DAC 394 (Sig 228 Clone) Kit

So I finally installed my hammer return spring in the plastic hammer block. I had to re-radius the back of my hammer to allow enough clearance with the spring. I had already shaped the plastic block but once I installed the spring it required the grinding like joe-boy had done may posts ago.
 
I had to do lots of work on the block to fit my spring. I shaved the back of the hammer a bit and re ground the curve of the block to clear. I had to trim the inner edge of the block back to clear the hammer and open up the hole through it to fit the spring in so I could drive the pin through without catching the last coil of the spring.

I installed a #28 drill shank in place of the breach block roll pin so I can do a range test today... That was a royal a PITA. The pin wouldn't drive full through and was hanging up .5mm before it was fully home. I had to strip it down too many times to clean up burrs and get it in all the way. As a result I have a nice assortment of scuffs on my slide... I'm a bull in a china shop when I'm close to testing a project :redface:

The solid pin caused the breach block to sit a hair forward of its previous position and more fitting of barrel to slide to frame was necessary. It seems each time I tweak something relating to the hammer/sear I also have to re work my decocker as it is now slipping between the sear and hammer horn again :mad: Hopefully this will be the last round of tweaks and my range trip will go well...

Report to follow I hope...

MB
 
i had to do lots of work on the block to fit my spring. I shaved the back of the hammer a bit and re ground the curve of the block to clear. I had to trim the inner edge of the block back to clear the hammer and open up the hole through it to fit the spring in so i could drive the pin through without catching the last coil of the spring.

I installed a #28 drill shank in place of the breach block roll pin so i can do a range test today... That was a royal a pita. The pin wouldn't drive full through and was hanging up .5mm before it was fully home. I had to strip it down too many times to clean up burrs and get it in all the way. As a result i have a nice assortment of scuffs on my slide... I'm a bull in a china shop when i'm close to testing a project :redface:

The solid pin caused the breach block to sit a hair forward of its previous position and more fitting of barrel to slide to frame was necessary. It seems each time i tweak something relating to the hammer/sear i also have to re work my decocker as it is now slipping between the sear and hammer horn again :mad: Hopefully this will be the last round of tweaks and my range trip will go well...

Report to follow i hope...

Mb

godspeed, john glen, godspeed.
 
When you pull the trigger and the hammer strikes the pin/rebounds and comes to rest does it have some play or "dead space" between where it rests against the hammer strut and where the rebound spring stops pushing it back? If so that is unused space where the hammer could be getting power from the main spring if the strut was shaped a tiny bit different. I just put my gun back together after a general polishing of the internals but I'll try to snap a pic next time the strut is out.

Imagine the gun sitting on the table with the left side facing up (decock lever, take down toggle etc... facing up). Now picture the strut out of the gun oriented the same way... The left notch at the business end of the strut pushes against the hammer pivot pin when the hammer is at rest, the right notch engages the hammer cross pin when the hammer is drawn back. If the left notch (hammer pivot) were ground a little deeper down the right notch (cross pin) would engage the hammer sooner and eliminate any unnecessary "dead space" that could be contributing to pushing the hammer forward when it comes time to strike. The down side, more heavy trigger pull longer in DA mode.

Clear as mud, no? :D

HTH
MB

P.S. I am not a gunsmith, nor do I play one on TV... YMMV :p


So it only took two "tweaks" with the dremel of the strut to remove all play. I lucked out and "nailed" it - I can see how you could remove too much material and end up not reacquiring the DA sear position. I trimmed more material from stand up plastic stud and also the front end of my plastic trigger block. I had to screw around with bending / unbending the hammer return spring so the tension was just right. The hammer strikes and hammer return are such a beautiful thing - I almost wept. Or was that wet myself? I forget.
 
Good news everybody, I have terrible news... (said in my best Professor Farnswoth impression)

200 rounds fired without a single FTF :dancingbanana:
3 FTE :(
Hammer following slide for first half of session :confused:
Nearly ruined my trigger bar filing down the sear lever to stop previous problem :redface:
Realized I didn't need to file, instead needed to bend trigger bar disconnecter nub outward :mad:

So, DA was working perfectly but the hammer kept following the slide. After a good bit of head scratching I realized the slide wasn't pushing the trigger bar down enough to clear the safety lever and trip the sear. OK, simple enough, just file the arm on the trigger bar so it clears the safety lever. Hmmm that's a little better, I'll just file some more... That's almost got it, just a bit more filing... Perfect, 10 rounds rapid fire SA every time... Uh, why isn't DA striking the firing pin. Crap the arm is too short to push the saftey lever out of the way in DA now :mad:

As I'm stripping things down for the umpteenth time I notice a funny wear spot on the bottom of the slide at the disconnecter notch. It's like it is barely contacting the nub of the trigger bar and just scuffing the very edge as it cycles... :kickInTheNuts:

So, If you are having problems, stop... Look... Think... Look some more... Think some more... Look everywhere else... Look again and THEN start using the file...

Fortunately the internals seem to be soft enough to tweak and bend. I was able to bend the arm of the safety lever down a bit to catch the arm of the trigger bar in both SA and DA modes. Now I need to tweak the trigger bar to ensure it is getting reliably pushed down by the slide.

On another note the solid pin in my breach seems to have held up. However, the metal seems to have been too soft and I have a tiny bit of play in the breach block. This is definitely not something I want to live with, so perhaps split pins (good ones) are the way to go. They may have enough spring to them by nature of there design to hold up to the repeated pounding without deforming? The FTE looked to be failures to extract from the chamber. Perhaps it needs some work on the extractor or perhaps it just needs to work in a bit.

Any who... I'm going to score this one as a success as I'm not sporting a slide in my head and it went bang every time :D

MB
 
Drill shank pin?... Booooo!

pin.jpg


Thankfully looks like no damage done :redface:

...*Patiently waits for effects order of split pins to come in*... Pretty please... ;)

MB
 
Drill shank pin?... Booooo!

pin.jpg


Thankfully looks like no damage done :redface:

...*Patiently waits for effects order of split pins to come in*... Pretty please... ;)

MB

Absolutely. I suspect joe-boy will be willing to help out as well if he gets his before I do.. I have a feeling as soon as I get mine I will be stuffing envelopes as if I was doing Christmas Cards. :)
Very Glad no damage was done. Phew!
 
Started working on my kit tonight. I got a couple of the magwell ribs filed down and I also got the slide mated nicely to the frame. The very front of the slide needed to be filed down a bit, it was binding on the frame.

I'm jumping ahead of myself but I really want to do a nickel plate finish with one of those electrolysis kits.
 
I'm jumping ahead of myself but I really want to do a nickel plate finish with one of those electrolysis kits.

I was just browsing through finishes at Brownells to see what was out there for an easy at home job. I noticed they have a nickle kit and I must say I'm getting used to the two tone unfinished look of my project gun... I'd be curious to know how one would look in nickle... In the end I'll likely go with a basic parking or just a spray bomb.

MB
 
Started working on my kit tonight. I got a couple of the magwell ribs filed down and I also got the slide mated nicely to the frame. The very front of the slide needed to be filed down a bit, it was binding on the frame.

I'm jumping ahead of myself but I really want to do a nickel plate finish with one of those electrolysis kits.
I too found the front right side of my rounded part for the guide rod of the slide was contacting the frame. Congrats on the start of you project! You will certainly be fully dialed in as to how this pistol works once you are finished. If nothing else you will know how to use a file. LOL!

I too am interested in exploring a plating process for a finish. Not on my current project, but perhaps future projects. Plating Nickel would be very cool. Let me know if you come up with some threads on the subject.
 
Absolutely. I suspect joe-boy will be willing to help out as well if he gets his before I do.. I have a feeling as soon as I get mine I will be stuffing envelopes as if I was doing Christmas Cards. :)
Very Glad no damage was done. Phew!

I just placed an order at Brownells for a set of pins... I doubt they will make it over the border since they are clearly a deadly threat waiting to happen (must be all that energy stored up in the springy coiled shape) and are likely not registered for export :rolleyes:

Well, it's worth a shot...

MB
 
I was just browsing through finishes at Brownells to see what was out there for an easy at home job. I noticed they have a nickle kit and I must say I'm getting used to the two tone unfinished look of my project gun... I'd be curious to know how one would look in nickle... In the end I'll likely go with a basic parking or just a spray bomb.

MB
I know you have vast amounts more experince in things than do I. I only started back into firearms in July, but I posted a really long post on DIY parkerizing over in Gunsmithing.
 
Where is this Dlask? Can some body put the web-link for DAC 394?

ht tps://www.dlaskarms.com/

ht tp://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&source=hp&ie=UTF8&q=Dlask+Arms&fb=1&gl=ca&ei=VPfbSs-aEoHYtgPCsPSIBg&ved=0CBwQtgMwAw&hq=Dlask+Arms&hnear=British+Columbia&ll=49.250776,-122.88826&spn=0.346463,1.044388&z=11&iwloc=A
 
I was just browsing through finishes at Brownells to see what was out there for an easy at home job. I noticed they have a nickle kit and I must say I'm getting used to the two tone unfinished look of my project gun... I'd be curious to know how one would look in nickle... In the end I'll likely go with a basic parking or just a spray bomb.

MB

You might have issues getting chemicals from Brownells across the border. I ordered a Cerakote kit from them, and had to have it delivered to a postal outlet on the U.S. side of the border and pick it up myself.

Are you looking at the 'Electroless Nickel Plating' kit ?? You might give Caswell Canada a try ..... they have both the electroplate and electroless nickel kits. In the electroless they are selling a mini kit ( 5 pints ) for $95 dollars.

h t t p://www.caswellcanada.ca/shop/electroless-nickel-kit.html

:cheers:
 
Today is Monday, 19 October. Fastenal informs me that my order will be ready on Friday, 23 October. I have ordered 20 ea of 3.5mm, 2.0mm, and 5/64" pins. PM me with address for a set. Cost will be at cost. I will mail envelope with pins and self addressed return envelope for you to mail a small amount of $. I let you know but I think it will be no more than a dollar or two. S&H and pins all in. Honour system it will be.

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Edit: My intention is to provide for guys who built a DAC 394 kit. Guys that have SIGS and are just looking for cheap pins should look elsewhere. If you can afford the $1000 pistol, you can pony up and buy the SIG brand pins. As I understand it the payback on Karma can be a real #####.
 
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I Just bought my DAC 394 from some body who didn't want to go through this major fitting process and I've been reading this thread for a while. I understand that a lot of different places are required tweaking, but I wish some body could through all this fitting process one by one(perhaps in a video clip). That way every body could have access to a real reference to measure the actual work is involve with this guns. And man could decide if he wants to go through it or not.
 
bennyh,

nobodys planning any videos I'm afraid :D You'll just have to muddle through like the rest of us ...... The good news is that most of the booby traps have been uncovered in this thread somewhere. Ask if you get stuck, someone will probably have a suggestion.

:cheers:
 
Night 2:

Managed to get some more time in on the gun last night. I fitted the decocking lever. I had to file out some casting imperfection on the inside of the frame where the bushing sits so it would drop in flush. I also had to file a bit of metal away so the lever would come down all the way and sit on the bushing.

Next I fitted the plastic hammer stop (without breaking it! woot :) ) The hammer stop pin was too tight and had to be fitted as well.

Next up is the hammer itself. I remember reading about people having to re-radius the back of the hammer but I can't seem to find anything now in the thread. What did you guys do to cut it back a bit? It won't sit back far enough for the pin to go through.
 
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