Rafe’s 1911 Build – Days 2-4
So I’m finally getting a chance to get back to Rafe again and the building of his 1911. Let’s all remember that he is in college and also works, so there are a lot of ‘gaps’ in our time together and thus, his progress. Collectively, he’s spent about 9 hours fitting the slide to the frame. He trued the slide on the first day and has been working the frame rails for the past couple of meetings. We’ll call it days 2 – 4.
Days 2-4: The Slide and the Frame; Continued
Rafe did a really good job at truing his slide, so moving on to the frame to see how it would fit would be our next part of the ‘slide and frame’ process. I feel it necessary to mention a thing or two about the mil-spec slides, like the one’s you can get from Sarco. They’re inexpensive and they’ll do the job – HOWEVER, they’re not oversized. That means you WILL have to work the frame rails and swage or peen them – unless you have the wherewithal to weld the bottoms of the slide. Yes, that can be done – but it’s A LOT of work. You’re almost better off spending the few extra bucks on a Caspian slide – but if you’re on an actual $$$ budget; elbow grease is cheaper than parts, I guess.
As I’ve mentioned before, there are numerous ways to fit the frame rails. Some are preferred by some smiths, some are preferred by others – but some are the only ‘smart’ option. In a perfect world, with perfect parts, all you would have to do is stone the frame rails to the proper dimensions. In that world the slide would slip on with no play – done right, I haven’t even needed oil. That kind of fit is so beautiful it makes baby Jesus cry, hehe.
On our world, that’s not the case. Some would say that truing the slide caused our problems with perfect fit and caused the need to swage/peen…to wit, I would ask; would you fit a dimensionally atrocious slide to a true frame? If your answer is ‘yes’…then I don’t want you working on my guns, hehe. Seriously, some mil-specs aren’t bad and aggressive truing isn’t necessary – but as I said, that was not the case here. The biggest part of this whole ordeal is to teach Rafe how to get it done – so having a ‘worst case scenario’ situation is actually good for him.
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