Changed the mainspring housing on my Kimber Raptor

[East_TN_Patriot]

As many 1911 owners know, many 1911 manufacturers today, including Kimber, use a plastic mainspring housing.  Also like many 1911 owners, I question the durability of such a vital part and think the plastic looks like crap.  After picking up this Kimber Pro Raptor II recently, I decided to upgrade the plastic part with a quality matching stainless part.  Here are the results.

This is the before photo:

 

 

 

 

The Raptor pistol has a pretty unique texture on the slide and frame.  I found this part made by Ed Browne and thought the "chainlink" texture was a good compliment for the pistol:

 

 

 

Installation was pretty straight forward and took me less than an hour with no fitting required.  Here are the results.  Personally, I think the part looks excellent and almost perfectly matches the texture on the remainder of the pistol.  The texture of the housing definitely gives you good grip without being to aggressive.

[MarkInNashville]

That do look sharp! But I am a bit confused, the original part is plastic??? That looks like metal and looks good, also.

[Oh Shoot]

That do look sharp! But I am a bit confused, the original part is plastic??? That looks like metal and looks good, also.

 

Yep, sure wouldn't have thought polymer from the pic. Both look great.

 

- OS

[Lumber_Jack]

That do look sharp! But I am a bit confused, the original part is plastic??? That looks like metal and looks good, also.

Yep, lots are using plastic. Unless you drop it square on the housing the plastic ones function perfect and look fine.

With that said I would still swap it for a metal one. To me it's not worth the weight/cost savings to keep the plastic one.

[TMF]

That was the first thing I switched out on my Kimber. I got one with the beveled magwell extension.

[Garufa]

Looks great.  :up:

 

I'm still amazed such high dollar 1911's are using plastic.  Is nothing sacred?  MIM is bad enough but cutting corners like this is ridiculous.

[Erik88]

Looks good, I would have never known that part was plastic. It looks like metal to me.

 

I want a 1911 badly. 

[East_TN_Patriot]

When you see it in person, it's obvious it's a plastic part and it drove me crazy.  You can sort of tell when you look at the before and after pictures.  The plastic one was a darker gray and didn't have the metallic sheen of the stainless steel part.  

So far, I have read that Kimber, Springfield, Colt, and even some of the other high-end 1911 pistols are now coming with a plastic housing.  The ones I've read about breaking were usually dropped, but a couple were chipped around where the grip safety meets the mainspring housing.  I am quite pleased with the change for $40 and about 45 minutes of work (most of that trying to get the darn mainspring installed in the new housing.  Now I have no worries about breaking it!  :up:

[Joe357]

It looks great

I am also making a few changes to my Sig Tacops. I am adding wood grips, stainless steel bushing, stainless steel recoil spring plunger, stainless steel slide stop and 17 pound recoil spring
I may or may not change the black safety to SS.

[Guest sL1k]

I have that same housing I love it!
I installed the snake scales one for a friend.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

My Rock and the Springfield had metal ones, but I did the same as you, ET. That looks good. I guess Kimber

and a few others are using the polymer ones to lighten them up some. That's news to me, too.

[East_TN_Patriot]

My Rock and the Springfield had metal ones, but I did the same as you, ET. That looks good. I guess Kimber

and a few others are using the polymer ones to lighten them up some. That's news to me, too.

My Springfield mil-spec has a metal one as well.  I had no idea, but when I did some research on it, it seems more and more are using this approach.  I would venture a guess that it's cost savings for the manufacturer as much as it is weight reduction.  If I am correct, that is annoying because I think most people expect to get a steel mainspring housing on their pistol at that price point.

[Static_USMC]

I have a TLE II that I bought 8 yrs ago, going to check it when I get home.

[zgunbear]

I will be working for Maximus Arms here in Franklin. We will be using stainless steel for all external parts. We should be shipping pistols in 3 to 4 weeks. Check out our website maximusarms.com

[Guest Grout]

Colt was the first to start putting plastic mainspring housings on 1911's.They started doing it with the 1991A1 models