Project Reagent Tisas T0620

[greg vess]

So I took it down and fiddled with it a bit. I have a slew of parts coming Monday and Tuesday. Of those is a complete set of Wilson Combat springs. All the springs not just a few. Also an adjustable trigger to eliminate some take up and shorten the travel. A different set of grips is in the mail as well.

The coup de gra is yet to come and I am not going to reveal that yet but I will give you a hint. Part of it has to do with sending the slide off to a specialty machine shop and the barrel to a different specialist. It's going to be epic. Here is the gun so far but all the work is on the inside except for some exterior polishing.

 

[greg vess]

Some of the goods arrived today. I got the G10 grips came in yesterday. I have a checkered back strap with a mag well coming and I am taking the slide to the Machine shop tomorrow. He is a gunsmith but does custom machining as well. I won't be long now. The finished product should be ready for the reveal nest week I hope. Just depends on how long it takes to do the slide.

 

[greg vess]

I know it's just pics of parts but up here in the mountains you have to learn to get excited by the simple things. Parts showing up at the door or My PO BOX is the highlight of my day. Unfortunate but true. You gotta enjoy the simple things. Ok also have a new handguard for one of my AR-15'S coming as well.

 

[greg vess]

All is done on the gun except the slide. The trigger has no travel. No movement, then a clean smooth break and about maybe a 1/16 or so of reset. The trigger turned out sweet. The exterior got a complete aesthetic makeover and the slide is still in line for some CNC detail. I will post pics when the whole gun is done. I can't say it's a completely different gun now for the better. Had to do a whole lot of massaging of some parts but it turned out well and it looks fantastic now for the slide and it'll be complete.

 

[greg vess]

So I purchased one of those drop in compensators for a 1911 months ago and just ended up setting aside for later ( I got one on the cheap ). So today thought I would just check barrel to bushing clearance. So I measured the I.D. of the factory bushing thinking it would be tighter than a drop in. Bushing/ Compensator . Wrong! The factory bushing measured .583... The Drop in compensators are made for barrels from .577-.581. My barrel O.D. is .577... So basically that is a .006 difference and clearance. What we like to see is a max of .003 and for all out accuracy a clearance of as close to .001 as possible. In my case my drop in comp. has an I.D. diameter of .579. So the Drop in comp I have .002 clearance as opposed to .006 with the factory bushing. I think this will be a first time that one of those drop in compensator/bushings will actually make the gun more accurate. 004 of difference is a pretty good bit of slop. I think I just got real lucky because usually it doesn't work out that way. I've ordered them before but never kept them because they were so far off that of ideal clearance. Seeing is that I have .002 of clearance with the drop in bushing I'm actually gaining a pretty good bit of control of the barrel movement. I'm going to try that. If I need to I'll get an undersized one and hand fit it down to 0.001 or as close as I can get to that. Here are the changes so far. Like I said before the slide is getting some CNC machining done so I won't have it back til the end of the month.

Just let me know if I got something mixed up and I'll straighten it out. I'm kind of tired and seeing double.

 

[greg vess]

This is bone stock before any modifications.

 

[greg vess]

Project Tisas wasn't great success. I turned to so so 1911 into an excellent shooting experience. I softened up the recoil massively and refined all the rough edges of the gun that came from the factory. I put the gun up for sale for a second but then I took it down because I decided to keep it. Although it's not a mid-grade highline piece it does shoot like one now. It did however, come with a hammer forged barrel so it's quite accurate. I put a lot of work into the pistol polishing up the outside surfaces that weren't matte finish just to give it a more refined look and cleaned up all the parts that had a very rough cast look on. I also changed a myriad of parts just to give it a more unique look.
The parts list includes;
1. Complete spring set from Wilson Combat. Recoil, main ( hammer ), firing pin, sear ( flat spring).
2. WC ambi safety
3. WC slide stop.
4. Back strap ( checkered ) with flared mag well. It was a very rough cast verticle lines piece.
5. WC Mag release.
6. WC trigger

I was able to obtain the pull weight I wanted 5 lb. with the factory sear, disconnector and Hammer. I did change out the trigger because the travel was a mile long. The WC trigger has tabs you can bend out and it limits how far the trigger is allowed to sink to deep into the trigger guard. That way you can limit initial travel and really take advantage of the adjusting screw. It takes a little time to get it right because you have to bend a little bit put it back in see if it's correct because if it's too limited then the trigger won't function. I do plan on changing out the sear, disconnector, hammer and going to a full length guide rod as well but that'll be this payday. That's just to make sure that the quality of the parts is up to par and will extend the reliability of the gun over the Long haul.

I did polish all the surface contact areas on the hammer, sear and disconnector for smoother pull. It took all the grit out of the pull and gave it a nice smooth chrisp break with a short reset. I would like to repeat that process on the new parts of course and put in relief cuts on the sear to hammer contact if they're not already on there. I also polished up all the outside surfaces that weren't Matt finish just to give it a cleaner more refined look. The gun shoots a lot smoother than I could have hoped for from a gun that's initial cost was very low. However, after I purchased the sear, disconnector and the hammer I will have well over 250 to $300 more than I paid for the gun. It will be worth it in the long run because it'll have the feel and trigger of 12 to 13 hundred dollar handgun. Here just a few pics of the gun as it were purchased and of the end result. Zoom in on the rear palm safety, mag release, slide stop and the and be safety and look how rough the cast parts were from the
factory. I also plan on getting Raptor cuts done to the front of the slide.

 

[greg vess]

I also plan on putting a rear Target sight. I use a 6:00 o'clock point of aim so it shoots a little low for my style of shooting. If I put the dot on the bulls that would have been right on. This target is 6:00 point of aim and very rapid firing at about 15-20 yards I just pased it off by walking so I don't know if it's exact.