The STI Shadow is another of the very compact 1911 family and is chambered in 9mm. This one belongs to a female shooter with smallish hands who wanted to make the Shadow fit her better and be easier to employ. It also had a sighting system that was so deeply mounted in the slide, that it made getting a sight picture especially difficult to acquire. The Shadow's front sight is mounted in a linear dovetail, deeply set into a flute that runs the length of the slide. The original sight height was very short, around .140" and that left you seeing a lot of the slide's top in the sight picture. The original sights also shot low, but shortening the front sight wasn't an option. The rear sight was mounted in a Novak cut, but deeper into the slide. It was almost like in an effort to make the sights low-profile, they so buried that you couldn't see a good sight picture.
It was obvious to me that I needed to "de-compromise" the height and visibility of the sights. I used my HD-005 rear sight to bring the sight notch up by .050", getting it away from the top of the slide and raising the point of impact. The dovetail size of the original sight was unique to STI and no "sight blank" was available, so I used a Pistol Dynamics ISS front sight blank to make a new front sight. This required remachining the linear dovetail to fit. After test firing and establishing the height of the new front sight to achieve POA=POI, the new sights gave a usable sight picture and were drilled for tritium lamps.
To slim up the frame's girth, I re-profiled the front strap shape, which was sort of blocky and squarish to begin with. This removed the original scallops from the front strap, which were very small in size, depth and coverage and didn't do much to give a good grip on the gun. I replaced the steel MSH with an aluminum one from VZ Grips, trimmed it down to flush with the frame and did a RoundButt on the bottom of the frame / MSH. I scalloped both the front strap and main spring housing in my more aggressive scallop pattern. I fitted one of the new Wilson BulletProof thumb safeties with the low lever which helps give a grip that consistently depresses the grip safety as well as being a little more comfortable to a smaller hand size. My short H-D smooth trigger and slotted Commander ignition set replaced the original long trigger. The original STI grip safety had a decent fit and did give a good grip to the user's hand size, so it was retained. I made a set of smooth slim stocks from cocobolo and finished them in tung oil. The corners and edges were Carry Beveled, then everything finished in IonBond DLC with polished slide flats.
The end result was a easy to handle and operate concealed carry pistol that shot well and looks good. Now for some pics -
_________________
shop.HarrisonCustom.com
www.HarrisonCustom.com
The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.
Register
Login
FAQ
