My 1911 Project

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

BillPenn

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Apr 15, 2020
Messages
747
Reaction score
954
Location
Oklahoma City
Here is my 1911 build. I built it out the way I wanted, so not looking for opinions. Mostly passing along for informational purposes. Where and how much. What worked and what sort of worked. May help someone since for me there was a pretty good learning curve. I’ve tore it apart and put back together half a dozen times. Most pretty easy except for the sear and disconnect.

I purchased a Rock Island 1911 FS 9mm from a member on here. Took it out to the range the following weekend a put 100rds thru it. No issues with regular ball ammo. Took it home tore it down and got to work on it.

  • Ordered a couple of Ed Brown magazines from Brownells for $25 each.
  • Watched a couple of YouTube videos took it apart and polished out the barrel, barrel bushing, guide rod, trigger bar and hammer. Picked up everything at Advanced Auto for about $30.
  • Ordered a stainless magwell and main spring housing and from ebay for $64, got here in about 4 days and fit perfect.
  • Ordered a Wilson Combat spring kit from Brownells for $15, will install now that it’s back from cerakote.
  • Found and ordered front fiber optic front sight and adjustable rear sight from Dawson Precision. Front was a Rock Island specific sight, rear was a Novak cut. Took way too much work to figure out. The Rock Islands use a “Novak style” dovetail. The Rocks are a couple of hundredths of an inch smaller than Novak. Will need to do a bit of filing to make a Novak sight work. Front sight $39, and rear was $54. Still need to install these
  • Took it to Blue Haven Firearms in Midwest City for Cerakote and engraving. Overall very nice folks, work was completed in 4 days, and they did a good job with a couple of exceptions. I do recommend them for this kind of work. Two tone Cerakote upper and lower $150, Slide engraving $50, Front Grip checkering $50. Cerkote came out flawless, but think they just taped off the sights. This may be an issue when I try to put my new sights in. Engraving on the slide came out perfect. I printed off what I wanted, and they matched it exactly. Front checkering could have been deeper, but maybe I am being picky.
Still have a little more work to do on it. Really pleased how it’s turning out. Can’t wait to go try it out again. If anyone has any specific questions about it just let me know.
 

Attachments

  • 1911a.jpg
    1911a.jpg
    150.8 KB
  • 1911b.jpg
    1911b.jpg
    161.5 KB

BrandonM

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Feb 21, 2009
Messages
4,021
Reaction score
1,315
Location
Bixby
It looks nice. I love to do my own gunsmith work and produce something nice. I know you didn’t do all the work yourself but it’s still cool to see your vision come together.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom