Posted: 2/8/2012 5:38:04 AM EDT
I got my first exposure to the stainless steel Colt Rail Gun when a friend bought one shortly after they were introduced. His particular gun had a few issues right out of the box... it needed a reliability job and some of the hard edges broken as well as a few other minor things... all easy stuff to remedy. As I had this initial Rail Gun on my bench I got a good idea of what I would change if given the opportunity. Lucky fellow that I am, late last year I picked up a Rail Gun and decided what better to do than build it up for this year’s SHOT Show. As I got into the gun I realized that, while it may not be the most “blank canvass”, there was still a great deal that could be accomplished on this base gun. As with everything I do, the gun got a weld-up frame and slide fit, Kart barrel with match fit bushing, a complete functional detailing and reliability job, trigger job, as well as only the best quality internals throughout the gun. Pretty straight forward stuff there, a full-house gun from the inside out. On the outside I started by flattening and serrating the slide top and fitting a PG rear sight and tritium front. The rear of the slide was serrated to match the PG sight and the front of the slide was ball-cut to correspond to the rail/dustcover as well as reduce the visual profile of the factory cut front cocking serrations. While the Rail Guns come with a beavertail grip safety and an ambi-safety they are, well, let’s just say less than optimal. The ambi-safety was sharp with corners that managed to find any soft spot on your hands and had a right side lever that was disproportionately large when compared to the left side lever. Quite frankly I don’t understand Colt’s choice of that part... luckily it was easy to replace with an EGW machined single-side safety. Swinging off the new thumb safety is an EGW machined beavertail that replaces the factory Colt part which was actually an okay effort. I cleaned up the factory done high-cut and hand-checkered the gun front and rear at 30lpi while using one of the Max-Bevel mainspring housings for a nice big opening at the mag-well. After a bit more polishing and re-contouring here and there as well as a thorough de-horn the entire gun was matte blasted and fit with set of VZ Operator stocks. 
|
sweet baby Jesus that's bad ass!
That's a work of art !
|
Quoted:
Nice work, it is just sad that a modern 1911 built with modern tools needed a realibilty packadge and the frame welded. Yep, that's my beef with 1911s. II want one bad but to get one that will do what a $700 SIG 220 will (eat anything and shoot straight) costs about 2K +. Hard for me to swallow. Nice pistol and nice work... |
|
Quoted: That is pure bull. But, if you want to adopt that internet crap as your guide, knock yourself out pal.Yep, that's my beef with 1911s. II want one bad but to get one that will do what a $700 SIG 220 will (eat anything and shoot straight) costs about 2K + |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
That is pure bull. But, if you want to adopt that internet crap as your guide, knock yourself out pal.
Yep, that's my beef with 1911s. II want one bad but to get one that will do what a $700 SIG 220 will (eat anything and shoot straight) costs about 2K + Not to hijack this thread but I have owned a hundfull of 1911s over the years, having my last around '94. I wrote them off because of my exerirence. Sorry to the OP I will bow out now,,, |
|
Very nice, but one detail about it I'd probably change is the plug that matched the fatter barrel bushing. I'd have to change it if it was mine. But the build looks like a winner to me. I like to have mine flattened up top and serrated like that also.
If you could, please a little more detail about the front sight. I see you are using a Heine rear. I'd like one myself, but I'm not sure what front sight to use. I thought since Novak has XSE front sights matching up without modification, I might use that in combination with one like your rear Heine. |
|
Very nice looking gun. I too am not really a huge S.S. person, but sometimes it looks good, and this is a prime example.
I noticed you did your serrations in reverse on your slide stop, the checkering on the bottom. I take it you are a fan of "sling-shoting" the slide on a new mag vs using the slide stop? |