Stone Soup – Part 2
While waiting for the rest of the parts to arrive, I stippled the front strap and cut the grip safety tangs to .250 radius using my rotary table. I then hand fitted the grip safety using gauge pins and sharpie to mark and file down the high spots. I blasted the frame and the slide […]
Stone Soup – Part 1
A club member brought me a no-name GI-style 1911 made in Philippines and asked to rebuild it as a ball gun suitable for the CMP service pistol EIC matches. This project reminded me of the old European folk tale Stone Soup. Pretty much every single part of the gun needs to be replaced. Even the […]
Here We Go Round the Barrel Bushing
A new bushing came this morning from EGW. It fits like a glove, very tight and very well made. In fact, it was just a hair too tight on the barrel, so I put a dab of very fine grit lapping compound on the tip of the barrel, assembled the slide with the barrel and […]
A Little Help For My Friend
Rebuilding a Springfield RO Elite Target for my friend. As usual, the bushing is loose, there’s a bit of a play when I wiggle the barrel between the breach face and the top lugs, and the trigger group is nothing to write home about (unless, of course, you want to whine about how gritty and […]
Raw Deal Project, Part III
As promised, here’s part III. I blasted all parts with 120 grit AlOx media and blued them using the Brownells’ Belgian Blue process, which resulted in really nice deep matte black finish. Again, she’s not a beauty queen and never meant to be, but she’s beautiful to me. My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the […]
Raw Deal Project, Part II
I started cleaning up the slide with face mill and noticed that it leaves very deep tool marks. Obviously, either I was doing something wrong or the tool was not the right one of the job. Most likely, all of the above. So I used various grits of sandpaper and a lot of elbow grease […]
Raw Deal Project, Part I
One of the obligatory activities at Camp Perry is, of course, shopping at the Commercial Row. Every time I end up buying a lot of things, some of which I do need, and some of which…well, let’s face it, I don’t really need. I load my car up with cases of ammo, jugs of powder, […]