First open gun advice...

[jbultman]

On 6/5/2019 at 11:46 PM, aandabooks said:

.....  Have you given any thought to having an open upper for one of you 2011s build and then having the frame drilled/tapped for the optic mount?

 

No I didn't, this is a good idea!! I'll have to talk to my gunsmith to see how plauseable this is with my guns. 

 

Now my only worry is when I would want this upper to become a full open gun, adding a lower the fit is going to be almost impossible... Correct?

 

Another option I guess would be to have a custom builder (not th best known, but still quality gunsmith known for guns that run)build a basic open gun, nothing crazy with the slide, plastic grips, etc... Would that even be a good idea?

[zzt]

j, my backup Open gun started life as a Limited gun.  He had a complete new upper made for it by a good gunsmith.  It is harder to fit a new slide to an existing lower if you also want to continue to use the original upper.  Since that is what you want to do, it will cost a little more, because you cannot touch the frame rails.

 

Fitting a new receiver to an existing slide is easy as long as there is enough material on the frame rails to fit.  You can avoid that problem by going to someone like Cheely Custom.  Matt will machine a frame to fit your slide.  You can either give him the exact dimensions, or send the slide to him.

 

1 hour ago, jbultman said:

Would that even be a good idea?

 No.