New SAM military enhanced .45!

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The new SAM I ordered came in today. So far I only replaced the trigger, main spring housing, mainspring, slide stop and the grips. I still have new fire controls comming in. All I can say is wow. The fit and finish on this gun is much better than my norc. No machine marks, nice bluing, slide to frame fit is incredible. The trigger is still better on my norinco, but it has completely gutted internals. I have a new hammer, sear, and disconnect on its way, so it should be as good if not better. Can't wait to take it out to the range and compare the two!
 
How was the SAM out of the box compared to the Norinco chrome out of the box. I have the SAM Omega 6, and had the Norinco chrome, and the SAM was by far the winner. Did I just get a lemon in the Norinco, or is this just par for the course?
 
Out of the box the SAM wins hands down. Tighter, better fitted, better finish. The trigger wasn't that great, still had a lot of creep. The norinco is now an amazing shooter and is extremely smooth... But that was after replacing almost every part and spending hours and hours working on it. The SAM needs very little work (other than cosmetic). But it is in need of a trigger job out of the box, just like the norinco. Surprisingly the trigger track was better in the norc, it took a lot more filing on the SAM to smooth out the track.
 
I think the omega is a step up from the military enhanced. So yours probably had a better trigger out of the box. It has a plug, and it's serrated.
 
My omega is very nice and the trigger has no creep, but it was very heavy out of the box. I ended up taking 2 turns off of the mainspring and now it's down to the 4 pounds range, according to a junky old fishing scale. I'd like it a bit lighter, so it might go to the smith for some polishing.
 
I have a SS enhanced Commander on route...will be my 2nd SAM. I'll see how it compares to my omega 6. Trigger on it is the lightest out of the box on all my 1911's. Only complaint is the pad on the BT was too thick for my liking and needed to be thinned out.
 
I guess mine was just a lemon with its trigger, heavy with creep. Oh well..... My new hammer, disconector, and sear came in. Ive been practicing with my sear jig and stones so I think im going to get a nice trigger out of this one. Oh and it didn't come with a full length guide rod, just the GI style. One thing I noticed with the SAM is how crappy the sear was. I put it in my ed brown sear jig, and the sear feet had been ground down too far so it wouldn't stay in place. Also, the sear face was uneven (higher from one side to the other) and not long enough. I tried to stone it, but It was so uneven and short I couldn't stone a new face on it. I used an old norc sear I had and it worked much better. But I still rather have the higher quality internals that Im going to install tonight.
 
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I owned a SAM Titan framed stainless. The small frame recoiled terribly, but expected for the size. The stock rear sight would always come loose.... It fired fine, though disliked semi wad cutters. The loose front sight led me to sell the gun. My lesson learned was to never expect much out of a cheap gun. Sure. They can be upgraded. I now prefer to buy premium firearms only. But that is me.... Your SAM looks great! And happy shooting!
 
Have the Sam SS Thunderbolt, trigger is Clean, zero creep. Very nice finish on the gun, I'm impressed.
 
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Got my SS 9mm Commander today, 2nd SAM in the stable and this one is excellent too. Fit and finish is great, everything is tight and well fit, zero rattle, bushing is tight, trigger pull is very light, they know how to make a very nice 1911. Only thing that I don't like is the thickness of the BT pad....sticks out too much and needs to be thinned out, which is easy enough to fix. Next will be the Thunderbolt....I'm confident enough in these pistols that I'm sure it is well worth the price.
 
Hitzy said:
Got my SS 9mm Commander today, 2nd SAM in the stable and this one is excellent too. Fit and finish is great, everything is tight and well fit, zero rattle, bushing is tight, trigger pull is very light, they know how to make a very nice 1911. Only thing that I don't like is the thickness of the BT pad....sticks out too much and needs to be thinned out, which is easy enough to fix. Next will be the Thunderbolt....I'm confident enough in these pistols that I'm sure it is well worth the price.
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please post range report on accuracy when you get around to it. thanks.
 
So I decided to work on the fire control last couple nights. I'll tell everyone right now, if you want an easy project gun and don't care about fit and finish that much, buy the norinco. If you want a good looking gun, and rip your hair out trying to modify it, buy the SAM. Everything in the SAM is much much tighter. Trying to fit a new trigger group was a nightmare.

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I managed to stone the primary and secondary angle on the new sear almost perfectly. I stoned the hammer hooks level, and cut them to 0.020. Polished the disco blade and then tried to fit everything into the gun. Nope. The norc had about 0.010 inch more tolerance in the frame, so the new parts slid in without a problem. On the SAM that tolerance insnt there and the hammer and sear width was greater than the inside of the frame. And not to mention the holes in the sear and hammer were too small for the sear and hammer pin to fit. I've never ran I to this problem before so it took me a good 5 hours to fix it. A lot of sanding, stoning and lapping to get all the parts in there. Then the hammer wouldn't catch the sear.... The new disconnector wouldn't rest against the trigger bow, and it wouldn't move when the sear spring was pressing against it. I smoothed up, and put in the old disco and everything finally clicked into place.

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When it came to the new thumb safety it was no problem filing down the ledge and fit it against the sear leg. But the wilson combat thumb safety had a bevel were the pin meets the inside face of the safety. It wouldn't seat into the frame and prevented it from functioning. So I had to use a dremel and carefully cut a bevel in the safety pin hole on the frame. But in the end it's all comming together.

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So I think in the end it looks pretty good. The trigger pull is very crisp, but I still feel a bit of grit. Just need to do some more smoothing on contacting points. Next I'm going to fit a stainless barrel bushing and spring plug. It's just for looks, the barrel bushing that is already on the gun is very well fitted.
 
For a proper nice tight build, that's really what you want...to fit the part to the gun, not have it drop in with play. Now you have an idea how many hours labour is involved with custom 1911. $1500 for an entry level Dlask isn't so bad when you know how many hours are spent on it.
 
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