xtriggerman

I haven't put together a 1911 in quite a few years. Back in 1982 I was asked to put together a 1911A1 production line by Doug Nickells who was the manager of Auto Ordnance West Hurley at the time. George Numrich had a crap load of GI 1911 parts across the drive way at Numrich Arms. So after we got the thousands of parts transferred over, I set up the tooling to get the Essex frames and slides fit with GI parts. Thus the Auto Ordnance 1911A1 was born in 82. I have to say, Fridays was the best work day of my life! All I did for the day was test fire the week's production run. 4600 1911A1's went threw my hands up until I quit in late 83. Yup, that was a neat job for sure. Well any way, This thing started out as just a Springfield armory Champion barrel and slide from "everygunpart.com" . GB had nice SS commander 80% frames for $144 and the rest of the parts came from mostly Ebay. I wanted a nice flashy piece for a change so after everything was fit to working order, I put a mirror finish on the side flats and glass bead blasted all the outer contor edges. The frame rails are +- .002 with the slide for a start then hand fit over what ever slide warp there was. A fun project that should print fairly well to boot! The first shot you can see me holding the camera and my red tee shirt while in the second shot, it just refects the white ceiling.

Love it! Cross draws have been soooo under rated for ever.

That's about the nicest styled SS I'v seen. It looks very ergonomically shaped. I have to add tho, it was proven many years ago that the big heavy soft lead tipped bullets were actually the worst performers in dense brush. The FMJ was by far the best. Silver tip Winchesters followed and what ever else had the least exposed lead at its tip. The worst were hollow based shot gun slugs! Hey I like the 45-70 also. Even plan on building a couple but brush busting is not an attribute as far as the indepth testing showed.

CZ's are unique in that the original design was a full slide to frame contact rail. It was all ways an impressive military design. Compare this rail to a Glock & smile since you own the CZ! I don't own one.........yet but my bucket list CZ is, http://cz-usa.com/product/cz-75-d-pcr-compact-black-alloy-9mm-14-rd-mags/ Full rail in Alloy means it wont go loose after thousands like a Beretta 92 semi railed frame. You did good! What a shooter.

Thanks for the tips. I see the firing pin is not an inertia pin like the 1911. I didn't figure on using it as a carry gun. just a range plinker. I can see the large paddle on the safety could be nudged off if bumped. If I ever had a need to use it as a carry guy, I suppose trimming the safety paddle back some may be a fix but in general it has a very definitive snap in either position. A solid little gun for sure.

Monday my son & I were on our way back home from Asheville and since Bud's gun shop is only a few miles off our route home, we thought who can resist. So we stopped. I had no intension of swiping plastic for anything other than some 22 std vels.....maybe. That philosophy failed miserably since unknown to me Buds bought a bunch of these police Star BM 9mm pistols to dump on the market. The carot came in the shape of a big yellow sale tag on original boxed guns with the $199.99 digits printed largely across the center of the tag. Now I'v seen this sort of bate & sell before in shotgun news and other on line distributors with even better pricing but who knows what condition you end up with and the Star had a good rep but I never held one of these older steel frame BM guns in my hand. I had to fix my ignorance of the matter by getting to hold the sample on one of the 6 boxes in the case. Needless to say, I was quite impressed with the scaled down 1911 9mm! Further thought provoked me into getting all 6 guns out of their boxes and bingo, a near mint unit with about 90 percent hardly worn blueing. I jumped on it as did my son for the second best one. All I can say is wow.... what a deal on a very well made mini 1911 style 9mm. Very happy with its quality of craftsmanship. 36 feet off a wood block rest with wolf ammo I highly recommend these steel Star BM's as great "cant kill it" 9's...... that handle great box after box!

If your rebounding hammer has a slightly out of "bend" spring strut, it can cause light hits simply because there is too much rebound travel away from the firing pin. The way to check for this is with the hammer at rest, push it forward with your finger. It should just barely more forward AND be just about ready to touch the protruding firing pin. pulling the trigger should allow the hammer to now move into the firing pin. If in the first step, the hammer moves more than 1/16th of an inch forward to its at rest trigger safety stop, The hammer strut needs to be bent slightly up in the middle. This will move the hammer closer to the trigger stop and thus, lessen its rebound resistance. This is a strut tune that any gunsmith knows about and has performed on countless single shot shot guns and the like. Marlins have been know to have rough secondary firing pin spring contact on that firist FP. Its the spring that holds the FP downward with the lever down. Machine lines there give a drag to the FP. As noted above washering up the hammer spring can at times be the answer and most of all, check your head space, a lot of it can sponge the firing pin hit into no fire with a weak hammer drive.

Did some one say Aliens!! Oh yeah that was Gordon Cooper.... I think.

August 15-16. its a naked eye event. Should be pretty spectacular since a comet of this size has never passed so close in modern human history. Another brief on it http://scienceglobalnews.com/uncategorized/green-comet-explodes-in-night-sky-comet-panstarrs-bursts-over-earth-science-news/

I'm surprised there isn't more info on this event. What I'v found on a fee sights is it is "estimated to pass by earth within 70 million miles and as close as 22 million miles past the sun. In space distance that's within NASA's danger zone. Maybe its a good idea to get a few electronics into the metal trash cans! https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/984487/Comet-panstarrs-explodes-night-sky-astronomy-comet-pictures

They do a hell of a nice job polishing up the bore but not very good at removing any kind of numbers.

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just dowl spin it out with 180 grit. Then work it back with finer paper. Your only talking a few thousandths.....

4D rentals is a pretty good outfit. I'v used them several times over the years and they have kept their price steady over the decades. I would knock one out for a $60 dollar tip. But your right, its not rocket science, just take your time, lots of threading lube, go a little at a time, clean the chips, go a little more. Its just time consuming for a nice job.

Before you send it anywhere you need to know if the barrel is thick enough for a threading. I have tooling for Win Choke II which is same as Mossberg Accu or Browning Invec and you need no less than .860 at the mouth O.D. Sometimes you can find that at a shorter length but shorter can diminish the effect of the choke to a degree.

I used to have property in NH. Like much of the north east, the libtard masses from the cities expanded into the country sides and you have what you have. The states moto of Live Free or Die is a joke. So much so the jaw fell off the old man of the mountain! Beautiful state, but the massaholes have been bussy running it into the ground with outrageous property taxes. Regardless, Welcome to TGO & have a great visit.

Chipping away at it and finally had time to get the M2 bipod, forward grip and FAL carry handle done. The Bipod is as some may know 4 position extendable and it will lock in the nearly vertical position (ground prone) as well as its table top position as you see it. If the handle is in the up position, it doesn't interfere with the sight plane. The Bipod legs fold up solidly into the wood forend with zero shake or rattle and are individually QD from their rack. Back in the 80's I tested this Bi pod position on my SAR48 and found it to be the ultimate position for accuracy similar to a sand bag rest when handled properly. With a full 75 rounds in the sack, your looking at 21 pounds of custom RPD (17.4 lbs empty) and man does that handle balance it out in a 45/55 weight split but very nearly 50/50 with the full tool kit out of the butt stock. Guy's the handle is a huge upgrade! Iv yet to make a BHO based on the Ithaca X15 unit just up sized and eliminate the scissor sight for a built in flip up peep in a full scope rail. Also, I don't like the cover release design so that will get some kind of up lever release making it a cinch to pop the top! These table hammers are as fun as it gets! The Original configuration w/ 100 rnd drum An interesting side note.... "Designed in 1940's by Vasily Degtyaryov, Sergei Simonov, and Alexei Sudayev, designers respectively of the DP-28/DPM, the SKS, and the PPS submachine gun; the RPD was chambered for the new 7.62x39mm cartridge and was initially intended as a companion weapon to the SKS. Later, of course, the AK-47 was chambered for the same round. By 1953, the RPD was being delivered in large quantities and was the principal Soviet light machine gun for the early portions of the Cold War. By the 1960s, the RPD was being replaced by the RPK and PK machine guns, which were based on the Kalashnikov system, but many Soviet and Warsaw Pact units used RPDs for another two decades. Desantniki, (Soviet airborne troops) who were not happy when their RPDs were replaced by the RPK, felt the RPD gave them better sustained fire and better range. Admittedly, though, one liked the RPK a lot because he felt it “jumped” better."

www.everygunpart.com I ordered a couple gun parts sets that basically NEVER pop up in Ebay, GB, ect. I don't care that they were crime guns or where ever they got them from as long as they were not stolen. Will like 3 thousand sets, they are probably checked for that.... I hope. The down side is they are pricing toward "part Out" totals and a tad under and some over the top. I just missed out on this weekends special of 15% off with free shipping but what the hey.... Worth keeping a link up for future ones.

That's still in pretty nice shape! I had one that was an early one with the forward safety like a mini 14. The only real weakness of the design is the forend wood. Browning ended up putting a swath of fiberglass glued around the inside at the rear. That's where the work horses would get cracked visibly and also in the thin bridge between the barrel and mag bore. Finding an old original "not cracked" there is impossible but there are newer ones but they vary to different models so they are not one fits all VIA gauge of gun. If I were you, I would cut & fit a Pachmyr 325 to the butt to your pull length. It will be monumental in recoil management. No matter what you do with the recoil system, the Auto 5 is a shoulder pounder, plain & simple. I like the Franchi AL48 20g guns that are basically a modern alloy receivered Auto 5 with a manageable all day kick. I have an old Rem 11/48 in 20 that is also a pleasure to shoot. Brownings recoiling barrel design some how has an appealing effect on throwing shot..... Not any words for it really!

When I ever worked on one, I would just use a couple drops or so of a good gun oil since its viscosity doesn't change with extreme temps. Just enough to barely smug the tube. Another thing I always looked for was some times the fiber buffer would be missing from the back of the receiver so it was a bear to get a new one peened in on the little rivet that's supposed to keep it in place. Over time, the pounding bolt would beat the snot out of them and then they would end up taking recoil metal to metal. Hope fully, your is still in place.

There were early brass friction rings that did not have a beveled lip that mated with the steel "inward" bevel of the steel ring. The best resistance of the barrel is with the beveled brass edge into the barrel ring and the opposite beveled edge into a steel ring's matching inward bevel. The best way to gauge if its giving correct resistance ( IMO) is by the force of the spent shell leaving the gun. If your in the 6-8 foot range standing, that's good. If its chucking them out past 10-12 feet with stiff field loads, I'd rough the tube up lightly a tad with 220 grit shoe shine way with a strip. Those tubes can get glazed to where they just cant give the resistance any more.

Iv read nothing but good things about the Thunder 380. They have come a long way from the 380 Bersa's I used to sell as a dealer in the 80's. There was a run of those early single action trigger 380's that had the hammers snapping off. Should be a pretty accurate shooter.

When I retired in 2013, I always wanted a BMW and settled for this 2003 F650GS. Iv had my bike drivers License since 75 and key in on at least one important aspect of riding. As any one who races dirt or street would tell you, weight is an important factor in the agility of a bike. So iv never gotten into anything bigger than an old 750 Honda. I scored this 650 with 4K miles for slightly more than 4K. Anything I ever need to do on it is on F650.com. Its about 425 lbs dry, 4.2 gal's under the seat, ABS, heated grips, fuel injected 50HP and solid 75 mpg holding it to general road speed limits. I put these bikes at 75/25 road to dirt. Not a good dirt bike due to a tall first gear and undersized siphon type radiator. They really should have put a 6 speed in these old 650's. Iv done a bunch of upgrade mods and only my not so good back keeps the hours off the bike. But what a great short hop scooter, perfect for a one dayer park picknic with the ol'lady. My 5 year old grandson loves the 1/3rd mile long drive way I have to boot!

The first thing to check is head space. If the chamber was bored a tad too deep, you can get just that. A what looks like a well defined FP dent but no fire. You can run into the same problem in rim fire revolvers that have too much end shake in the cylinders. Basically, the sudden impact of the firing pin is absorbed by the rim as it lurches forward in a too deep chamber. Then the next consideration is firing pin extension. With the hammer down on the FP, it should extend out of the breach face by .035" Then another consideration is the hammer cocking all the way back against its drive spring? If some one was inside the gun to "lighten" the trigger and shortened the hammer sear, you can feel the hammer can go rear ward beyond its fully cocked position. In that case you need new what ever was monkeyed with. Next, remove the hammer drive spring and "feel" its movement from fully cocked to fully forward FP extended. If its dragging at any point, that needs to be cleaned up. Also, at times the FP return springs can be way too stiff killing the hammer momentum. That would require a slight spring trim by a half coil. If all the above checks out good, Then its time to washer load the hammer drive spring to the point where the spring is about fully compressed just rear of fully cocked position. Some where in all the above is your problem and fix.

Clearly craftsmen of the highest order! Looks like nice select coco bolo for the wood if I'm not mistaken and more than likely a Rockwell you cant get on the store bought butter knives!