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Thinking about building my first 1911

4K views 8 replies 8 participants last post by  Taz575 
#1 ·
I'm thinking about building my first 1911. I'm not new to 1911s, but have never built one from the ground up before. I'm considering buying a slide and frame already mated directly from Caspian. The great thing about Caspian are all the options, including sight cuts, rear tang options, etc., etc. I'm not a machinist and don't want to send the pistol off for machining work, so I need to minimize any of that after I receive the parts.

I've fit plently of small parts over the years, so I'm not too worried about that, but I've never fit a barrel. For those of you who know Caspian slides and frames pretty well, can you recommend a barrel that I should go with? I'm looking at a 5" gun, and want a traditional barrel with bushing. I'm not looking for match accuracy here, but do need 100% reliability. I'd like to go with something that won't be too complicated to fit, if there is such a thing.

Thanks in advance for your guidance.
 
#2 ·
You may want to consider using a Kart EZ fit barrel. It might be just the ticket for you. Both Brownells and Midway sell the barrel and the fitting kit as well. If you decide to move forward with your project I'd love to see progress and final photos!
 
#3 ·
Kart easy fit is the way to go. Do a search for "kart" and "ez fit" and "easy fit" and read up. To make a longer but necessary story shorter, the kart ez fit, when fit correctly, and within a 'in-spec' frame /slide combo gives you almost ALL the bennifts of a full gunsmith fit barrel.

The directions are very detailed and go farther to explain the "why" for the fitting procedure. If you go slow and do it right, you should have a properly timed barrel that will give excellent accuracy and a long service life.

I also went with a fitted caspian slide and frame which was well worth the extra $75 for the servive. Check my thread out if you havent seen it called "New guy jumps in the deep end...Caspian home build". It seems very relavent to your questions.

Good luck
 
#4 · (Edited)
I have to concur with Serpico. He did a great job.

I used a Kart EZ Fit on my last build (instead of a full fit barrel) and it shoots great and is utterly reliable.
Plus it takes fitting the lower lugs out of the fitting equation, which for me is the most tedious and concerning area of fitting a full gunsmith fit barrel. If this is your first barrel fitting, I can recommend it over any of the other "drop in" or "minor fitting required" barrels out there. Forget about one hour's time. It will take a little more, but it is worth it.
 
#9 ·
I got a Caspian frame/slide recently, I did not get the prefit. I basically had to smooth out/touch up the deck of the frame and them file the outside of the frame rails until the slide started to slide on, then used J&B Non Embedding Bore Compound to lap it in. Took a few hours, but it was neat to do it myself. I measured the rail dimensions and saw everything was very close except for the outside width of the rails, which was easy enough to fix with some filing and lapping.

Only problem I had was the rear tangs of the frame. I ordered the uncut, but even those were below the level of the Ed Brown Beavertail, so I had to grind on the beavertail to get it more flush with the grip safety tangs on the upper portion of the tangs. Hello Dremel!
 
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