A few months ago I set out to fit and assemble my own 1911. I have no gunsmithing experience whatsoever and wanted to see if I can make a gun as good as those in the ranks of Wilson, Nighthawk, Les Baer etc.
I bought the kit from Fusion, keeping in mind that I wanted checkering already done because I don't have the skill or tools to do that. Fusion provided most of the parts where I sourced a couple other parts from other reputable companies.
Here were some random notes during the month build- accompanied by the finished pictures:
I fitted the slide to frame, and barrel to slide. I throated the barrel and polished the lip as well as the outer portion of the chamber. Sticking with the slide I tuned the extractor first with snap caps then moving to live rounds by racking the slide without the fire control group installed.
The Grips were custom by AlumaGrips- it is my Chinese family name.
After that has been fitted I went for the FCG. Carefully stoning the sear and hammer contact surfaces and messing with the leaf spring I got a reliable 3.5# crisp trigger.
The trigger fitting itself was pretty tricky. There was a perfect balance between free moving and too much play. I settled a little on the conservative side and kept the trigger where it is loose, but not free moving. In the end it does not mess with feel at all.
Since everything came oversized, there was a lot of sanding. The beavertail took a lot of work and I think I even sanded a bit too much off one side. There is probably a few thousands of movement side to side, but does not change the feel at all when gripped correctly.
Moving onto the frame I then polished the feed ramp keeping with the stock angle with sandpaper and finally with a polish compound and my dremel. Feeds the 1st round and the 8th round, and every round in between perfectly!
The lockup is insanely tight. There is no play at all when trying to torque the slide.It feels like it's riding on glass. My Wilson Combat isn't here yet but I imagine it doesn't get much better than this!
All in all, perfect project, almost perfect turnout. Sure there's still little things like repairs the damage to the back sight and sanding a little more to get the extractor perfectly flush with the back of the frame, but the essentials are there, and a 5 round 1.5" shot group at 10yd proves that (no pics of the group though). After I'm done tuning the gun completely, it will be disassembled, and the frame will be sand blasted to get rid of all the small tooling marks.
Total for the project including all the tools: $<1200 and about 30 hours of work.
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i always wanted to do this I have shot a few 1911 but never owned one .it does make you feel good when you put a weapon together
Originally Posted by JimP
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