of the screw cap.   The tool and die guys used it all the time in the press room and I was a press operator at the time, so it was always around. I was just too stupid to know what it was at the time, and how to use it.

If a die broke and they welded it together, or whenever there was a problem with how it all fit together, the T&D guys would be inside a huge press with a die grinder and can of Dykem. The next thing you know we were stamping out doors or fenders or whatever. I wouldn't want to work inside a huge press like that. The aluminum safety block, with 2 small wooden wedges to tighten it up, were suppose to keep the press from cycling, but it didn't always work. One time a press cycled with the safety block in it. The block shot out and hit a guy in the leg, shattering his shin into a hundred pieces. They put him back together like Humty Dumpty and he was eventually able to walk, but had one leg that bowed forward. I never saw a bent leg like that before, but s**t happens when you work in a factory. At least he wasn't one of several amputees.

That was some serious thread drift. But it seems to be one of the things I'm really good at.

[Diamondback]

Dykem was responsible for no small amount of trouble from the Subcaliber Rounds that were my high school administrators... they couldn't understand that the stuff is a pain in the ass to get out of the skin and wasn't washing off even overnighht and in the shower so I was showing up with blue hands from ending the previous day in Machine Shop.

And they WONDERED why everyone in the Industrial Arts building exiled out to the far corner of campus held them and their prissy, p*ssy, effete limpwristed Liberal Arts cronies in such contempt...

Got to 1/8" on one trial, haven't been able to return. Which seems really odd since that was still an "arm-strength reef" pull apart without the mallet...

[Diamondback]