Stephen A. Camp
Moderator In Memoriam
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2002
- Messages
- 2,430
Hello. A few years ago, I was able to trade into a VERY lightly used Colt Nat'l Match .45 ACP. It'd obviously not been shot much at all, but did show neglect in the form of surface rust, mostly all over!
I had my gunsmith, Lou Williamson, remove the gun's spring-loaded sear and had an Ed Brown grip safety fitted to the pistol as well as their sear and a titanium
Dlask "Gold Cup" type trigger. He did a trigger job as well. The gun was completely black parkerized.
Anyway, it did fine and was very reliable, but I just didn't care for the sight picture with the original sights and knew that eventually the high, staked-on-with-a-small tenon front sight would leave the gun.
Yesterday, while buying some ammo for another project, I checked to see how a deceased friend's handguns were selling for his widow and came across a never-fired Colt slide he'd purchased from CDNN. It has the McCormick dovetailed sights like what comes on the old Kimber Classics.
Anyway, the slide was a VERY tight fit and would barely go on the frame. I'd checked and got lucky; the barrel fit the slide very, very well and the bushing was tight, but could be removed by hand.
I spent about 3 hours lapping the slide to the frame, but now it glides like silk. There's very, very little lateral play in the slide-to-frame fit, but zero vertically. There is zero movement in the bbl-to-slide fit.
Here's what it looks like.
The frame is from a National Match. The new slide is marked "Competition."
I guess I'll call this a "Nat'l Competition" model.
Here's the first group I fired with it.
Here's some targets fired at 15 yards. These were fired from a rest as I wanted to reduce human error as much as I could.
This 25 yard target was also fired from a rest in slow-fire.
One session's not enough for me to be sure, but this thing SEEMS to prefer 200-gr jacketed bullets. I'll find out if that's true in the future.
I fired the gun using a Pachmayr 7-rnd magazine, Wilson 7 and 8-rnd magazines as well as a Mec-Gar 8-rounder and an old Randall 7-rnd. Zero failures to feed. Zero failures to eject and I was pleased to note zero case dents. The firing pin strike is almost exactly centered. There were zero failures in the slide locking back on an empty magazine and no premature locking open of the slide.
Even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then! I think I like this combination.
Best.
I had my gunsmith, Lou Williamson, remove the gun's spring-loaded sear and had an Ed Brown grip safety fitted to the pistol as well as their sear and a titanium
Dlask "Gold Cup" type trigger. He did a trigger job as well. The gun was completely black parkerized.
Anyway, it did fine and was very reliable, but I just didn't care for the sight picture with the original sights and knew that eventually the high, staked-on-with-a-small tenon front sight would leave the gun.
Yesterday, while buying some ammo for another project, I checked to see how a deceased friend's handguns were selling for his widow and came across a never-fired Colt slide he'd purchased from CDNN. It has the McCormick dovetailed sights like what comes on the old Kimber Classics.
Anyway, the slide was a VERY tight fit and would barely go on the frame. I'd checked and got lucky; the barrel fit the slide very, very well and the bushing was tight, but could be removed by hand.
I spent about 3 hours lapping the slide to the frame, but now it glides like silk. There's very, very little lateral play in the slide-to-frame fit, but zero vertically. There is zero movement in the bbl-to-slide fit.
Here's what it looks like.
The frame is from a National Match. The new slide is marked "Competition."
I guess I'll call this a "Nat'l Competition" model.
Here's the first group I fired with it.
Here's some targets fired at 15 yards. These were fired from a rest as I wanted to reduce human error as much as I could.
This 25 yard target was also fired from a rest in slow-fire.
One session's not enough for me to be sure, but this thing SEEMS to prefer 200-gr jacketed bullets. I'll find out if that's true in the future.
I fired the gun using a Pachmayr 7-rnd magazine, Wilson 7 and 8-rnd magazines as well as a Mec-Gar 8-rounder and an old Randall 7-rnd. Zero failures to feed. Zero failures to eject and I was pleased to note zero case dents. The firing pin strike is almost exactly centered. There were zero failures in the slide locking back on an empty magazine and no premature locking open of the slide.
Even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then! I think I like this combination.
Best.
