Hi Harley,
Please allow me to give you 2 more cents worth on mag-funnels.
As you can see by Chuck’s photographs, I would have to say Chuck is the King of the soldered on mag-funnel.
I have one of Chuck’s funnel jobs and it is a real keeper! I had him make me one not because I wanted a sample to copy or because I can’t do one myself but because I wanted a piece of his excellent work (that borders on art). His taste and style is a “tough an act to follow”, (I’ll stick with my own style).
Our styles differ in a few areas; the inside of Chuck’s funnel is beautifully radiused with a convex type of radius the whole circumference of the inside if the funnel and it is opened-up to the maximum dimensions. That’s the best way I can describe it. I don’t know how he radiuses it and don’t care because it’s his style and a heck of a lot of handwork.
I machine my funnels in house because I prefer them to be a little wider then the Brown’s so I grind the outside edges to the contour of the grips. Sometimes, the Browns are not wide enough and the grips hang over the sides of the funnel a little bit. But the Brown’s front has a larger radius and allows you to open-up the mouth of the funnel larger then mine when contoured to the grips.
I make mine a little thicker (.295 instead of the Brown .250) and I use a standard 60-degree included angle cutter to blend the inside with a nice clean machine cut. The thicker funnel allows me to get a little bit wider opening but not as wide as Chuck’s. The major difference in the 2 is mine contours nicer and Chuck’s funnel is the largest possible.
I would have to say Chuck’s is “King” because it’s the biggest on the inside and therefore the most functional. BUT I think mine is big enough and looks nicer to my eyes on the outside. A mater of personal preference.
One area that we share is the transition point between the rear of the magazine chute and the thin web that separates the mainspring housing. Now this is an area I-bet-cha 90% of our “1911 addicts” and half the smiths don’t notice. Go back to photos @
http://www.1911forum.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/001619.html and take another look.
Look at Scott’s 2nd photo. This is a very nice mag-funnel job done in a different style.
Look at the transition point in the mainspring housing cut. Notice the rear web is cut midway down the rear chamfer to a chisel type point. There will be a slight gap in between the mainspring housing and the web. This gap can be fairly large depending on the manufacture of the mainspring housing. We particularly don’t care to have this gap right where you stuff magazines in the chute.
What we do is mill the rear web out and solder a piece of bar-stock 1/8th x ½ to the mainspring housing to fill the gap build-up the housing with weld. Then when you machine the rear mainspring area it is solid steel. When I machine-out the web I go an extra .050 deeper into the well so the transition point is actually slightly down inside the chute so it can’t interfere with the reload.
This is not a new innovative idea. I’m not sure who innovated it first but I robbed the idea from Chuck. I think Berlert’s may have been one of the first to do it. (I think George @ EGW worked for Berlert’s a one time and he may be able to enlighten us more)
It’s about 25% more work to eliminate this gap. Sometimes I wonder if it’s really worth the extra effort to eliminate this transition cut because if you have a tight fitting main spring housing the gap is very minimal. You will have to make-up your own mind.
To solve the stainless problem I bought 3 feet of 416 SS bar-stock from
www.admiralsteel.com for $55.00.
Heinie mag-wells: The Heinie mag-well is a nice rig, especially if you want the mag-well to be removable and more discrete. Being removable is nice incase you ever have to get to the checkering to touch it-up. The grips over lap the sides of the mag-funnel and at first glance it looks like a stock 1911. The pictures Jaydee posted show the grips cut flush with the top of the funnel, this may be Heinies new style of cutting the grips or maybe they are extra thin grips.
It attaches by 2 internal ears on the sides of the funnel that fit under the grips and are held to the frame by 4 screws. The bottom of the frame is cut off .300 around the magazine shoot so the over-all length of the frame does not change. The main spring housing area is not milled off and funnel must be drilled for the mainspring pin.
Installing the Heinie is not a straight forward “piece of cake” to install. There are few flies in the ointment.
First: The inner ears that sleeve and attach to the frame are milled .745 the same as the rear section at the mainspring pin. The directions tell you to mill the side of the frame (the flats on the sides of the mainspring housing pin hole) to .745 so the rear of the funnel will fit flat and not spread the funnel. That part is ok. Problem is the average thickness of frames run from .750 to .765. So when you slide the ears on the frame the magazine funnel spreads and no longer fits snug in the rear @ your .745 cut.
To solve problem we will have to open-up the inside of the .745 ears to the thickness of the frame.
To Correct; make a gauge block .745 wide, .250 thick and about a inch long, slip this in the rear .745 cut where the mainspring housing pin goes, then clamp the funnel in your mill vise with the ears sticking–up out of the top of the vise, use a edge finder to center the spindle between the .745 ears and zero mill. Next I open-up the inner ears to the thickness of the frame so you can slip the ears on without spreading the funnel. When milling the inner ears climb-cut using a razor sharp carbide mill, because the ears are thin and tall and will want to flex pushing away from the mill giving you a bad cut.
I have a few other trick I do to ease the installation of the Heinie mag-well but if I keep typing I mite-as-well re-write Richard’s whole installation sheet. If you have any specific question feel free to ask.
I fabricate my own style removable type funnel that is similar to Heinie’s. Instead of using screws to attach it to the frame I recess the ears .020 into the frame, locate, drill and counter-sink where the grip screw bushing holes are and retain ears by the grip screw bushings. It makes for a slick, snug, and wobble free fit. The front that wraps around the front-strap is also contoured sleeker in my style.
Metal Smith, Pete Single
