Para 14.45 Limited

[rhgunguy]

Hello everyone. I bought a para 14.45 Limited used a few months ago and I was wondering what I could do to it to reduce recoil, cycle smoother and be an all around better gun? A few quick notes, it did not come with the full-length guide rod, the guy that owned it before me lost that and the cap (his loss my gain). Also, I understand that slide to frame fit plays a big role in accuracy and mine wiggles maybe 1/64 of an inch. Thank you in advance for your replies.

[Paul B]

Big question - where to start - built one of these myself and used it through B class till I finally bought a .40. Here's what I did:

1. Scrap all the small parts from Para they are just crap. Get a good hammer, sear, and extractor from EGW or some other source. If you can get a matched set of hammer and sear get it. The stock para trigger will work fine with some polishing on the side rails. This should give you about a 3-5lb trigger. You can take one or two coils off the hammer spring (if its full power) and it will lower that to about the 3 lb area. You can go lower but I wouldn't till you are comfortable with the gun. You should go with a 15 lb recoil spring and see what it does with the empties and functioning and go up or down to taste.

2. Get the heaviest guide rod you can get - tungsten if possible and install it.

3. Polish the feed ramp so it looks like a mirror with a dremel and polishing compound

4. Get a good fiber optic front sight from brazos or EGW. With the para cut it is just a drive out the old and drive in the new.

5. Don't get overly concerned about the slide to frame fit. Be concerned about the barrel to slide fit. With the gun in battery push down on the barrel hood and if it's pretty solid you should have plenty of IPSC accuracy. If it's sloppy, try a full size slide stop (.200) if it's still sloppy you might want to see a smith for some work. Caution, sometimes if you put in the full diameter slide stop the gun will jam - if so go back to a looser one.

6. I went with stock para springs, Grams followers and Dawson base pads (or Grams) for the mags and you can get 18 in the mag and one in the gun. So you could start a stage with 19 in the gun which will even the playing ground a lot.

7. I experimented with a lot of bullet weights, but settled on the 230 loaded just above major for the best feel. You may find you like the feel of a different bullet weight.

8. I almost forgot, I installed a Kings ambi safety as it locks in on both sides so you don't need the para grips at all. If you like a narrow grip you can take off the stocks and put grip tape right on the frame. Depends on what feels better in your hand. This configuration, though, is narrower that a 1911 with the stocks on and any of the S_I 's.

That should keep you busy for the rest of the winter and I'm sure there will be others with other ideas. Good luck.

[Behr]

I've got an older Para (must be about 10 yrs old) P14. What I did to mine was put on Bomar sights, full-length guide rod, fitted matc barrel & bushing, and some trigger work to smooth and crisp it up a bit. It shoots accurately even though the slide-to-frame fit is not too great (it rattles when you shake it). I just use a liberal amount of Slide Glide on my frame rails and it works and shoots fine and cycles smoothly.

IMHO, consistent (same place every time) barrel lock-up is more important than slide/frame fit on iron sighted pistols. I would recommend getting rid of any slop you may have in the barrel lock-up if you had to choose one over the other. That probably means buying a match barrel and bushing and having it hand fitted.

If you have the funds, get a match barrel and get the slide/frame fit done. But if you plan on doing both barrel fitting and slide/frame fit at different intervals, doing the slide/frame fit first avoids having to re-fit your match barrel afterwards.

Barry

[JFD]

Tungsten FLGR. Except for a bull barrel, that's about the only way to get weight up front. I don't know that this is a must have item, but I'm starting think so.

Fit a good barrel bushing. EGW, ED Brown, etc.. This IS necessary.

Dawson FO front sight. Easy install as has already been mentioned. Not really necessary and maybe a bit of a crutch, but lots of us like them.

Dawson ICE magwell. No question on that.

Buy 14 lb and 12 lb recoil springs. One of these will make you happy. I believe 15 lbs is a bit heavy, but get one of those too.

Nowlin trigger kit. A little extra polishing and it will end up at 2 lbs or less. Actually these kits are pretty good without the extra polishing. There are other excellent options with triggers, I just haven't used anything besides Nowlin. I will say that Hopalong had a pretty nice trigger job done on para parts that lasted 70,000 rounds. Not exactly what I wanted, but I keep them as spares.

Get a steel mag release. Not necessary, but plastic is bad; very bad.

Pearce wrap-around grips. Cut the disgusting wrap-around section off so you have 2 normal grips panels. Before you install them, put a piece of tru-grip or skateboard tape on the frontstrap. I sweat a lot and this combo works in the summer for me. Also fit the outside of the magwell with skateboard tape.

Slide Glide the crap out of the thing and you'll be more than ready to go.

[Harmon]

you can try a sti recoil master for the bushing barrel, i would replace the para bushing with a better one...ive seen para bushings crack at the worst time.

the number one way to reduce felt recoil is shoot less powerful ammo. load right at 167 power factor..this is the only real way to reduce recoil is to reduce power

the second way is to add weight...this just slows recoil down..but it works at the cost of slower transitions and having to tote a heavier gun around.