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

[Big Frank]

Now you're getting somewhere.

[Diamondback]

And having achieved full slide travel even if it took hammers to do it, now the nightmare begins.

Any advice on working the barrel lugs when all you have is hand files?

[Big Frank]

Do you have files with a cutting edge and a safe edge so you remove metal from one surface only? I bought one a long time ago for filling rear sights. I can open up the width of the notch without messing up the depth.

My only advice is to be careful and take it slow. It's a lot easier to remove more metal than it is to put it back on. And when the lugs fit, you can get a variety of different length barrel links to get a tight, consistent lockup. But I bought a Dwyer Group Gripper instead. I saw a hand tool for scraping away metal between the lugs in a slide a long time ago. A carbide blade maybe, but it was way too long ago to remember. That's all beyond my area of expertise.

[Diamondback]

Yup, I have the Brownells one that has a safe edge, a cutting edge, and the flats are split in half safe/cutting to oppose the adjacent edge.

Also working with an EGW set of five different-size links. I'll worry about them when the barrel freely moves in and out of lockup in the dismounted slide.

[Big Frank]

Sounds good, DB.

[Sponsor]

[Diamondback]

It's not the friction-free "glass smooth" I want, but with a section of dowel rod as a temporary link-pin I have the right link dialed in and the barrel cycles between full linkup and linkdown.

Gonna try to clean it up and polish internals a little more, and see if I can figure out what's binding at maximum rearward travel occasionally Then get the ignition system ordered after I pay down some bills...

[Big Frank]

Paying bills sucks. I've been buying gun parts a little at a time in between bills, for 3-4 years I guess. I've been working on several things at a time this week, but when I'm done with everything my 20" AR will be complete, and my paintball marker will be fixed again.

[Diamondback]

Yeah... it gets even worse when you have to balance billable hours with live-in care for a parent who has the attitude of "I brought you into this world, I paid your way through college, until I'm in the dirt I OWN YOUR ASS." (How do I balance it? I have a huge L-shaped desk that's both my computer workstation and hand-tools workbench wrapped around the sofa so while I'm stuck waiting for the Ill Tempered Mutant Landcrab's beck and call I'm working with either digital files or physical ones. I wouldn't say she's as morbidly-obese immobile as "Pearl" in the first Blade movie but it's not for lack of trying... under these conditions I consider getting myself back under 210 even with the extra-calories winter diet an accomplishment.)

Next stage, I'm thinking install mag catch and see if I can get feed. So far my Wilson ETM's aren't playing well even downloaded from 10 to 8... hoping I didn't take too much off decking the top of the frame.

[Diamondback]

Next update: Different barrel link helped alleviate the stiffness on the slide (I started at #0 in the EGW link set, now up to #3), on reco of my old FFL - if any of you guys are ever around Coeur d'Alene swing by Armory Outpost and give the Nielsens a shout; they were kinda "Gun Mom & Dad" to me as my FFL when they were over here.

Snapcaps now feeding even from the Wilsons, but this cranky b**ch still HATES Gold Dots. Not sure if it's the ramp throat or the absence of ejector and extractor, or something else.

[Big Frank]

They should work once you get the extractor in. The 1911 is a controlled round feed like an old bolt-action rifle. I have some .44 Mag. 270 grain Gold Dots for hunting and they're soft points instead of hollowpoints. They're the only Gold Dots I know of that don't have a gold dot in the bottom of a hole. I think Speer quit making them, but Steinel Ammo loads them now, and they're not referred to as Gold Dots.