Slide Weight Discussion?

[Benevolence]

I was hoping to get a discussion on slide weight going. Aside from structural integrity, is there such a thing as too light of a slide, from the shooter's perspective? Would it become snappy?

 

I have not seen titanium slides made, is there a reason besides cost and galling for this (doing a boriding or nitriding could fix the latter)? How about an aluminum with steel inserts (bushing, rail, breech face)?

 

I'm also looking at methods for reducing slide weight in a 2011 with cuts. I'm seeing top/side windows along the barrel region, as well as the "gills". Also just milling out from the underside, like in the National Match picture in the extractor channel; can the same be done on the ejector channel side? The benefit of the 1911 platform I suppose is that you have the recoil spring, hammer spring, and firing pin block radius to tune to your slide weight as well.

 

I read Cha-Lee's thread as well; between his experience as a shooter and experiment results, it was pretty neat! I've done my own horrible butcher job on a M&P9 1.0 that I actually really like.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Benevolence

[aandabooks]

Does that M&P slide still run?  You took a lot of weight out of it.  

 

Getting too light can cause issues with stripping the round off the top of the magazine.  You would have to increase your recoil spring weight to bring the slide back into battery which would then cause the opposite problem with getting the slide to cycle all the way to the rear.  

[Benevolence]

Ya, it cycles quite nicely. I had the old sear block in it which had a light sear spring and I got some sear flutter (2-3 round burst) but the new sear block & stronger spring will resolve that, I believe. Still contemplating taking out more in the extractor area. 

 

That’s assuming stripping of the round requires the momentum of the slide, but the same spring should (in theory) bring a slide forward faster (same potential energy, lighter mass). I often get messed up on when momentum or energy is more important. If I’m not mistaken, @CHA-LEE decreased his spring weight as he decreased slide weight. 

[Midwest3Gunner]

I might be totally in left field with this, but wasn't @CHA-LEE taking weight out of a Tanfo limited gun? And I think he ended up with something around 10 oz stripped with weight taken equally out of both the front and the back? I've heard the 9.5 to 10 oz figure quite a bit, but if you start messing with sight blocks and tracker barrels you'll get into a bigger can of worms. Each gun is going to act differently with different slide cuts. I think you'll get diminishing returns of light slide vs recoil spring weight to the point of it negatively affecting the way the gun handles.

 

So all in all, yes, there is such thing as too light of a slide, you get into timing issues/an unpleasant shooting gun thatll beat its self to death. If you spring it really light, the gun may have feeding issues, and if you decrease the mainspring weight, you'll get into light strike issues as well. 

[shred]

Titanium slides have been done.  They wear out quickly.  Chopping on a steel slide is more effective and cheaper.

 

[CHA-LEE]

This same topic has been discussed in length many times on this forum. The search function is your friend.

 

Beyond that, the best way to learn this stuff is to do it yourself. Open your wallet, order several slides, and start hacking on slides to see what it does to the performance of the gun. Knowledge isn’t free. Get to work if you want to know what this stuff does.
 

 

[Benevolence]

Okay, fair enough. I’ll do a moderate lightening on the next 2011 build and see how it does.

[aandabooks]

How deep are your threads holding the optic on?  I can see quite a bit of that screw and it looks like you've lost about 40% of your thread engagement.  Is it that way on the other side of the slide as well?

[Supertrunk]

Interesting. My '70's Combat Commander has the same lightening cuts as the 60's NM slide. 

I love learning more about the 1911's!.

Thanks for sharing.

[MikeBurgess]

To my mind the the biggest thing that gets overlooked in these discussions is combined slide and barrel weight, including all parts attached to each (sights, sight blocks, extractors, rackers, comps, whatever) all these together move together and set the initial slide velocity, A extremely light slide that may feel great to a shooter when paired with a super heavy tungsten sleeved sight block barrel would likely not feel nice at all when paired with a fluted bushing barrel. 

 

 

 

 

[Benevolence]

23 hours ago, aandabooks said:

How deep are your threads holding the optic on?  I can see quite a bit of that screw and it looks like you've lost about 40% of your thread engagement.  Is it that way on the other side of the slide as well?

It isn’t very thick, I believe about 1/8”, but I trust it enough; the thread engagement on mounting plates isn’t much either and this is a really hard/tough stainless steel (guessing 416). 

4 hours ago, MikeBurgess said:

To my mind the the biggest thing that gets overlooked in these discussions is combined slide and barrel weight, including all parts attached to each (sights, sight blocks, extractors, rackers, comps, whatever) all these together move together and set the initial slide velocity, A extremely light slide that may feel great to a shooter when paired with a super heavy tungsten sleeved sight block barrel would likely not feel nice at all when paired with a fluted bushing barrel. 

 

 

 

 

If I’m not mistaken, the barrel weight doesn’t act to cause much muzzle flip and actually reduces it. I realize it does move down and back slightly. Though it’s effect on the timing/unlocking of the barrel/slide may be more influential. 

[MikeBurgess]

On 4/8/2020 at 8:26 PM, Benevolence said:

 

If I’m not mistaken, the barrel weight doesn’t act to cause much muzzle flip and actually reduces it. I realize it does move down and back slightly. Though it’s effect on the timing/unlocking of the barrel/slide may be more influential. 

My point is more that combined barrel and slide weight has a direct affect on slide velocity.