Stormstaff said:
anything I need to do special once I get it? Normal cleaning to insure everything is in working order?
Congrats on your new pistol and welcome to the forum!
To everyone who asks for advice on a new 1911, I offer the following:
First purchase a new recoil spring plug and short guide rod. You can get them from Brownells. In your case:
Part # 634-000-006 - "Gun Runners" blued recoil spring guide (this one is inexpensive at $9.37, it is blued, but you don't see it from outside the gun of course)
Part # 160-119-211 - Colt Recoil spring plug ($17.51)
In my mind the advantage here is that the FLGR in springfield guns requires a hex wrench to take down. I have never had any problem with any of my guns with those two parts I listed there.
Since your gun is a Springfield I would also advise buying a replacement extractor (because the stock extractors
in my opinion only are poor) and a spare firing pin stop (because you occasionally hear of firing pin stops on Springfield cracking after a couple thousand rounds. Mine haven't - but YMMV of course. Save yourself money and get these from Brownell's too.
I also recommend purchasing some Wilson Combat magazines. I find the Springfield magazines to be unreliable. There are several styles of Wilson Combat magazines available. Check them out at
www.wilsoncombat.com, and once you find what you like, check to see if Brownell's has what you are looking for. I have purchased all of my Wilson Combat magazines through Brownell's.
I found that I didn't really like the ILS (Springfield's special 'internal locking system' present in their mainspring housings)and their stock serrated mainspring housings that Springfield puts on their pistols - so I replace them with 20 or 30 LPI checkered mainspring housings. The highest quality MSH I've ever ordered is the Wilson Combat 30 LPI mainspring housing. With this you will want to order a new standard sized mainspring and a standard mainspring cap. You can re-use the mainspring retainer, retainer pin already in use in your pistol.
I also highly recommend Alumagrips. I have alumagrips on all of my Springfield 1911s so far. I prefer the "aggressive" checkering over their standard checkering, but I still use the standard checkered grips on one of my frequently used 1911s. (This is the only thing on this list that you should really get from the manufacturer themselves - you CAN find some of these grips on Brownell's, but there are so many customizable options if you go to Alumagrips website and click "Build a grip" at the top of the site.)
Later on you might feel like doing a little more work and doing things like putting in your own thumb safety and other nifty tidbits of customization you can perform on your own.
YMMV on all of this, of course, and everyone's opinions on the things I've mentioned here are different. This is just my opinon, not the Only Way of Truth and Right!
