We had a pretty good talk about the small radius FPS in the 1911 the other day and I was pretty skeptical about some of the claims. It was an interesting idea though, both from a historical and a mechanical perspective.
Tuner is tops on the 1911 and has made some very good posts on the care and feeding of this king of pistols. Despite my doubts from a mechanical point of view, I got a couple of the stops and tested one today.
The stop itself appears well made and it fit up nicely with a minimum of fuss. I left it almost square on the bottom with a very small radius to get the most effect.
Results? I can't tell the difference. I fired 150 rounds with the small radius and then switched back to the standard radius for 50 more rounds. Operation was 100% and the ejection patterns and recoil seemed the same. Manual racking of the slide with the hammer down was somewhat more difficult with the small radius FPS.
Why no change in operation? I don't know,but plan to fire this mod in some other pistols and try some other springs and loads and see if anything shakes out.
One thing that struck me is that just about every FPS I've looked at has a hammer impact line just above the firing pin hole. It may be that the hammer is slapped back from this point and the bottom radius doesn't have much to do with it.
In any case you will end up with a FPS that will most likely fit much better than the factory version.
YMMV, and it would be interesting to hear from those who have switched back and forth with the small FPS radius.
Tuner is tops on the 1911 and has made some very good posts on the care and feeding of this king of pistols. Despite my doubts from a mechanical point of view, I got a couple of the stops and tested one today.
The stop itself appears well made and it fit up nicely with a minimum of fuss. I left it almost square on the bottom with a very small radius to get the most effect.
Results? I can't tell the difference. I fired 150 rounds with the small radius and then switched back to the standard radius for 50 more rounds. Operation was 100% and the ejection patterns and recoil seemed the same. Manual racking of the slide with the hammer down was somewhat more difficult with the small radius FPS.
Why no change in operation? I don't know,but plan to fire this mod in some other pistols and try some other springs and loads and see if anything shakes out.
One thing that struck me is that just about every FPS I've looked at has a hammer impact line just above the firing pin hole. It may be that the hammer is slapped back from this point and the bottom radius doesn't have much to do with it.
In any case you will end up with a FPS that will most likely fit much better than the factory version.
YMMV, and it would be interesting to hear from those who have switched back and forth with the small FPS radius.