Ken Mays

Thanks for the update, I'd love to see the photos. I used to hang around a lot at Roderus's board, and I picked up several of these frames. In my experience they are a bit too soft to hold up to heavy shooting (the slide stop hole has started to elongate, and the braze separated on another, at the rear of the frame at the disconnector) but otherwise they're great. The braze line does limit what you can do as far as finishes. I tried hot bluing one, and won't do that again. It finally came out OK but it took several tries. The early frames were oversized in a lot of places, requiring too much fitting, but the latest "AGSN" ones are much improved. Too bad the ATF shut him down indefinitely. The last one I did was a dedicated Marvel .22. I left the dust cover fairly long to give me more space to put a scope mount. http://www.geocities.com/kemays/marvel.htm Some others I've done can be seen at http://www.geocities.com/kemays

Hey Carlos -- Noticed the KT "AGSN" frame in your blasting photo above. How'd that one turn out? I've built a few 1911s on these frames, and have another one sitting around waiting for, well, something.

I wish I'd known about them before I made my own. Would have saved me some time.

Saw this on another forum. $40 and sorts .45, .40 and 9mm / .38 www.shellsorter.com

Who the hell wants to shoot a gun that has a crappy trigger, smacks you with brass when it's not stovepiping, and has a slide that you can shave with? I couldn't post many photos here, but if you read my ar15.com post, you'd see some "workmanship" that Springfield should have never let out of the front door. Extractor tension? It's overrated. People talk about Colt's QC but the bottom of this ejection port makes even my sickest Colt look good. Certainly Robbie and many others can whip my ass on any COF with any piece of garbage that will sling lead, but you can also bet that the guns that they practice and compete with are set up EXACTLY how they like them. If I had shoot to matches with an unmodified Remington Rand '44 or Springfield GI, I'd rather be doing something else.

I recently bought one and reviewed it here: http://ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=5&f=49&t=48523 Fresh out of the box: After some much-needed changes: The first thing I did was tweak the middle leg of the sear spring, which took about 1.5 lbs off the trigger pull. It was gauging 6 pounds, now it's around 4.5 or so. Too much creep to be really nice, and I think the overtravel screw is in a smidge too far. I also tweaked the extractor so that it would actually apply tension to the round. At the range, the gun seemed accurate enough but I had too many stovepipes. The brass was also ejecting in an erratic pattern. After putting about 300 rounds through it, I made more changes: I believe the gun was oversprung with the 28lb mainspring, so I replaced it with a 19lb mainspring, and replaced the ILS with a S&A magwell MSH. I also fitted an EGW oversized FP stop to reduce the clocking, and knocked a few sharp edges off the extractor hook. I replaced the front sight with a Dawson .100" wide, and put in a GI recoil spring guide and plug. The slide stop was also failing to engage on at least one mag, so I put in a lighter plunger spring. I'm not particularly impressed with the Springfield mags, so I bought some Mec-gar replacements that seem to work flawlessly. The sear had no relief angle at all, so I added one which reduced the creep substantially. I also did some polishing on the fire control parts, and broke all the sharp edges on the gun. I put on a set of VZ flat bottom grips so it wouldn't look dumb with the factory grips and magwell.

I just drilled a few. It helps to have a good sharp center drill to get it started. Once the flutes can start cutting, it's simple, but getting the hole that deep is the trick. Go as slowly as you can, use a lot of oil, and chuck the bit as deeply as you can.

Thanks eerw, they are definitely pre-ban 140mm.

That's what it's sounding like. I got them from another member here who told me they were 126mm. Here's a photo: Hey, at least they work.

Thanks for the clarification. I have no idea what these mags I have are, then. They are shorter than my 140mms but the bottom of the basepad is nowhere near flush with the bottom of the frame. I'll post a photo tonight. I don't care about using a magwell, and if I did, I think a SV magwell will barely fit into the box.

I've got a couple .40 SVI mags that I was told were 126mm, but they extend about 1" below the frame (no external magwell installed.) It's not just the basepad, it's the actual tube that extends below the frame. I see 120mm mags out there but have no idea which one I should actually use. Thanks!

Several of us have put together our own spring testers. More details in this thread: http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?...c=52845&hl=

Are the springs the same size as, say, the plunger tube spring, or maybe the magazine release spring? Maybe you could "make" your own from readily available springs.

I measured my SA 9mm factory recoil spring at 10 lbs. The mainspring was Godawful heavy and I replaced it with a 19#. I was getting light strikes after that, then it occurred to me that the heavy mainspring probably had an accompanying heavy firing pin spring. Replaced the FP spring and everything was good.

My 550 recently started doing this. It got to where it'd happen every two or three rounds. The priming bar was getting hung up on something and jerking forward, throwing my primer to God knows where. I never did find out what the problem was. I disassembled, cleaned the assembly, and no dice. I changed the primer bar spring (the original one was still on there) and it didn't help much. The problem recently went away on its own.

I have Trijicon rears with a XS/Ashley Outdoors big dot tritium front on my K40:

Refugee from the "Crazy Mill Cuts" wars:

This is the company that makes knockoffs for Baer, among others: http://www.championgunsights.com/

Wow, this is eerie. I had never seen shred's thread about his spring tester, but I think we were both irked at not being able to buy one from Brownell's. Mine is far cruder than shred's, but I'm a quick and dirty kind of guy. I think I posted mine on a couple other sites, but not this one. Here is the original post: This is one of those little projects I've been meaning to get around to for a couple years now. Finally I managed to remember to tackle it, and knocked it out tonight. I had a dozen or so recoil springs cluttering up my toolbox, but no way to verify what weight they actually are. I made my tool from a 1/4" steel bar. I threaded the end to accept a couple of nuts, and drilled a 1/16" hole in the far end. (Pre-threaded 1/4-20 rod stock would probably work just as well.) I measured the length of a compressed Government-length recoil spring as about 1.80". Using a lathe I made a small mark on the rod to indicate this measurement. I'll probably paint it red to make it more visible. I have a spring postage scale that has proven to be surprisingly accurate, given it probably cost me about $2.00 all those years ago. I'm using the carabiner clip as a quick connect for the scale since I use it for a lot of things. It isn't strictly necessary for this application. I use it by putting the recoil spring on it, backing it up with a washer, and using a split ring off a keychain to connect my postage scale. Then I set my vise jaws just wide enough to allow the rod to slip through as I compress the spring. When the washer gets to the mark on the rod, I read the spring scale. I verified this setup against a couple of new Wolff 18.5# springs, and it seems to be right on the money. I can easily measure within 1/2 pound with this tool. I write the weight on a post-it note, roll it up, and insert it into the spring so I can keep track of them. I intended to make a holder out of 1/2" PVC pipe, cap one end, and drill a hole in the cap. That way I could hold the pipe with one hand and the scale with the other, but in the end I just got lazy and decided to use the vise to anchor the other end.

I just used up an 8lb jug of Universal. I used it for 9, .40 major, and .45. It works OK in all, but is best suited for 9 and .40. With .45 I was just getting too much unburnt powder. After a day of practice, I'd have about half a handful of powder that had collected on my tarp. As far as smoke with coated bullets, to be honest, I don't see much of a difference with TG or Universal. I make major with about 4.8 grains of Universal behind a 180 grain plated or coated bullet.

I shot a Beretta 96 for a year then moved to XD40s. Most of my brass is still with me, and I'm now using it for major PF loads in two SVI guns. I've even reloaded "Glocked" .40 brass with no problem -- granted I am using the EGW undersized sizing die and the Lee Factory Crimp die. I was having problems with the occasional round wedging in the chamber until I moved to the EGW U die.

That's how I've been doing it, but I don't see many other folks doing the same. Obviously in a perfect world, you want to keep your finger off the trigger, but I've seen a couple NDs into the dirt at matches when the shooters were trying to push a little bit too hard coming out of the holster.

Well, yeah... that's the theory, anyway. What concerns me is that my weak hand is converging with the gun hand, and having the safety off before they meet seems like taking one chance too many.

I shoot a 2011 and have usually thumbed off the safety between the time the gun clears leather and comes up to my support hand. However, I began to wonder if it might not be safer to wait until the support hand is in place before taking the safety off. That way you can't put a bullet through your support hand.

Funny, I just had to do this on a gun I took out last week. It was flinging brass everywhere, including at my eyeballs. There was plenty of tension but the hook simply wasn't coming inboard enough to get an ideal grip on the rim. Of course this was on a rattletrap old Sistema that had seen better decades. Can't recall if that was a new extractor or not, but you'd think it wouldn't be the norm on new parts on a new-ish gun.