building a 1911

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darko

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Is this a painful/impossible task for someone without tools and experience in building handguns? At first I was considering just starting with a bare frame of some kind and going from there... but it seems a majority of grinding/filing/machining is to be spent on fitting the frame, slide, barrel and bushing together and it put me off. I emailed DLASK about their 1911 kits which already come with prefitted frame, barrel, bushing, and slide... the rest would be up to me.

Is that a better way to go than starting with a bare frame myself, and slowly getting parts from different sources? Even if I get the DLASK kit I'm positive I'll still need a slew of small tools and what-not but Im prepared to get what it takes. However, will this take some of the fun/enjoyment out of building it completely from scratch myself? Just how much of a PITA is it fitting the slide and barrel to a frame?

Any advice or suggestions from those who have built 1911s in the past? I figure it will probably take me quite a while to actually get all the parts/tools and finish the build so it'll be a slow process. Just gotta decide if I wanna go with a prefitted slide/frame/barrel kit, or really start from scratch myself.
 
If you are building a race gun or a bullseye gun and don't have tools , skills and/or patients, maybe you should get a gunsmith to do the work. If you want to assemble your own gun with parts you have, get a bare Norinco Frame from www.marstar.ca I think they are $100 , then assemble with the parts you have and buy the better aftermarket parts that you want. There will be some fitting and the gun may not be as accurate as the hand fitted gunsmith gun but it should be close ,if you were careful and picked the right parts.You will get to know the 1911 up close and personal because you will put it together and take it apart many times. But if you think it will be an inexpensive gun , forget it . IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR INEXPENSIVE BUY A COMPLETE NORINCO and add the extras that you feel you need or want. When you buy parts and assemble them each piece adds up to more that the complete Norinco, because you are getting more pieces that are better quality which cost more. Just my opinion, I have assembled a Norinco frame with a Ithaca slide , a Colt barrel and a whole bunch of aftermarket parts and because of the deals I had made on slide and barrel it cost about what a new Norinco 1911 would have cost. I am assembling a Norinco Commander style with a complete Colt Commander top end I bought 20 years ago for about $150, so I am half way there for $250 ,just need the lower parts to finsh. Just a little info a complete 1911 from Marstar costs $325, the frame ,barrel and slide as parts total $344.45
 
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I was about to say that money is not an issue, but that's a lie... however, since I expect this to take a while I have no problems with buying quality parts over time. I definitely do NOT want this to be a cheap gun.

I don't want to start with a Norinco frame. I want the gun to be composed of quality parts right from the start and its something I'll wanna keep for a long long time. With that being said, the quick searches I've done through the available Canadian retailers haven't come up with too many options for frames other than Norinco. The option that Dlask offers was interesting because its an already fitted slide/barrel/frame so that would take some of the work out of it for me, and probably make for a better firearm in the end because the fitting of the important pieces is done by professionals, and not me.

I haven't heard back from Dlask yet so Im still waiting on that. However, I do want to build a commander length gun so that's gonna pose even more problems for finding parts. The few Canadian sites I've checked do not seem to offer any slides/barrels shorter than 5".

Any info on where I might be able to find frames/kits besides the already mentioned?
 
There's also Caspian and STI that sell frames and slides pre-fitted. But as one who has gone through this process, note that building a 1911 properly (safely) is no easy feat. It takes time, patience, tools knowledge and skill to do it. If you're doing this just as a for-the-hell-of-it project, I'd start with something really cheap so that if you screw it up you won't have thrown a bunch of money in the toilet. Be prepared to spend some money on tools and books too. I started with a couple of old G.I. surplus .45's and bashed away at those for a while until I learned what not to do.
 
that's because the NORINCO is a QUALITY frame- at least on par with usgi and definately superior to some of the offerings stateside at least as far as the 1911 is concerned- first off, i'd get a REAL GOOD ARMOURERS book on how to "tune " the 1911 - there's just so many avenues you can go wrong- the trigger alone can be a nightmare if it's not done right-there's also several different lengths of links for connecting the barrel to the frame, unless dlask supplies that too-and the front sight needs to be staked in place- as far as the tuning bit goes, all you really need is emery cloth for doing the feed ramp and arkansas stones for the trigger/sear - 240 emery and 320 emery to finish the job
 
Would it benefit me to just buy a cheap (affordable) Norinco first and tear that apart to get familiar with it? I woulnd't want to waste $400 on doing that if its not gonna benefit the end result greatly.

Are you all in agreement that fitting the frame/barrel/bushing/slide is the most difficult part of the job? Im just trying to decide which avenue to start with here. If I do buy a kit such as what STI or DLASK offer, I wouldn't wanna ruin any of the components in the process of building the rest of the gun... is this a possibility?
 
You could also contact any of the companies that advertise at the top of this page .They have or can get frames ,slides and barrels from CASPIAN, STI, PARA or whoever. Dlask may be good but they are not the only supplier of quality frames and stuff.
 
I have a Norinco 1911 that I bought years ago. I made some changes to it.
New trigger, sear, hammer etc & really like it.

Wilson in the U.S. used to only work on a few 1911a1's. Norinco was one of these few as they said the steel was high quality. That was before the China gun ban.
Good luck on your venture.
 
darko said:
Would it benefit me to just buy a cheap (affordable) Norinco first and tear that apart to get familiar with it? I woulnd't want to waste $400 on doing that if its not gonna benefit the end result greatly.

Are you all in agreement that fitting the frame/barrel/bushing/slide is the most difficult part of the job? Im just trying to decide which avenue to start with here. If I do buy a kit such as what STI or DLASK offer, I wouldn't wanna ruin any of the components in the process of building the rest of the gun... is this a possibility?
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Slide to frame fitting seems to be a dying art these days, as with modern frame kits it seldom has to be done anymore beyond a little lapping to loosen things up a bit. Barrel fitting is hugely important and tricky to do properly, but trigger work is almost a black art....at least if you want to be able to do a really nice trigger. And fire-control is where the really safety aspect comes in my opinion. Expect to mangle some parts as you learn; it's just part of the cost of doing business and if you don't make mistakes you aren't really learning anything. You are only mimicking what others have told you and this will eventually bite you on the butt when you encounter something you haven't seen before. Each individual gun has its own personality and set of different variables due to manufacturers differences in tolerance and you have to be prepared to figure out stuff that may not even be in the books. And believe me; if you perform trigger work incorrectly and end up with the gun going full-auto in your hands, you could have a BIG problem. Just be careful, meticulous, and take care to perform the correct test procedures before you ever put a live round in the gun.

Good luck!
 
i'd still get the how to book and study it thoroughly BEFORE investing anything- then get a FULL SIZE 1911 and learn how to detail strip it- don't be surprised if you don't get it back together the first time- it takes practise- then you can go about building one- to tell the absolute truth, aside from the terrible sights and trigger, there's not an awful lot wrong with the norc 1911a1- it does go bang like it's supposed to -in short, it's a great learners gun- when you start buying aftermarket precision parts, it hurts a lot more when you goof THOSE up than standard 1911 parts- all mine are wilson- colt mkiv/series 70 with beaver tail , commander hammer, wilson ultralite trigger, full length guide, wilson ambi safety, and wilson high vis sights- it's taken years to get this to where it is now- and it really doesn't shoot any better than my 1911 remington rand issue
 
If I can do it -- I think anyone can.

I'd get a Caspian or STI frame and slide.

The rest is really up to you.
a dremel and polishing is a great help, but a small set of gunsmith files are all this is really necessary to do it.

For the trigger kit - you can get a drop in kit (and unlike EVERYTHING ELSE on a 1911 these will drop in)
Nowlin makes a 3.5lb one (no experience)
Cylinder and Slide several drop in systems - the 5lb version Big Red and I have in our 1911's here - and they take the guess work out of it.

There are some great internet resources for help in building a 1911.

Ned Christiansen, Hilton Yam, Larry Vickers and other gave me some ideas and help when I did mine.
Its not an impossible task, but requires patience - metal comes off REALLY easy - and does not go back on (well not with my tech skills)
 
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So you built yours with little prior experience and commonly available hand-tools? Are you happy with the way it turned out?

Im not gonna shy away from this... great advice from everybody so far. The common theme seems to be patience patience and more patience. Im gonna give it a try as soon as I source a frame/kit.

Thanks
 
Very happy (it works very very well)

I did have access to a dremel - and the polishing bits made things easy.

I also had two friends here help - but neither could be called a 1911 guru

Cheers,
Kev
 
Kev,
May sound lame, but could you not replicate what you've created by buying a
Kimber Desert Warrior 'off the shelf'?
 
foxbat said:
Kev,
May sound lame, but could you not replicate what you've created by buying a
Kimber Desert Warrior 'off the shelf'?
Click to expand...

$1600+ for a Desert Warrior and from what Kevin has posted before, he'd then need to take the new Kimber apart and install a new trigger anyway. By the looks of it he already had a frame and some pieces laying around.

I'd imagine he got by cheaper than what a Desert Warrior would've cost.
 
Get Brownwells 1911 parts catalogue. Even if you never order anything from them the catalogue is worth having. Get a copy of Jerry Kuhnhausen's book. It is an excellent reference for what you want to do.
 
Like KevinB.... If I can do the fitting (safely I might add), then all of you can do it. Remember that I'm the fella that installs the drywall sheet on backwards. :rolleyes:

I have done my own builds, but with many 1911 experts watching me. Like KevinB said... use the hand files , needle files very carefully, lightly and patiently. Go slow and enjoy the process. My 1911 is super functional, safe and reliable now that I've got it the way my hand likes it. (Small to medium sized hands).

Oh yeah, my old NRA High Power Coach used to remind me, "Have lots of spare parts in case you screw up...." At least with 1911 pistols and a Brownells catalog, you can make mistakes along the way and not panic. :eek:

Have a great time with the project (while we still can....) :evil:
 
Any dealer could order the Caspian stuff for you.
One note: Drop-in parts do work just fine sometimes, and sometimes they don't. Keep in mind that with dimensional tolerance differences, the only way to make drop-in parts work with a wide variety of guns is to leave lots of room for variation. This may or may not give you what you are looking for. For example; it may function reliably but not accurately...or it may jamb constantly, or it may be fine. You don't know until you try, but properly hand fitted/mated parts take that variable away entirely. If I was spending my hard earned money on custom parts, I would make sure they had the best chance of giving me the best possible result. But that's just me, and I've had the....ummmm...."benefit".....of spending a ton of money over the years to find out what I would NOT do if I had to do it all over again.
And +1 on the Kuhnhausen manual. It's an excellent resource.
 
From what I've read, the greatest danger is the homemade trigger job. In trying to lighten the trigger pull, it's easy to remove a hair too much from the sear or hammer hooks, for example, and go through the layer of hardened steel on their external surface. This may either leave soft steel or too little of the hardened steel to last long. Changing the angle on the hammer hooks to the wrong angle can aggravate the problem. The result can be a gun that goes full-auto, either immediately or six months down the road. Very, very dangerous.

Most other screw-ups will either batter the gun or hurt its accuracy, but unless you do something that dramatically reduced lock-up time would not be directly dangerous.
 
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