This is a project I have been working on for some time, the future owner has been very patient with me.
He asked me to build him a durable, hard use 1911 that would be suitable for Single Stack division and 3-Gun competition.
Since he wanted custom engraving and didn't care about having the Colt name on the slide we started with a STI forged frame, Fusion forged slide (ordered blank without serrations or ball cuts) , Barsto barrel and filled it with all our favorite parts.
This build was a lot of fun for me as the owner gave me some leeway and only had a few specific requests. Through a lot of emailing back and forth we came up with a plan for the build and this is what came out.
With the exception of perhaps the large mag release button there is nothing there that would prevent this from being used as a carry gun as well.
This build reflects a lot of my own personal style at the moment. A few features were added on customer request or to aid in its specific purpose of a competition ready gun (namely the large button mag release, the adjustable rear sight, and the expertly applied full Nickel Boron finish by Cummings Custom Refinishing). Other than that, this is almost exactly how I would build my own carry or competition 1911 (I tend to prefer a smaller mag release, fixed rear sight and Melonite finish on my own guns).
It has 25lpi checkering on the frontstrap by Randy Lee, 25lpi hand checkering on the rear by Bruce, and a Stan Chen MS housing combined with an EGW magwell. The rear serrations I cut into the slide were my own personal preference and also fall in line with the customers request for "something grippy back there". Double diamond checkered G10 grips by VZ Grips are my absolute favorite 1911 grip right now; combined with the 25lpi checkering this gun locks into your hand and does not move; all without feeling super aggressive or sharp.
The STI forged frame (I ordered it without the standard checkering and had that applied separately) is probably the best 1911 frame I have worked with so far. It basically follows classic Colt contours without some funky highcut under the trigger guard or any other feature that is hard to work with. The lines and contours are all very straight and even (unlike many Colts
), the rails are oversized, it has a .250 radius on the frame tangs which is what I needed for the hardtail conversion anyway, and all the critical dimensions and pin holes are perfectly straight, accurate and in the right places; there were absolutely no mechanical or dimensional corrections needed. The only downside was a very large amount of machining marks all around the trigger guard area that had to be taken out (even though all the lines were straight). I think that might have been an issue only with this run of frames; probably not all of them.
This gun isn't quite finished yet, the notch on the rear sight needs to be opened up and the sight isn't re-blued yet, I wanted to shoot it for groups at 50yds tomorrow before I widen out the notch. It is also getting a bunch of personalized laser engraving so I thought I would take some pics before that.
Roy Nelson
Grayguns Inc.
Anyway, here are the pics:
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