Michael Tinker Pearce
Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2016
- Messages
- 1,571
Where this idea came from is a looong story, but it's been licking around in my head for a few years and, after extensive consultation with The Mistress of Finance I decided to go for it. I have a Detonics Combat Master .45, and since the 1980's I have been impressed with the guns capability to double-tap and deliver rapid follow-up shots. The light reciprocating weight combined with a fast lock-time, bull-barrel etc. means that while these guns have significant recoil they come back on-target very, very quickly. The downside is the short grip and short sight radius. A full-size grip should make it even more manageable, and Kimber did this with their Pro-Carry a good few years back (lLinda's all-time favorite .45.)
The thought was to get the benefit of the short, light slide, bull-barrel etc. without sacrificing full-size and sight radius while keeping the weight as close as possible to a standard 1911. Oh, and make it a 9mm for even less felt recoil and a couple extra rounds. After carefully going over pricing I bought a Tisas Duty B .45 as the donor gun. These are a very well-made 1911 with many of the bells-and-whistles I wanted at an excellent price. I replaced the slide and barrel with 3.5" units from RIA bought off of eBay, and an EGW Flat-spring recoil system. I got some dust-cover cut-offs from Caspian ($5 each) and enlisted a friend (who is an excellent welder) to extend the dust-cover. I made a fixed aluminum weight to attach to the extended dust cover and mounted the front sight on it. I hand-filed a dovetail for a Novak rear sight and the basic set-up was done.
I also blended the flat mainspring housing, then cut 20 lpi checkering on that and the front of the grip-frame. I also deepened and refined the undercut at the base of the trigger-guard, and a bit of this-and-that here and there. I tried to blacken the weight with Birchwood Casey Aluminum Black, but that worked poorly. Eventually I plan to have the gun and weight refinished and coated. The result is just about exactly what I wanted; a rapid-fire range toy/competition pistol that puts rounds on target in a hurry.
There's still work to be done, but it's coming out and, more importantly, performing as I wanted, and has been surprisingly inexpensive to put together. Now I need to make a holster for it...
The thought was to get the benefit of the short, light slide, bull-barrel etc. without sacrificing full-size and sight radius while keeping the weight as close as possible to a standard 1911. Oh, and make it a 9mm for even less felt recoil and a couple extra rounds. After carefully going over pricing I bought a Tisas Duty B .45 as the donor gun. These are a very well-made 1911 with many of the bells-and-whistles I wanted at an excellent price. I replaced the slide and barrel with 3.5" units from RIA bought off of eBay, and an EGW Flat-spring recoil system. I got some dust-cover cut-offs from Caspian ($5 each) and enlisted a friend (who is an excellent welder) to extend the dust-cover. I made a fixed aluminum weight to attach to the extended dust cover and mounted the front sight on it. I hand-filed a dovetail for a Novak rear sight and the basic set-up was done.
I also blended the flat mainspring housing, then cut 20 lpi checkering on that and the front of the grip-frame. I also deepened and refined the undercut at the base of the trigger-guard, and a bit of this-and-that here and there. I tried to blacken the weight with Birchwood Casey Aluminum Black, but that worked poorly. Eventually I plan to have the gun and weight refinished and coated. The result is just about exactly what I wanted; a rapid-fire range toy/competition pistol that puts rounds on target in a hurry.
There's still work to be done, but it's coming out and, more importantly, performing as I wanted, and has been surprisingly inexpensive to put together. Now I need to make a holster for it...