Springfield Range Officer .45 ACP - 25,000 Rounds + Pictures

[Steffes]

All,

I spent some time to summarize my experiences in getting started with USPSA / competitive shooting and the Springfield Range Officer in .45 ACP. The post is very long, but I hope it’s good information for new shooters deciding to get into the sport.

In 2012 I was introduced to the world of NRA bullseye shooting by a friend of mine. He had two full custom 1911's that were 1.5" at 50 yards capable. Shooting these guns drove me to looking for a 1911 of my own. I had never even shot a semi-auto centerfire handgun before this experience.

I didn't know what I wanted and at the time I was torn between a bull barrel alloy framed Kimber and the Range Officer. I think I liked the Kimber solely because of the way it looked. The Range Officer was suggested by my shooting partner as a decent starter gun that would likely hold up to competetive use. In the end, I chose the Range Officer and picked one up from my hometown gun shop in Aberdeen, SD NIB for $850 out the door.

Little did I know that 2.5 years later I would have fired over 25k rounds through the gun and replaced most of the small parts on it. I also didn't know that I would invest as much money as I have in reloading equipment and other accessories to make shooting more enjoyable.

I only spent a couple months playing the Bullseye game before I relocated for work and ended up in sunny Tucson Arizona. There were no Bullseye clubs around so I ended up watching a USPSA match at a local range. I could tell instantly this was going to be MUCH more fun than Bullseye, but there was one problem. I didn't have a gun!

I didn't have a gun because a few weeks before my relocation, the Range Officer had failed and was sitting in Illinois at the repair facility. During some very informal Bullseye practice, the gun had started doubling and hammer following. This was with less than 500 rounds of factory ammunition down the pipe. My shooting buddy took it apart to find the sear had worn down to the point it would no longer engage the hammer hooks. Full auto, here we go!

I sent the gun to Springfield with a few extra requests. I wanted them to inspect the bushing fit because I felt it was woefully loose compared to other models of 1911's I'd played with in gun shops. I also wanted them to inspect the slide to frame fit as it was rattling quite severely with only 500 rounds through it. It also had the obvious full auto problem.

I received the gun back from Springfield about 6 weeks after my relocation - about 8 weeks total turnaround time. The report with the pistol mentioned they checked the barrel bushing fit and found it acceptable. It also mentioned they tightened the slide/frame fit, replaced the trigger as it was dragging in the track, and replaced the sear and refit with the hammer. They also included a small black plastic pistol case as a bonus (this later became my mag case for action sports). I purchased 8 Wilson Combat 47D mags to get started.

I started attending a couple action pistol matches a month in Tucson and quickly realized I needed to start reloading to keep shooting as much as I wanted to. I bought a progressive press and all the goodies and started handloading right away. Pretty soon the reloading cost was well above the cost of the pistol.

Before long I realized I would need new sights and a magwell to be competitive in USPSA single stack division, so I got a Dawson Precision ICE no-gap magwell and aluminum mainspring housing and a 0.100" wide fiber optic front sight installed ASAP. I went with a fairly light weight hammer spring to reduce the amount of effort it took to rack the slide during tap rack drills and that sort of thing. Doing so revealed I needed to increase the weight of the firing pin to prevent light strikes, so I swapped the stock titanium firing pin out with an Ed Brown stainless steel pin with extra meat on the shank. This made a huge difference in primer dents even with the reduced main spring tension. I took the opportunity to polish most of the internal parts of the gun including the disconnector, underside of the slide, firing pin stop radius, breech face, breech face radius that impacts the disconnector, mainspring plunger, and hammer strut. I also put in a cylinder and slide sear spring and tuned the trigger down to about 3 pounds.

After the first 5k rounds I could tell the slide to frame fit was back to its normal rattley self. Both vertical play and horizontal play were present, but the accuracy was decent so it just bothered me from a cosmetic standpoint. Also, the slide overhangs the frame by .020 in the rear of the pistol. I've seen this to be quite a common occurrence with most RO's.

I experienced my second failure with the gun at about 7.5k rounds. The extractor hook broke off and rendered the gun useless at a local steel match. Luckily I had a spare in my carry gun so I swapped it out and kept shooting. I replaced the extractor with a Wilson Combat bulletproof extractor which I had fit by my gunsmith. While he was fitting the extractor he noted the firing pin stop was woefully undersized and it would surely cause extractor clocking and could fall out during firing if we didn't get it fixed. I ordered a Wilson Combat replacement and had that fit with the new extractor. I was back in the game again!

I shot the gun another 2.5k rounds before I had a revelation. The thumb safety fit on the stock RO is terrible! It had caused a giant callous on my strong hand thumb from where it overhangs the frame. I took out the dremel and ground it back to match the line of the frame and beveled it to smooth out the transition. I had the gunsmith re-finish it and it was a major improvement. About this same time I noticed the factory slide stop had a generous chip missing from what appeared to be impact with the slide during cycling. I replaced the slide stop with a Wilson Combat piece. At this point I noticed the slide stop pin diameter on the factory slide stop was roughly 0.005" less than the Wilson Combat stop. The Wilson needed a bit of polishing on the pin to slide into place.

At around 15,000 rounds, I had detail stripped the gun to do some cleaning and found that when I started cleaning the gunk off the ejector that it felt loose. I wiggled it a bit and it fell out of the frame! Springfield does not pin their ejectors on the RO - instead they use a locking compound which appears to be equivalent to green Loctite. I ordered an Ed Brown extended ejector and had my gunsmith drill the frame for a pin on the front leg of the ejector. At this point we found out the frame of the pistol is out of spec. It's about .020" short between the back of the frame and the front ejector post. This causes the front of the ejector post to line up with the disconnector hole (explaining why SA wouldn't want to pin the ejector because it's basically impossible without modifying the pin). To fix the issue we ended up removing about half the material from the center portion of the cross-pin to allow room for the disconnector to travel in the frame.

At about 20k rounds, the plunger tube decided it had had enough and fell off the gun at the next detail strip. I removed the left side grip panel to clean it and the plunger tube moved about 1/8" and nearly fell off. I removed it completely without much effort. I ordered an Ed Brown replacement and had my gunsmith stake the new plunger tube and braze it into place. That puppy won't come off there again.

Now I've got roughly 25k rounds on the gun. All but 500 rounds of it has been my own handloads. It now wears VZ Diamondback grips (a massive improvement over the stock wood grips in terms of grip with wet / sweaty hands), grip tape on the front strap, a Wilson extended mag release, a Wilson full length steel guide rod, Dawson Precision aluminum base pads for the 47D mags (no gap magwell specific to fit the USPSA SS Box). I’m mostly happy with the gun at this point and it runs 100%.

The next step will be slide modifications to remove the rear cocking serrations and add STI style forward cocking serrations and a couple on the rear behind the panel cut for removing the stock serrations. I’ve got a shooting buddy with a CNC laser engraving system. I’m going to have him put an American Flag in the panel cut. I would like to modify the grip safety (deactivate and pin) and then high grip it before I refinish.

In retrospect I believe I would be financially better off if I would have just purchased a more competition specific gun with most of the features I wanted out of the box (checkering, forward cocking serrations, guide rod, ambi-safety, better sights), but I was unsure of my passion for the game. Adding it all up, I’ve got about $850 in the base gun, $125 in the magwell, $90 in the grips, $50 in the front sight + install, $40 in the guide-rod, $40 in the extended mag release, $30 in the slide stop, $30 in the extractor, $70 in the ejector + pinning, $50 in the plunger tube + brazing, about 20 hours of time spent polishing, tuning and fixing the thumb safety + $20 to have it refinished, $10 in a new sear spring, and $25 in mainspring housing parts. The total for all the work (excluding things like recoil springs, firing pin springs, shock buffers) is at $1430. I still don’t have forward cocking serrations or a checkered front strap. Talking with my gunsmith, we’d be at about $125 for the slide modifications and I would have to send the gun out to get it checkered and re-finished at a cost of probably 2-300 more. This will put me in the $1800+ price point for the gun and it will still have the same sloppy production gun barrel / bushing / slide fit. There is a very good chance I won’t be able to get my money back out of it if I decide to sell it either.

If I would have known I was going to shoot 25k rounds in 2.5 years, I definitely would have splurged on a higher end gun with all the features I felt I needed. I also would have purchased something in 40 S&W as it’s much easier to come across 40 brass and the bullets are 10 or 15 bucks a thousand less. Long story short, the RO is a decent enough starter gun. I wouldn’t buy another one, but then again, my needs are probably different than most of the people looking to buy an RO. If I end up buying another single stack gun in the future, it will likely be something custom that is purpose built for the sport and chambered in 40 S&W.

Here are some pictures of the gun as it sits now:

Thanks for reading!!

Adam

A84778

[JMike]

I enjoyed that. Thanks.

[Trent1k1]

Nice write-up.

[Sleddog30]

Good post. I have 3000 rounds on mine and it runs great.

[Hatchet]

Great post. Thanks.

[b1gcountry]

Thanks for the post. I enjoyed reading it!

If you have $1800 and 25k rounds through it, that means you really have spent $4500 shooting the gun. So the upgrades are a small part of that figure. I don't know if that helps or not...

On the plus side, things like the grips, mag well, and probably even the sights can be moved over to a new gun.

[wanttolearn]

Great write up, thanks for sharing this. You might consider doing some basic measurements and calling EGW, they can customize a nice bushing for you and they're pretty easy to fit from there. Similarly if you're at all inclined you could try checkering the frontstrap yourself, it does take some time and practice but the checkering guides sure help.

[pcg]

Great report. I appreciate the detail. All no-holds-barred. Refreshing read!

[lee blackman]

Thanks for the write up, great read.

[mach1soldier]

That was a great read.

I started out with a 1911 built for bullseye competition. The accuracy was insanely good but the problem is that you get used to a very tight gun. I am at 20k rounds and things are starting to loosen up in the barrel bushing and the slide to frame just like you found.

What are you considering for your next 1911?

[Steffes]

That was a great read.

I started out with a 1911 built for bullseye competition. The accuracy was insanely good but the problem is that you get used to a very tight gun. I am at 20k rounds and things are starting to loosen up in the barrel bushing and the slide to frame just like you found.

What are you considering for your next 1911?

Glad you enjoyed it! If I end up looking for another singlestack I will probably go the custom route. Something with an undercut squared trigger guard, 20 lpi front strap, Tri-top slide with front and rear cocking serrations, 5.4" slide / barrel, tungsten guide rod, slight weight reduction on the slide in the rear, svi long flat trigger, narrow f/o front sight, 40 cal, 42.5 ounces. I would weigh every part and maximize the moment of inertia of the pistol within the weight limit of the division by keeping all the weight as close to the muzzle and the magwell as possible. I daydream about building one but I don't have the skills or money. Anyone want to partner up in building a real gamer singlestack? I also think it would be sweet to build an instrumented ransom rest to quantify felt recoil and muzzle flip differences given different setups. A guy can dream can't he? Edited September 30, 2014 by Steffes

[lawboy]

Interesting journey you have had with your pistol. No way in hell you will ever get that money out of the gun, but so what? You learned a lot about 1911s along the way, or at least you did if you were paying attention. That alone is worth the cost of the journey. Sounds like the gun works as needed now, so that is a bonus. And, you won't ever do it that way again!

One thing is for sure, after what you have been through, you are definitely a 1911 purist and you WILL buy another 1911, likely much higher end.

You have nothing but upside here!

[Garyg19]

Great write up! Thank you, I'm thinking about switching from production to SS. The RO was one of the pistols I was considering. Not any longer, while I m sure its a fine pistol your experience convinces me that it won't meet my expectations.

And I believe you have got your money out of that RO. The original investments just been converted to ability and knowledge.

[gondo]

cool read

[v1911]

Raw review. Thanks for a good read.

[polymerfeelsweirdman]

Hey I noticed you mentioned that you moved to Tucson, I used to be in Tucson and I think the Tucson Rifle Club might have bullseye matches but I am not 100% sure.

[Rob1125]

Excellent write-up without glossing over any of the problems you experienced along the way. Thank you

[Steffes]

Hey I noticed you mentioned that you moved to Tucson, I used to be in Tucson and I think the Tucson Rifle Club might have bullseye matches but I am not 100% sure.

Thanks for the tip - I shoot USPSA out there 2x per month. I don't have time or money available to put towards another shooting sport at this time though!

[Fuelie777]

Enjoyed the write up. Most of what you talked about happened on my one pistol from Springfield. But it is reliabile and now only needs a new barrel which I will fit myself. I learned a lot and believe it was worth it. Next one, though should be a more higher end one like you indicated.

[Revofan]

Enjoyable read thanks for sharing

[38superfan]

Good write up. Enjoyed reading it. I recently bought a ro myself. Honestly it looks and feels like a stripped down loaded model. If they really are fit like a trp, I'm never buying a trp! It seems to have good bones though. It should serve me well for my purposes at least. If I ever feel that it is holding me back then I will look for a frame up custom.

[twister]

I'm curious about your custom gun plans. Where do you get a 5.4 slide, and is it legal in single stack? Thanks, Dave.

[SpookyPistolero]

I'm exhausted just reading that! You have the patience of a saint to have kept it through all that. Makes me strongly consider an sti instead of the RO I've been eyeballing.

[Chris1911]

Wow, Thanks for that and I Iove lawboy's positive response.

Interesting journey you have had with your pistol. No way in hell you will ever get that money out of the gun, but so what? You learned a lot about 1911s along the way, or at least you did if you were paying attention. That alone is worth the cost of the journey. Sounds like the gun works as needed now, so that is a bonus. And, you won't ever do it that way again!

One thing is for sure, after what you have been through, you are definitely a 1911 purist and you WILL buy another 1911, likely much higher end.

You have nothing but upside here!

[38superfan]

Given the round count on it, I'd say it's got plenty more to do for you. No way will you get anywhere close to what you've spent on it back if you sell it. I would quit pouring money into it though, put the$ into a bank account to spend on a custom. I would keep checking the classifieds on here, as nice ones come up that may fill many of your wants. If you wanted front serrations, why didn't you buy a loaded model?