TCKev Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 I'm new to 1911 and SS's. I bought an STI Trojan In .40 Cal and plan on tuning it up some, but what I was wondering was can you just install Wilson Shock Buffs or do I have to do some kind of spring change? I would like to also add a TW magwell but I'm a little confused on the right sixe to get, I've seen both the XT and the next size down talked about so which will make the box everybody is talking about? Any and all suggestion's will be appreciated. Thanks Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 (edited) If the barrel and slide are fit properly and the recoil spring is reasonably well matched to the ammo I don't see much need for a shok buff. There are lots of folks here with guns that have 100K on them without any sort of buffer. It's really just one more thing to worry about and a 170pf .40 load in a 5" 1911 really isn't stressing the design of the gun much. Edit to add: you should be able to just put a shok buff on it and not change anything, but you'll have to check that the spring doesn't coil bind with the slide retracted. If that happens bad things will start to happen...like shredded shok buffs flying around inside the dust cover and maybe locking up the gun completely. If it does bind you can just clip a coil or two off and you should be fine. I have a Trojan in .40 and I put the Techwell XT on it. Nobody was making a regulation box at the time so I used a sharpie and a square to trace the box outline on cardboard. I wound up taking a touch off the front of the magwell just to make sure it would fit the box. It looked like it would make it, but it was pretty close. I just ran the front of it on a disc sander to put an angle on it and it clears by a lot now. More importantly is getting mag basepads that are long enough to work with the XT. You'll need something like the extended pads Wilson puts on their DE mags and then you'll have to trim a touch off the front of them to get them to fit with room to spare. If you drop down to the medium size you still might want to go with the longer basepads but then you'll only have to mess with the basepads to be sure the gun will fit the box easily. R, Edited December 31, 2008 by G-ManBart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocket35 Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 Here is a little more info to back up Gman- he did the work on my magwell also. Thanks again BTW Chris. http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?...c=71954&hl= Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 Here is a little more info to back up Gman- he did the work on my magwell also. Thanks again BTW Chris. http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?...c=71954&hl= Yeah, but the sad thing is that yours looks nicer than mine now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocket35 Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 Sorry bro- guess you got all the practice on your's before you did mine! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCKev Posted December 31, 2008 Author Share Posted December 31, 2008 G-ManBart do you have a full frontal shot on that blaster? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcbfluff Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 I don't know many people that use shok buffs (for the reasons stated above) and saw a gun get locked up HARD (as in take it home to fix it) when one came apart and got tangled up inside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 G-ManBart do you have a full frontal shot on that blaster? No, but I can try to take one and post it when I get home from work. R, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan550 Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 I use a buff as a gauge to let me know when it's time to change the recoil spring. So long as there are no marks on it, I know the spring is ok and doing its job. When the buff starts to show marks from being impacted, I know it's time to put in a new recoil spring. Just my $.02 Alan~^~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duane Thomas Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 The late George Nonte had what I've always felt was an excellent rule on when to replace your recoil spring. Have a brand new spring set aside for use - and when I say "new" I mean it's never even been in the gun. Every time you clean the piece, compare the length of the new spring to the old. When the old spring's become so compressed it's three coils shorter than the brand-new spring, toss the old one and replace with the new. Therefore you don't have to worry about counting rounds between spring changes. And some gun/spring combos get worn out a lot faster than others. Simply comparing the length of old to new will stop you from continuing to run a worn-out spring, even though it's been so compressed the gun is battering itself on every shot, until you reach the magic number. It also stops you from throwing away a spring that might still be perfectly good. I would go for that approach over checking the buff - but that's just me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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