A few final pics of the Zen Ten.
Magwell. In 2002 I had been welding up the mainspring housing for about four years to make a forward-projecting feature so it could be machined to give a horizontal "landing spot" on the frame. This way, when it was funneled out to the rear there's no knife edge or gap. I made some from bar stock that way so I didn't have to weld them up, making them onesy-twosey. In 2005 I gave my specs on this to Stan Chen who started making them that way, and I used several of them. Eventually I worked with a shop to make a batch of them for me with the additional feature of being extra wide so there was enough material to precisely fit the MSH to an individual frame. They tend to vary a lot on that area. I like a nice slide-in-but-no-wobble fit there. The magwell is made here from a block of prehard 4130.
In previous pics it can be seen that the rear sight is not dovetailed in. It is machined with a square lug that sits into a square pocket under the sight. Then a pin goes forward through the lug, from under the firing pin stop. It is a "pull dowel" with a threaded hole, so it is removeable. The two holes in the underside of the slide are so you can get a punch in there and tap the rear sight up and out. The disconnector rail is polished as per SOP, but some of the machining marks from the factory were pretty deep so I left them as oil grooves
Front of slide detail.
Comp / guide rod interface. Keeps the barrel and comp aligned and not wiggling around during cycle.
Guide rod and recoil spring plunger. The plunger started out life as 1/2" socket head (Allen) cap screw. This makes it very strong. It blued a bit "purple" on the OD but is nice and black at the front where it shows. Plunger has a little cut in the front to help keep it oriented to the rod when the paper clip piece is inserted for take down.
The guide rod was made by inserting and brazing the rod into a modified standard recoil spring guide. Final step, peen it where it protrudes from the read for an extra measure of "stays together forever".
Underside detail of the compensator. It is threaded up against a shoulder on the barrel and a short pin dropped in and staked in place as insurance. They are meant to never again be separated, but if something happened to the barrel, you could get them apart. There is a little "register" mark at the shoulder-off. You can see here the T-slot piece is a separate piece T-slotted and silver brazed into the comp-- it shows a slightly different color. The comp is made from the same chunk of 4130 as the magwell.
Rear sight-- no dovetail as described above.
Pull-dowel pin under the firing pin stop keeps the rear sight in place as mentioned. Those palm swell grips-- may not be for every 1911 but dang they feel good.
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