1911 MSH: Arched or Straight

[Paul7]

Arched. If you look at a Sig, which most consider to be a comfortable gun, it has a bump down where the arched MSH would be. The newer plastic guns with grip inserts also are not flat.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I found with an arched main spring housing I get shooter's-palsey, so I have to use a flat msh. Sure I could wear padding pistol shooting gloves, but I couldn't wear them all the time so for SD I opted to modify the 1911A1 for my hand.

LD

 

[The Bushmaster]

Colt series 80 with steel [straight] MSH
Kimber UCC II with plastic [straight] MSH. Didn't realize that it was plastic until I dismantled the gun for cleaning.

 

[stork]

I start out with an arched. Then I file it down and sculpt it until, when I establish my grip, the sights line up straight across on top. The I rechecker it with 20LPI checkering.

What I found is that the flat gave me a sight alignment where the front sight was slightly low. The arched made the front sight slightly high in addition to making me fail to fully depress the grip safety. So I figured, I have files, I have checkering tools and most important a couple of extra arched mainspring housings in case I screwed up.

FWIW

 

[Greg528iT]

stork... let's see some pictures.

 

[KodiakBeer]

I started out on the arched MSH in USCG boot camp in 1979. I though that was the way it was supposed to be, and my personal gun purchases reflected that.

Then, in the mid 90's I bought a 1911 with a flat MSH and realized I had been an idiot. The flat MSH was so much better that I've never looked back. At about the same time, I discovered the short trigger and that also become incorporated in my 1911 preferences.

I (and most of the 1911 world) have come full circle back to the original design as John Browning first created it.