Colt 1911, what kind of sacrilege?

[fieldgrade]

I just bought a new Colt Government (Competition model) and it has a mainspring housing made out of the same plastic material my 1992 model is made of. Lol.

 

[NKD]

Burn it.
The plastic, not the gun.

 

[fieldgrade]

Burn it.
The plastic, not the gun.

I put an all steel magwell/mainspring housing on it. I was just surprised, but even STI's have plastic MSHs on some of theirs, too.

 

[NKD]

I put an all steel magwell/mainspring housing on it. I was just surprised, but even STI's have plastic MSHs on some of theirs, too.

I'm sure it works fine and I am partially joking.

But I was shocked first saw they used plastic. I went into the store to buy a 1911. Left with something else. Just didn't seem right!

I just bought an expensive gun and it has a plastic trigger. But it's a commie gun so not as shocking.

 

[fieldgrade]

If your Colt has a standard spur hammer and you install an upswept safety, you'll need to use a compatible ring or rowel-type hammer. You may get lucky and get one that'll drop in and work, and you may not. It's a crapshoot.

Now for the unasked, usually unappreciated advice section.

One...the frame blank was never intended to be a permanent part of the gun. The original intent was to allow trigger smiths to check progress on their work without the hassle of removing and replacing the Series 80 frame levers a half-dozen times. They're soft, and the holes become flanged with use, making it necessary to dress the flanging with a file about every 1500-2,000 rounds or risk dragging on the sear and causing failure to reset properly...which leads to hammer follow or burst fire. Replace the blank when it needs its 4th dressing.

Two...If you remove the Series 80 parts, I strongly advise against letting anyone else shoot the gun.

Should that person have an idiot moment, and shoot himself in the foot....even though the missing parts wouldn't have made any difference...you open yourself up to a ruinous lawsuit should that fact come to light...because you've altered or disabled a designed-in safety feature.

Think your best friend wouldn't dream of suing you? Think again.

When his long-term disability runs out, and his employer terminates him...and he can't meet his mortgage and car payments without robbing his kids' college fund or his retirement nest egg...your assets will start to look awfully tempting.

A civil lawyer's job is getting money for his client, and he will use any and everything at his disposal to do that. Removing a safety would be presented as reckless disregard. That won't end well for you, the defendant.


Just my 2% of a buck.

I left the innards as is when I did this a couple of weeks ago. Just changed the grip safety, thumb safety, and MSH.

 

[John Travis]

Nylon and plastic 1911 triggers actually serve a function. Being lighter/lower mass, they make it far less likely to have a dreaded hammer followdown during a slidelock reload, which means that trigger actions can be made ever lighter.

In the dear dead days before aluminum and plastic triggers, the match-tuned pistols were built with steel triggers, and the standard advice was to pull the trigger full rearward and hold it before releasing the slide. That was fine for a slow-fire Bullseye match, but when the fast action games came along, it was too easy to get out of sequence...and in the heat of the moment, pull trigger/release slide could turn into release slide/pull trigger before the gun was on target. That tends to frighten the spectators and piss off the ROs.

And...since there seems to be an obsession with fielding sub 2-pound triggers...Bullseye Pistols are limited to 56 ounces...low-mass triggers are a necessity in these newfangled shooting devices.

 

[fieldgrade]

Nylon and plastic 1911 triggers actually serve a function. Being lighter/lower mass, they make it far less likely to have a dreaded hammer followdown during a slidelock reload, which means that trigger actions can be made ever lighter.

In the dear dead days before aluminum and plastic triggers, the match-tuned pistols were built with steel triggers, and the standard advice was to pull the trigger full rearward and hold it before releasing the slide. That was fine for a slow-fire Bullseye match, but when the fast action games came along, it was too easy to get out of sequence...and in the heat of the moment, pull trigger/release slide could turn into release slide/pull trigger before the gun was on target. That tends to frighten the spectators and piss off the ROs.

And...since there seems to be an obsession with fielding sub 2-pound triggers...Bullseye Pistols are limited to 56 ounces...low-mass triggers are a necessity in these newfangled shooting devices.

This is all good stuff, and thanks very much John. As mentioned upthread, I see that the mainspring housing on Colt Governments, and perhaps other 1911s, is also plastic and has been for many years (at least 25 that I know of). I have changed mine out, but only because I was installing a steel "mag guide" as Alan Smith of Smith & Alexander refers to them, that is one piece with the MSH.

I have read comments somewhere that the plastic material is "self lubricating" for the mainspring within, but have wondered if that is simply a side benefit, or was it the primary design consideration? My primary beef is more aesthetic than functional in that the verticle plastic grooves on the "backstrap" tend to get boogered up over time, and will indeed become less "grippy" if they get beat up enough.

 

[John Travis]

I have read comments somewhere that the plastic material is "self lubricating" for the mainspring within, but have wondered if that is simply a side benefit, or was it the primary design consideration?

That I can't say, but my guess is that the primary consideration was cost.

I've likewise replaced the plastic mainspring housings, because of the wear question, and because I like lanyard loops on my 1911s. Not so much because I think I'll ever have need of one, but because I want one to be there in case I do. Like the man said: "It don't eat nothin'."