cohland

Your statement about barrel dwell time corroborates my observation concerning the effect of a heavier bullet on point of impact, but my understanding was never as crisp and clear as your statement. Thanks for passing that along. Chris

Here you go (below). I've bought these for two guns, and have found that the two pieces (it's a two-piece part) can be a very tight fit, don't be surprised if that's the case. Superb EGW quality. Chris

What make and model is the pistol, and what are you going to do with it (USPSA?)? Knowing the answers would have an effect on suggestions for a cure. Chris

The price, at $899, makes it a little interesting, enough to draw in the unwary. Things it seems to be missing are: 1) front strap checkering, at least for the .45ACP version 2) ambidextrous thumb safety, handy for those weak-hand requirements in some stages 3) a magwell.... This is an 80-series gun, which would rule it out for me, because the firing pin safety adds about 1.5Lb to the trigger pull weight. Without spending more (on gunsmithing and parts) than the gun is worth to get that fixed, that's kind of painful. I've got two Colt 1911s in .45ACP: an XSE and a Gold Cup, and both needed to have their hammer, hammer strut, sear, and disconnector replaced, just because I didn't like the materials or fit in the originals. They were thrown together inside, with the hammer strut pin not even staked. So, I've convinced myself. No thanks. Pretty, but probably not what I'd call a competition pistol by a long shot. Chris

What model: 1911 or 2011? If 1911, look up Alumagrips. Chris

Thanks for that clarification. you're good! "8.1.2.5 When applicable, the grip safety may be disabled provided that the primary safety as described in 8.1.2.4 is operable.." Chris

Yes. The grip safety and thumb safety are enough for USPSA, that's where the gun will be used. If I sell it to someone else I will install the Series 80 parts. Chris

Removed the 80 series parts this AM, installed the shim, and voila...the trigger pull is now 3.25 pounds. Thanks to all. Chris

^^Exactly^^ Click below- TJ'S 1911 SERIES '80 TO SERIES '70 CONVERSION SHIMS That's what I was thinking. I've got the parts, I just need to make a note that the safety is out of the gun for the day that I sell it. Thanks to both of you. Chris

Working on my Colt XSE (Series 80), it sure looks like the firing pin plunger spring is the source of about 1.5 pounds of the trigger pull weight. Can anyone else corroborate that finding? I'm trying to get the trigger pull down to about 3.5 pounds with the Series 80 safety parts in place, but it doesn't look feasible. The best I can get is right about 4.25 pounds at this point. A Cylinder & Slide Ultra Light Pull trigger kit is installed, parts have been polished. The break is really nice, but I'd like a lighter pull. Your comments and thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks, Chris

Why did you leave the plain old 1911 (not "widebody", not 2011) out of the choices in the poll? I switched from Glocks in Production to a 1911 in Single Stack, and I'll never look back. Chris

PS: Bill Springfield charged $35 for the muzzle crown work, including return postage. Chris

I think that's just a shadow you're seeing. Correct. The bushing-to-slide and bushing-to-barrel fit are both excellent, straight from the Springfield factory. Chris

Recently I finished upgrading a Springfield 1911 Range Officer 9mm pistol, to be used for USPSA Single-Stack Division competition. Since previous models of this pistol that I have owned have had excellent accuracy out of the box, I was somewhat surprised to have accuracy problems with this one. Try as I might, I could not get a decent group at 15 yards, which is the distance at which I set sights for USPSA guns. Now, my definition of "good group" is probably sufficiently different from most that I need to explain myself. To test a pistol, I shoot it from a table using a modified pistol rest that mitigates the effect of my ability to jerk the trigger. I use my regular (corrected) shooting glasses, and my eyesight isn't the best (I have trouble with sight alignment), so what I can get out of a gun is usually less than it can deliver to a better shooter with better eyes. While I didn't measure the group, I'd say it was about 4" across. Not good. My previous attempt at the same type of pistol gave me about a 2" group immediately. Clearly, if I was planning to use this pistol in competition, some improvement was in order. What was different? I recall that the previous Range Officer I set up had a particularly sharp and uniform pattern of firing residue at the muzzle, like a little star pattern. Until now I had never connected that with accuracy, but with the new Range Officer I noticed a difference: it produced a somewhat raggedy residue pattern. Examining the muzzle crown closely with a 30x loupe, I could easily see that the ends of some of the lands in the barrel were uneven at the crown, as if they had been cut at a very slight angle. So, I figured I needed a muzzle crown job. A call to a local gunsmith got me an estimate of $125 and three weeks' wait. Pondering this for just a bit, I thought I'd go look on the web to see what I could find. What I found was Bill Springfield, whose website offers barrel crowning:Bill Springfield - www.TriggerWork.net, among other services. After a quick exchange of email messages (the man answers email, people!), I shipped my barrel off to Bill, expecting to see it a week later. Four days later it arrived, with a new 11° target crown. The following day I took it to the range, and shot a couple of 2" groups at fifteen yards, well before my morning coffee had kicked in. Delighted, I took a photo of the residue pattern, so that I could show it off, and here it is: Yes, that's oil all over the front of the gun. When I'm breaking in a 1911 I run them pretty wet, with lots of oil on the barrel and bushing. If you are having accuracy problems with a pistol, look at the powder residue pattern on the muzzle after you finish firing 50 or 100 rounds, enough to leave a pattern. If it's not uniform, you might think of having the muzzle re-crowned. Chris

Couple of things about that Sig to keep in mind. First, the external extractor is unique to Sig, it's not a 1911 part. Try to find a spare. Also, the ambi safety is tricky to get off, if you're going to do your own work. Check the manual carefully to see if the drawings show modified pins holding the right side of the ambi in place. In fact, check to see if the drawings show the ambi at all. If not, warn your gunsmith if it ever has to come apart. Been there, with a Sig 1911, done that. Chris

For anyone contemplating a 9mm 1911 for USPSA Single-Stack, unless you use a gun right out of the box you are likely to encounter the weight limit in the rules ("43 ounces with empty magazine") as you begin to outfit the gun for competition. This is mainly due to the fact that the barrel on the 9mm is heavier than that on the .45ACP: same outside diameter, smaller inside diameter. One guideline I follow is that I don't make permanent modifications to guns, such as machining. I always want to take the gun back to an as-delivered condition for possible resale, so if I can't make a change by swapping parts, I don't make the change. The priorities for modifications that I established included the following, of which a few (denoted with a W) will impact weight: 1. Ambidextrous thumb safety (W) (I'm left-handed) 2. Magwell and magazine basepads (W) 3. Reduced-power magazine catch spring 4. Fiber-optic front sight 5. Trigger kit 6. Grips (W) (believe it or not) 7. Full-Length Guide Rod (W) Using a Springfield RO 9mm as the basis, through trial and error I have found several parts that will help you if you need to reduce the weight of the gun as you improve some of its characteristics: 1. ALUMINUM Dawson ICE Magwell w/No Gap insert (010-082) 2. ALUMINUM Dawson Basepad (002-027) (one for each magazine) 3. ProMag Polymer Tough Grips (310653) from MidwayUSA By far the biggest impact in terms of weight was the Aluminum Dawson ICE Magwell. With that part in place I had enough weight available that I was able to use a full-length steel guide rod, moving weight forward in the gun a bit. Whether the weight location is important (I do not know), it was nice to be able to finally get a FLGR in the gun and still make the weight limit. I was surprised to learn how much weight difference rests in the grips, and after going through about five or six sets I finally settled on the ProMag Polymer grips, not because they're pretty, but because they seem to be the lightest grips available. I'll be interested to hear from others about specific parts they have used to reduce weight. Chris

I don't know the size, but Dawson does. If you look at the Dawson website, they list front sights for the Springfield RO. https://www.dawsonprecision.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80001844-1388518384 I've bought about five sights for the RO from them, they all fit. Chris

That little bit of advice, cycling the mechanism to have it reveal the "areas of interest", was one of the most helpful pointers I have seen in quite a while. That kind of insight must come from experience. Thank you! My (limited) ability to work on my own guns just advanced a few clicks with that piece of advice. Now, where did I put that bottle of Dykem Blue? Chris

Currently I'm cobbling together my third Springfield RO for SS Minor, and thought I would pass along a couple of observations. The big constraint in what you do to the gun is weight, because the smaller 9mm bore in the standard 1911 barrel makes the barrel heavier. The good news is that with a light load, adding a lot of weight to the gun to improve control isn't that important. I really bought my first RO for three reasons: low cost, overall quality, and the fact that it has a ramped barrel. I then started to upgrade the gun for a lot of use in competition, learning about modifications, cost, and weight management along the way. My current recipe is as follows: Springfield Range Officer 9mm Local Gun Store $799.99 Cylinder & Slide Tactical II Trigger Kit Brownells $123.99 Reduced power mag catch spring #3 Brownells $1.59 X-Long Hammer Strut Brownells $9.99 Hi-Grip Ambi Safety Brownells $57.99 Hardened Pin Set Brownells $14.99 EGW Premium Mainspring Housing/Magwell EGW $74.99 ProMag Polymer Grips MidwayUSA $12.49 Dawson fiber-optic inserted front sight Dawson $39.00 Dawson 9mm Magazine Dawson $37.95 (6) $227.70 Total spend $1,362.72 If you don't want to do the work yourself, you might ask a gunsmith for a quote to assemble one. I'm no gunsmith, believe me, but it takes me about four hours to assemble the gun described above, working at a slow and steady (and careful!) pace. The only steps that take time are fitting the hammer strut and front sight: everything else is just assembly. I'm left-handed, so the Ambi safety is a requirement for me, and you will need a magwell. With this configuration, the gun is just under 43 ounces. An alternative I'm exploring is using a Dawson aluminum ICE mainspring housing and magwell to get the weight down, maybe enough to allow some experimentation with grips, again working against the weight limit. Having bought three of these guns, I can tell you that there is a bit of variation in slide-frame fit from the factory. I just don't like slide rattle, so I have had to go through a few guns to find ones I like. Two were rejected for slide rattle at the store. The consistency of the Springfield ROs that I have is excellent. With a new gun, I install the front sight, set the rear sight to the same height as the sight on a sister gun, and then take the new one to the range: it's on the money. Honestly, I zero a new 9mm RO with fewer than 10 shots. Chris

This link provides a clever technique at about 2:50: Chris

I'm a lefty, shooting a 9mm 1911 in Single Stack (minor). Over the past few years I've given up the idea of swapping magazine catches on my guns, I just use my trigger finger to drop the magazines. I find it much easier to reach the magazine catch with my index finger without changing my grip at all, and a reduced-power magazine catch spring also helps. There's one other small advantage: if your trigger finger is pushing the magazine catch, it surely can't be inside the trigger guard during a magazine change. Before starting a stage I do make it a point to tell ROs that I'm left-handed, and that I'll be using my trigger finger to swap magazines. Chris

Allow me to suggest one more change: a reduced-power magazine catch spring. For me, this one part makes a big difference in the ease of swapping magazines, something you'll be doing a lot in SS! Chris

It's hard to argue with that logic. Are you going to shoot major or minor Single Stack? Chris

I would really like to get the Tripps working, but it's not much of a priority right now since the Dawson magazines are working just fine in matches. If anybody reading this has had this problem with Tripps and resolved it, I would be grateful for some tips on what needs to be done to the magazines. To reiterate, the Tripp magazines don't drop freely from the gun, they have to be pulled out.

That's what I was thinking, so I bought seven brand new Tripp Cobra 10-round 9mm magazines from Dawson. They won't drop free from the gun, have to be pulled out. I wrote to Tripp about the problem over a month ago and have not received a reply. So, I'm back to using the Dawson magazines. Anybody interested in seven like-new Tripp Cobras? Chris