That's kind of disappointing to hear. At least you've got good bones for a build.

 

Yeah and that pinch between the grip safety and the tang...

 

Nine rnd MecGars seem to want to nose dive the top round, especially with flat points and hollow points. Ten rnd MecGars with the plastic followers seem to have alleviated the problem, and are cheap.

 

Sweet, a "Budget" project gun.

I know how this goes. Man this is only xxx.xx dollars, I should buy this just to tinker a little and have something to do. I dont have to do much, Ill use all the original parts and have a cheap toy. Im not even doing a beavertail. I can make this work. Just a trigger job. maybe add a long trigger.

A couple months in.

this is how it works.

Go ahead and get the oversize square bottom FPS check the extractor... might need that. (Speaking of, how does the extractor look? I asked @theraptur about his, but like me I dont think he checks his PMs HINT! I just picked up the commander carry model but havent gotten to the FFL to pick them up yet, )

trigger job.... got the jigs and stones, Notta problem Ill just try for 3 and if I can get 3.5 with out parts Im good... BUT I cant shoot this thing without a real beavertail (Im beyond buying the dropin from Wilson cause I know about 2 mths later Im buying and fitting a beavertail)

so I need a Hammer and beavertail, may as well buy a sear and disconnector and I cant shoot a short trigger so need that too. Then I can put the trigger where I want it without question.

need a spring kit from Wolff...
Oh gotta get sights ordered, just go ahead and get some novaks and have the slide milled.

since I have to refinish it anyway may as well undercut the trigger guard

well im in this deep I should replace the barrel bushing and maybe add a full lenght guide rod, Ill check the slide stop and see if a .200 will help it....

well all thats left is to spray and bake it - but man this thing turned out NICE
maybe Ill checker the front strap and replace the mainspring housing with a magwell and have it hard chromed or nitrided or

yea

thats how my "BUDGET" builds go.

Good luck on yours.

 

Whoa...I didn't see a pm from you? Let me look....

 

Noticed the other day going through the pistol…the hammer is MIM. Not a problem, it has been strategically bobbed

 

Okie dokie…a few days from the last post. Life has its manners and I’ve been getting in some bench time. A few snaps of what is on the fire.

Not first done but first to show…thumb safety. I don’t care much for the Gov’t Model or teardrop type thumb safety. I prefer the GI paddle placement and dimension even on an extended thimb safety. Lately, though, my grip has either evolved or preference has changed. I bobbed this paddle so the rear is not quite as far forward as the GI subspecies. I originally was going to do the GI “two tone” texture on the thumb safety plate. But because I chose to keep more of the paddle on the thumb safety I changed to a unidirectional texture.

I also moved the scallop to more closely coincide with the frame. In the down disengaged (down) position I prefer the scallop to be close to and parallel to the contour of the backstrap bevel. Now for those variations…the frame backstrap bevel was further away from the thumb safety plate position. Could be the plate stock below the pin was a little ‘short’. Either way, the scallop sweep does uncover the bottom of the thumb safety cutout in the frame when made as close to parallel as possible with backstrap bevel when the thumb safety is in the engaged (up) position. Bummer..(hangs head).

Pics attached

 

Not first done but first to show…thumb safety...

I also moved the scallop to more closely coincide with the frame. In the down disengaged (down) position I prefer the scallop to be close to and parallel to the contour of the backstrap bevel. Now for those variations…the frame backstrap bevel was further away from the thumb safety plate position. Could be the plate stock below the pin was a little ‘short’. Either way, the scallop sweep does uncover the bottom of the thumb safety cutout in the frame when made as close to parallel as possible with backstrap bevel when the thumb safety is in the engaged (up) position. Bummer..(hangs head).

That is nearly unavoidable with most beavertail installations due to the desire for a high grip and the way the grip safety/frame, and thumb safety get blended.

 

Grip safety…had to make better..for me. Tisas and RIA fit the contour their grip safeties low on the top rear of the spur extension. Not only does this make meaty hands more susceptible to hammer bite, it also necessitates bobbing more of the hammer spur when changing things in the back…because the hammer swings lower…right to the flesh of the hand. Pic posted, yellow circle shows area of the grip safety spur I am referring to.


This grip safety, pictured from last pic in thumb safety post was removed from a the Mil-Spec I fitted a Derr beavertail grip safety to. I reposted the pic in this post. You can see I already have give it an M1911 spur-eque configuration. This raises the hand on the pistol. It keeps the web the hand from pushing the rear of the pistol up, dropping the muzzle. And I don’t care for the straight back feature of the A1 grip safety. Coming off snother pistol this ‘dropped right in’. NOT! Had to set the depth of disengagement. I have to weld or braze a dab on the trigger bow overtravel block. But the contour is pretty close. I also had to relieve the bottom of the frame tangs so there were no sharp corners bearing against the hand. I defanged the back corners of the spur and the long corners along the bottom of the spur. You can see the small relief at yhe bottom of the frame tangs.

 

Trigger work. The trigger had a beginning of pull that was decent. Then it stacked. Then released. A nice AR-15 two stage trigger. Slow fire, bullseye…eh.

Pic attached labeled “Neutral angle”. Under the comparator three things are evident.
1. There is a neutral angle. Shouldn’t greatly cause the trigger quality issue.
2. There is a relief cut into the hook area…in the wrong place!
3. No secondary angle allows the hook to really seat deep into the hook. That is seen in the pic.

I know of two major makers who put that round cut…at the bottom of the hook…not in the flats as done on this Tisas. The Tisas cut allows the sear with no secondary cut to rotate deep into the hooks. My guess…to eliminate the need for a secondary cut so there would be no issue with in the corner issues. or they put the cut in the wrong place. The hooks were at .021-.022” height..usable for a pistol of this application. But because of the relief cut where it is the sear ‘sees more hook’.i.e,…creep and angular loading through the pull.

So I lowered the hooks, did the usual trigger job work and got the sear/hook relationship in the pic labeled “Finished sear/hanmer”. I could have put more secondary on it but opted for the longer primary..safety in mind. I replaced the sear spring with a Wolff spring since there was no resilience in the Tisas spring. 2 for 2…2 Tisas pistols with faulty sear spring. This cut was the second cut. The first cut was too much negative angle so I had to reset the screw in my jig.

For those that are interested…

• Utilizing the first cut with the quite noticeable secondary angle pull weight, I set the pull weight to 63 ounces..once ounce shy of 4 pounds. Good weight pull, had creep.
• Lowered the hooks, recut the sear primary. Everything else left alone - pull was good quality but weight increased, as expected. Actual increase was 5 ounces for a 4 1/4 pound pull. In the target range for a pistol of this application.
• I could lower the looks more…but then I may have to recut the sear. I’ll run it like this for a bit.

Fuzzy pic of the sear face swipe marks…they did look good…really.

 

I never thought of doing that with the tear drop shaped safety on my old Regent—you just gave me a project for today!

 

^^^. 👍

 

I read you, BBBBill. I try to keep that smilie covered…usually happy with just a hint of it showing.

 

So now to get to part the personality of this pistol. Front strap. Why is the front strap part of the pistol’s personality? Because it affects how it sits in my hand. It will make it more nibble if it sits lower in the hand and the length of pull is good. Not to mention the way recoil management is improved.

Relative to me, ergonomics of some 1911’s…and this goes back to the war guns…doesn’t feel comfortable in the hand. I know some like the grip frame as is. Doesn’t work for me. I have a difficult time getting 100% grip safety deactivation when riding the thumb safety. Point is off. Additionally, the handling is comparable to two pieces of 1x3 lumber nailed together just over 90 degrees. This was from my first 1911. This is why all my guns have a good bit of work on the grip frame and grip safeties. The two go together along with the mainspring housing.

Anyway, back at the ranch, pictured are two pics with indicator lines. The pic with no fingers and ratty cuticles in it is the left side profile picture cropped and enlarged. Notice the radius of the curve. It is rather large. Larger than the radius of most fingers. So grasping and gripping will be less consistent.

Shown is a pic of the grip frame being gripped…the one with the ratty cuticles. There is a line parallel to the bottom of the trigger guard. That distance between the two is how much the frame lacks from laying on the finger. It is inconsistent. Also notice the distance of the two top gripping fingers relative to one another (indicated with red lines).

 

What I do is create a radius’d curve similar to the radius of my index finger. The objective is to move the front of the grip frame up and into the curve. I also move the top of the radius under the trigger guard back. Nothing earth shattering.

I start by using a round file in this case a 7/32 chain saw file. I do this to position the radius in the existing curve. The work back into the curve. Simultaneously I work forward into the curve under the trigger guard and down ward into the curve on the grip frame.

When I have established my position and areas to blend the radius, I use a dremel and an orange barrel stone…which hour glass shapes itself quite nicely. I use the slow speed on the dremel…not the top light speed gearing. I am sculpting, not running demolition to remove material, the radius both in lateral profile and around the front strap. It is a blending. If you truly whittled…same idea, different tool.

Pictured is the process, both filed and dremeled, and roughed in radius This pistol will not receive an undercut trigger guard because it doesn’t need it and because…it is mil spec flavor. Since the pics don’t always present themselves in the order I select them, readers can identify the succession. There is a pic of the ratty cuticles relative to the reshaped front strap as it is now. Notice the finger contacts the bottom of the trigger guard and the top two grasping finger are more in alignment.

YMMV

 

I love the way you actually explained why you like it and how it helps you shoot better, point quicker be more consistent etc .

I never got into why I like it and why I dont like most that are not undercut.
but you laid it out very well and it all makes sense.

the comparitor is interesting, I did a couple trigger jobs on Tisas 1911 and noticed the little hole, on both my examples its down into the verticle surface of the hammer instead of the corner, which makes it pretty hard to cut a secondary because it catches in the hole. Guess Ill replace the hammers.

Great job.

You ALMOST have me wanting to buy a base gun and try your mods to see if I can shoot it....

ALMOST, im not going to do it because I know where it will end up.

 

How to wreck your 1911 in 15 minutes or less…
Texturing the front strap…

 

Fin!
I am sure I’ll find some discrepancies that puts me back to work…

 

Some Oxpho-Blu…

 

that turned out pretty good.
Nice work !

 

Front strap done…now its time for the mainspring housing.

Pics attached.
One before pic - substantial reveal above the frame and serrations.
A few after the mainspring housing rear contour was lowered and blended.

 

Mainspring housing textured and Oxpho-Blu’d.

 

Time for the top of the pistol. Front sight ‘post’ cut.
Fitted bushing. Was thick flange type. Filed and smooth the face them Oxpho’d it.

 

Checked the barrel fit at the chamber end. The barrel feet were hitting evenly on the back if the slide stop pin. No pronounced lower lug witness marks on top of the slide stop pin. Vertical clearance from ‘short’ lower lugs. This causes the lower barrel lugs radii to ‘ramp up’ against the pin. This is usually noticed when pushing down on the barrel hood with the pistol in battery and the barrel moves downward. Link out - the vertical clearance is evident.. The link was short, mid section measuring .095”, a #3 link. No barrel bump was evident with the short link. Selected a next best takeoff link, .097”, mid way between #3 and # 4 link. Just a bit short. Shouldn’t barrel bump. Barrel timing checks were okay.

Selected a pair of grips bought from another member. Dark cocobolo, fully checkered. Grip are flat bottom and have a covered mainspring housing pin. Might have to change those features or the grips.

A couple of notes for those who may be curious. I was.

• My first Tisas used a 28..yes 28 pound mainspring. The recoil spring may also have been heavy IIRC. On this pistol the mainspring exerts 18-19 pounds of force and the recoil spring is a 10 pounder. This is an acknowledged setup.
• The internal parts were pretty good. The paint should have been omitted after parking.
• I didn’t measure slide to frame fit because it was affected by the paint application, it felt good, and I wasn’t going to do anything about it.
• Overall, a decent value for the $$$ and a good base pistol.

Now to shoot it again. I keep my old targets as work sheets over my work mat. Oddly, this target is one of two I used to shoot transition drills with this pistol.

Pics attached. Hammer shots and that of the final radius under the trigger guard included. .

 

A couple of things I neglected to mention a couple things. I did an upper relief cut on the firing pin stop (tilting the top of the hammer striking surface forward). I do this even on the nine’s because it dissipates some of the recoil energy and it smoothes out the slide unlocking. Both make the pistol run smoother. On my other nine (heavy barrel) makes it a hoot to shoot.

I also tuned the extractor. Ths extractor was interesting in its form.. It was as if Tisas was eliminating tuning through design. You’ll see in the pics. I have read of a couple different camps for 9mm extractor tuning in the 1911. Tune for the hook just bearing in the groove or tune the hook wall bearing against the case rim…like for a 45 ACP. I live on the edge and set it up so both coincide with very light contact in the groove. Typically, it ends up being a tiniest sliver of light getting past the hook. I then set the tension on the heavy end…but not excessive.

Anyway, pics of the firing pin stop and extractor before and after tuning.

 

Well, shot it. This time around it did not like the top round of a fully loaded mag. The round would nose dive into the bottom of the ramp. All I used was the Mecgar 9 rounder supplied with the pistols. I didn’t have any other 9mm mags with me (slaps own forehead). So I’ll look into this issue. It will be a magazine issue or I’ll have to move the barrel ramp forward.

Otherwise, reliability was 100%. It was pleasant to shoot. Tracked well. These older eyes are demanding modern sized sights.

 

Had the same problem with the supplied MecGars!

 

Took an old friend with me. 45 ACP. built it late 90’s or early 200x. This pistol shoots under 3” at 50 yards with Federal bulk ball. Any way composite target, WWB ball. three shots up and to right were called fliers. 3 rounds in the group were shot at 12 and 17 yards. Remainder at 25 yards.

 

Love the work. Gives me ideas.

On my B45 I did some blending on the serrated msh. Mainly to get rid of the raised edge transition from the msh to the frame and to knock down that big corner at the bottom of the msh.

Before

After