Why are there so many folks willing to smith their 1911s?

g.willikers · April 28, 2014, 10:13 AM

What is it about the 1911 that seems to invite so much attempted gunsmithing?
As much as I like the 1911, it's one of the few guns that I would be very hesitant to buy used.
Is it all the gun articles promoting parts and modifications that motivate people to start messing with their 1911s?
People who wouldn't even think of lifting the hoods on their cars, or repairing their home appliances, have no inhibitions about ordering parts and whacking away on their 1911s, seemingly without reservation.
Eh?

Quentin2 · April 28, 2014, 10:46 AM

Well it's not as plug&play as a Glock or AR-15 but the 1911 is easy to customize and a whole universe of aftermarket parts is available.

If you don't like the arched mainspring housing, get a flat MSH and it only takes a few minutes to install. Grips, yeah, easy peasy. Beaver tail grip safety, not hard either. Hammer, sear, trigger; well be careful there.

Sure, there can be some parts fitting required but someone who's handy and looked at how-to guides can do good work.

You bring up a good point, though - used 1911s should be inspected for the work of Bubba.

RickB · April 28, 2014, 12:27 PM

I agree that the reason so many people attempt to 'smith their own 1911 is because they can.
I think it has been established that part of the reason why the 1911 is such a versatile platform is because it can be made to fit just about everyone, so everyone wants theirs to fit.
The flip side, is that some people think 1911s MUST be worked-on to make them satisfactory, which is nonsense.
Some won't buy certain guns because they're too thick, or too thin, or the trigger reach is too long, or this, or that, but all of that is adjustable on the 1911, and only a credit card number away.
The reality is, all of those parts need to be individually fitted, and not everyone is up to it.
I've built a couple of (functional) 1911s from boxes of parts, never even having had a high school metal shop class, but I bought plenty of reference material, and didn't run - trigger job - before I could walk - trigger installation.

DT Guy · April 28, 2014, 03:48 PM

Same reason a 'stock' AR is as rare as hen's teeth; both are Barbie guns.

Larry

triggerman770 · April 29, 2014, 01:04 PM

you'd be surprised at the number I get to do a trigger job on, that bubba has had a hand in. Usually it is bubba who is sitting in front of me. I break the gun down right in front of him. When I see the bubba evidence I ask did you do this?
Almost always the answer is " my friend that knows about guns did it." whereupon the price of unbubbaing goes up.

**Unclenick** · April 29, 2014, 02:11 PM

I wouldn't be surprised. The trigger takes know-how.

To the OP's point, the 1911 served as the U.S. Army sidearm for a long time. That meant it also came to be used in bullseye competition. But the basic as-issued government model 1911 simply could not be counted on to stay in the X-ring of a bullseye target at 50 yards. As a result, there has been a long history of military marksmanship unit armorers and civilian target pistol armorers developing techniques for getting the gun to shoot precisely. By the time practical and combat disciplines began to become popular, there was already, in 1911 culture, the idea that you always worked on your 1911 to get it match ready. The underlying assumption was you started with GI issue type gun or a clone as the base and went from there.

I remember someone telling me that at the National Matches it used to be that a competitor who didn't own his own 1911 could shoot an Army loner. He then had the option of buying it at the end of the match. He said his father did that circa 1950 and was sold the surplus pistol for $5.

BTW, when revolvers still saw a lot of use in Bullseye matches, they were commonly sent out for gunsmith attention, too. So having your gun tuned is really more a Bullseye shooting notion than a 1911 notion, specifically. There was a period when having a Colt revolver barrel put on a S&W revolver frame was considered desirable as the S&W actions were preferred for tuning, while the Colt barrels tended to have a slightly narrowing taper down toward the muzzle, which was, and still is often considered preferable for lead bullets, as compare to the S&W's straighter bore. So, customizing isn't a new idea, either. Indeed, there was a long-held belief that tuned semi-automatic pistols would just never equal the accuracy of tuned revolvers, which is why the S&W 25-2 remained popular for so long. The implication was that if revolvers needed tuning, self-loaders would need that much more, just to be competitive.

It was really the founding of the IPSC in 1976 by Jeff Cooper et al., with the additional competitions and their different rules being created, that lead to the explosion of accessories for tweaking the 1911. That's in no small measure because practical shooting generally requires more attention to ergonomic factors and less emphasis on tack driving accuracy. Some of the ergonomic accessories, like recoil buffers, can be installed without fitting, and that may have encouraged more DIY'ers who didn't know when they should stop.

Why some folks think they are qualified to work on the guns one day, when they were not the day before, comes partly from success with those changes that don't require fitting, but also has to do with the nature of shooters and, as they used to be called, gun cranks. I remember somewhere in the 70's or 80's hearing a public radio story in which the reporter went to ranges in California to see "who these gun owners really are". He said something suggesting he'd expected survivalists and political extremists and perhaps the odd truly dangerous nut, but found, to his surprise, that there was only one thing the shooters he met seemed to have in common: He said he found we were basically the same kinds of people you'd expect to find taking their own lawnmower engine apart on a weekend. He summed up, "if you like greasy metal, you'll probably like guns".

That seems about right among my shooting friends. YMMV, but it certainly explains why so many willing tinkerers are involved in the sport. Especially on the 1911 and especially before the 1990's.

Then we get to the 90's and the use of CNC machining starts becoming more common. Just handling samples at shows, I know the average 1911 has a tighter, less rattling fit now than they did thirty years ago, when I was learning how to tune one. In 2011 Guns & Ammo did a sort of cursory examination of out-of-the-box accuracy of some current production 1911's. They did surprising well. Certainly better by a factor of more than 2 than the Series '70 Goldcup I bought new around 1980 did. If the original guns had been produced with the same fitting precision, the whole tuning culture might never have got a toehold. But then, the originals had to fire full of sand, so maybe that could never be in the first place. The ergonomic additions would still be going on, though. And even though the average is a lot better than it once was, the triggers can mostly still be improved on. Bottom line, though: you should no longer automatically assume, as was once the case, that your 1911 will necessarily need tuning. Try it first, and see.