Using a Rock Island Armory 1911 (in 9MM) we will go over a variety of different modifications and improvements one can do on a 1911. I know that RIA has its detractors, but as a project gun to show improvements, it is a cheap platform. Let me also state, compared to any of the military issue 1911s (that have not been modified or otherwise tweaked), as well as many more expensive 1911’s, that I’ve ever held, the RIA is actually quite good. I’ve handled two of these, and they are very tight (several more expensive “mid-range” 1911’s I have worked on have play in the slide, play in the barrel bushing). If anything, the examples I’ve worked on are a bit to tight in the slide to frame fit, which we will address in future discussions.

COSMETICS

GRIPS

Lets face it. The grips stink (ok worse than stink, but this is a family channel). They are extremely soft (I believe some form of luan). Take them off and toss them. In my case, I decided to make my own grips from maple. Since i have a CNC router, I decided to make the grips using it. This is the base sketch of the grip panel used for the model

A 3D Model of the grips

The grips are created using a CNC Router and hand finished. The final result is below.

FRAME

The frame finish is fine, however I wanted this to be a bit more “sexy”. I also wanted to try out some different coatings. Previously I’ve done projects using CeraKote and Brownell’s AlumaHyde. These represent both ends of the cost spectrum with AlumaHyde being ~$25 for a spray can, and Cerakote at ~$80 for sufficient material. AlumaHyde was used on 2 Remington 870 shotguns. One was a police duty weapon, the other was one a customer picked up for $150. Neither represented something that the owners wanted to invest alot in the coating. For this project, I chose Wheeler Cerama Coat in Flat Dark Earth

Cerama Coat was ~$30, however this is for a small can (approximately 8 ounces). This is sufficient for a single handgun, however for a long gun, at least 2 cans will be needed, therefore, this is not going to represent a significant cost savings over cerakoat

Unlike Aluma-Hyde, Cerama Coat, and CeraKote both require “baking”. We’ll cover this later.

PREPARATION

With any coating, preparation is the most important step. With a firearm, it is very important, as any oil or residue will completely mess up the finish. The preparation starts with completely tearing down the firearm to the bare frame and slide. Don’t cut corners here and leave springs or other parts in. If you don’t feel comfortable taking the firearm down (this is more than just field stripping for cleaning), take it to a competent gunsmith. Once taken down, I glass bead blast the parts in the blast cabinet. This resulted in a nice gray tint to the metal (it also provides a little texture to the metal for the coating to bind to (more surface area for the bonding). I find that blasting is best, however some have success with using 800 to 1000 grit sand paper. Either way, now you have to get all the dust and grit out of any cracks and crevices. Give the frame a good blasting with your air compressor.

Next we need to clean the parts. Cleaning is critical because oil has a nasty habit of sticking around in the tiniest of places. I use acetone, and I simply stick the parts into a bucket with acetone, coating them completely and let it sit. After about an hour, I take each part and scrub them with a toothbrush, and then re-soak them for another hour. At this point, you will need to use gloves, as your fingers have oils that will affect the coating’s adhesion. Using gloves, take the parts out, and arrange them so they can be hung up. Let the acetone flash off, you can do this with just the air, but I like to use a heatgun to help the process along (be careful with the heatgun, acetone is very flammable and you could start a fire. I keep the heatgun at least 3 feet from the parts (you want the heat, but you don’t need it to be super hot). After this, I heat my “oven” (my oven is actually a 34 inch electric meat smoker) to about 200 degrees and then stick the parts in for about 20 minutes. This ensures that any acetone stuck in any small places gets flashed out.

Your parts are now all prepared.

SPRAYING

You’re now ready to spray your coating. It is important to follow the instructions of the manufacturer. In the case of Cerama Coat, they are pretty simple. Go slow and use LIGHT coats. For this process, I hang the parts from a line in the shop, and spray a very light “dust coat” on. This coat should completely cover the parts, however the coating should not be a full color coat. I look for it to be a translucent tinting of the parts.

Once the initial coat is on, per the instructions, bake the parts (in this case this is all metal, so it can bake at 300F for 30 minutes) (I let the oven pre-heat while I’m spraying) per the instructions. Once done, take them out and let them cool to room temperature (I use a IR thermometer to check that the parts are at less than 100F, but you can just let them sit until they can be touched (don’t touch them with your hands, I use light cotton jewlers gloves, though this might not be the best since their fibers might get stuck if you touch things).

Now you can spray on the additional coats. Using light coverage, I spray until the parts are at the full final color (in this case it took 5 very light coats). I then put the parts back in the oven at 300F for another 30 minutes. You could stop here, but I like to let them cool down again, and spray another 2 light coats. (yes, this takes time, and there is alot of down time waiting for things to bake etc).

After baking the final coats, you are done coating your parts. One note, you are adding to the parts, so they will need some fitting. If you coated any pins etc, you’ll probably need to lightly sand the coating off the shafts of the pins so that they will fit into the gun. Additionally, you may need to clean off the holes in the frame so the pins will go through.

You are now ready to re-assemble the gun.

RE-ASSEMBLY

Re-assemble the firearm. This is pretty straight forward. However, you need to be very careful here. While the coating is durable, it can be chipped by your punches etc. I’m a bit “retentive”, so on a customers gun, I actually will take blue painters tape and put it over the holes where I might be tapping a pin in. I also will put tape on the heads of any pins or parts which might be tapped on with a punch or a hammer. Your call, I find this to be helpful (on this project I did not do this, and I took a little chipping which I had to touch up later (which is not desireable).

In this case, the original slide to frame fit was VERY tight (not so tight that the gun would not cycle). Adding the coating made the parts simply not fit together. Using a fordham tool, with a small brass brush, I lightly went over the rails on the frame and the slots in the slide to clean off the coating. The parts then went together like butter (be sure to lube this up. I like to use an automotive engine assembly lube because it has alot of Molybendum di sulfide, but any good gun grease is sufficient).

Once assembled, be sure to check that the safeties all function properly, that the gun will cycle and feed, and that it is safe. It is quite possible that you may have not assembled the gun correctly, and while the parts went together, it does not function. Also you may have gotten some coating on parts that may have changed some of the clearances, which could affect the operation. If you are in doubt, take pictures as you disassemble the gun of how the pieces were together (I do this when I’m working on a firearm that I’ve not taken down before, its cheap insurance.

You will notice in this picture, some blemishes on the take down lever and the thumb safety. This is an example of poor prep (I did these 2 parts after the original coating), and trying to “stretch” the can of material. I got to aggressive on the spaying and did this is what resulted. So these are coming off and will be re-done.

You will notice on this some texturing on the frame, this is caused by having the coating to thick (it ran some) on the last few coats (it will be re-done). Additionally, by the beaver-tail, you will see a different color. This is because I did not do the painters tape trick on the frame during re-assembly, chipped the coating with my punch and used some Aluma-Hyde to touch it up (Flat Dark Earth is not the same with every manufacturer). This means that I will be re-doing the frame at some point in the future.

TUNING

Now that the cosmetics are handled, lets talk about tuning. 1911’s are wonderful handguns, and are a testament to John Browning’s genius having stood the test of time on the design. You’re more expensive guns will be tuned quite well from the factory, however in this case, we’re dealing with a “low end” firearm and therefore we can do a little work.

TRIGGER

The aftermarket is full of a variety of triggers, and they can be had relatively inexpensively. There are two points of the trigger that can be worked on. This work involves lightening the mass of the trigger and trigger bow. You’ll see all kinds of skeletonized triggers and light weight bows. In the case of the RIA, the 9mm trigger bow is a bit smaller (thinner) than the bow on the 45, so I decided to not mess with the bow itself, though it could be lightened by drilling small holes along the length, or also by removing some material. This was unnecessary. The trigger itself is a different story. In the RIA case, the trigger appears to be steel, and is solid. Lightening is done by removing material (you can purchase aluminum skeletonized triggers). I chose to mill a slot into the center of the trigger, as I felt that I could remove more material than just drilling holes.

Trigger with milled slot

SEAR ENGAGEMENT

Lightening the trigger will help with the trigger pull, however the real tuning is done on the hammer to sear engagement. One note, it is very possible to do to much and actually make the firearm unsafe. If you don’t know what you are doing, take the gun to a gunsmith, a trigger job on a 1911 is pretty simple, so it won’t cost you all that much to have a trained professional do this for you. The sear to hammer engagement must always be positive (meaning that the sear moving across the hammer notch will pull the hammer back ever so slightly as it moves. Anything other than positive engagement is IMO unsafe, as the sear could slip off the hammer if bumped or dropped. Remember, the safeties really block the trigger from engaging the sear, so they won’t come into play in this set of circumstances.

I have very good luck getting great feeling triggers with a little stoning/polishing of the engagement surfaces. I start with the hammer, and while maintaining the notch angle, I lightly stone the surface to smooth it out. When I say lightly i mean lightly, you can easily take off to much material, and either go through the case hardening, or make the notch go back to much which alters the engagement. Once I have polished the hammer, I then go to the sear. Again, I lightly stone the surface that engages the hammer notch. Again, you can take to much off, which will adversely affect the engagement. I like to keep the angles the same, and simply clean up the surfaces so that the sear is smooth. It is possible to reduce the amount of engagement of the hammer and sear by changing the angle of the sear (be sure to maintain the positive relationship between the sear and the hammer). I personally don’t find this to be necessary, as the stoning I have done removes the creep in the trigger and gives a lighter feel to the trigger, which IMO is what is important. I’ve done more for customers, who want to have a measurable change in the trigger pull. One thing to note, reducing the actual trigger pull is fine for target pistols, but please if you are working with a carry gun, don’t reduce the trigger pull (polishing and smoothing is fine IMO).

SPRING

You can also improve the trigger by playing with the spring. The trigger/sear spring is the “three fingered” flat spring. Simply bending the spring leg that affects the appropriate pieces (trigger bow, grip safety, and sear/disconnector) can change the “power” of the spring. However, be certain that you don’t change the spring’s strength so much that it does not do its job. I had an associate who “tweaked” his spring so that the trigger would not fully return, and that the sear/disconnector did not always reset. A little tweak goes a long way, so go slow and test often.

FEEDING

In some cases, you might need to polish the feed ramps. There are two feed ramps in the 1911, one in the frame, and one on the barrel. These should be polished to help with the feeding of ammunition. They also need to be have the correct relationship so that the case won’t bind. In the RIA case, I simply polished the frame ramp, because the coating did get onto the inside of the frame.

BARREL

IMO, the most important thing for accuracy is the relationship of the barrel to the slide (if you disagree, take a look at the SIG lockup mechanism, in the last few thousandths of engagement, it actually pushes up the barrell, pinning it at 2 points in the slide – take a look at your barrell, you’ll see two wear marks where this is happening). The sights are on the slide, so ensuring that the barrel is in the same position on the slide for every shot is critical (yes, having a tight slide to frame relationship is important). If the barrel is in the same position on the slide for every shot, the firearm will be more consistent. I have not done this on the RIA yet (largely because I’m waiting for the weather to be warmer so I can do some before and after comparisions), but one can ensure this relationship is consistent with a little file work. What we want to do here is create a situation where the barrel fits into the bushing in the same place every time. To do this, we create 3 points of contact for the barrel to the bushing. This way the barrel fits into the same place in the bushing every time. Just as a stool with three legs is inherently stable, we’re using the bushing to position the barrel. Doing this is quite easy. With a file, you want to create a small “pocket” at the top of the bushing. This is the first point of contact for the barrel. The top of the barrel is positioned in the same place. Next you need to create the other 2 points creating a triangle. This is done though the miracle of TIG welding (i guess you could achieve this with MIG, but TIG is much more controllable). Basically you are adding two TINY points to the bottom of the bushing that will be used to push the barrel up into the “pocket” that you created. One on each side of the barrel. This gives you a three-point bind of the barrel to the slide ensuring that it is positioned the same every time. The tighter the bushing to barrel relationship, the smaller these need to be (the same with the pocket). We’re talking a dot that is maybe 0.010″ maximum, so you will need to do some file work (unless you are really good with the TIG).