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A few final pics of the Zen Ten.

Magwell. In 2002 I had been welding up the mainspring housing for about fourteen 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.

Ned, I read through the photos and realized when i got to the end that my jaw was hanging open. One detail in particular caught my eye; the herringbone top. The two set of lines don't just butt up against each other, they are interlaced at the top dead center. [blink] I can't imagine how to do that on a mill.

Oh alright, I get the message-- you can come over some day when I'm doing the next one....

This gun, the Zen Ten, is more than just unique or creative or special or imaginative or exceptional... it is an intricately executed piece of art.

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Heirloom Precision
http://www.heirloomprecision.com

Highest compliment right there considering who it's from, thank you, Jason.

If someone said "I want one just like that," I'm not sure I would be willing to do it again! I did a very elaborate one recently that just seemed to go on forever (a very patient customer, fortunately.) I'm kinda hoping for a vacation period of "sights, trigger, reliability, no sharp edges".....

I heard that even Michelangelo needed a weekend now and then to just sit back, pop a cold one and watch the sunset.

Wonder what "a cold one" was in those days...? A flagon of wine, I suppose. Bet a guy could have done a brisk business Friday afternoons by putting up a kiosk by the river with flagons-to-go (two denarius deposit on the flagon) sitting in the water chilling. What passing artist could resist?

When your new carry gun doesn't have a rail and you don't want a new, new carry gun.











...to be continued.

Thanks for continuing to post here Ned. Some pretty amazing pics and details - just great stuff for us to admire.

Thanks for joining us. I'ts just my place to kinda archive and share what I'm doing, glad you enjoy it.

The final result with the weld-on rail.


The Dan Wesson Specialist below came with a rail. All factory rails I've seen wisely have it tied back into the frame behind where the slide slams the frame. Frames tend to crack at that point (you can see a few faint Sharpie dots indicating that area on the outside of the frame. Don't worry, this one is not cracked and in fact is as yet new / unfired).

The mandate here was, put a rail on it that will fit the provided holster. That was a big part of the job; of a few railed guns I had here, none would fit as the bottom of the rail was too low. So, I had to make sure this rail was high enough. On the DW Specialist pictured, the dustcover end and rail are also .100 longer than a standard frame; I wanted to rig this so the rail did not protrude forward of the original dust cover. I also wanted to tie in in somehow to the beefier part of the frame, hence the gusset welded to the front of the trigger guard. This makes the whole dustcover / rail unit pretty rigid and should reduce / eliminate the flex that causes the crack. I was worried that just welding the rail to the dustcover without this reinforcement might increase the flex tendency due to the added mass.

I was wondering what kind of silver-solder/brazing you;d be doing, but the welding looks great.

I assume (you being Ned and all) that the weld line will be dressed down until it appears to just be part of the frame. And I'm looking at the gusset wondering if it should be blended back until there's no step at the bottom, where it joins the trigger guard.

I'm going to leave the gusset and the welding as-is. If I was doing ten of these I'd certainly try one the way you have suggested and compare the looks. I had originally pictured the gusset as a simple 45° strut but keeping everything on the compact side, that is, with the rail pretty high and not extended out the front, I had to put the radius in there to make sure it will accept a variety of lights.

Spambots are less of an issue than they have been but I just deleted 300-plus of them attempting to be "let in." I may have accidentally deleted one legit applicant, sorry if so, try again. One thing that helps me detect "real people" is to have a screen name that is in two parts with space in between. Most bot names are all one word and gobbledy-gookish. Use something like "1911 Fan" or "Montana Joe".

I come here once a week or so just catch up on your amazing work Ned.

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And this eternal resting place Is known as Fiddlers' Green.

Nice to know, Dep. I wish more smiths would post their work and join the discussions. I want to make it clear: all are welcome, this is not a "Ned only" forum.

I'll do what I can.

Feedramp insert from a LW Commander I did on 2001 or so for a guy who had been a SEAL in Viet Nam. Looks like it has held up well..... came back for a broken safety.

Here comes another one. .50 GI caliber.

Broken safety? Strong grip on that one.

Another .50GI? And frankenstein neck bolts?

Yes.... I won't be able to complete it and shoot it until the next electrical storm

No job is done until the cleanup is... cleaned up. Here's the 7075 aluminum and Delrin I didn't use....

I'm thinking a new broom might be in order soon lol.

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And this eternal resting place Is known as Fiddlers' Green.

After almost a week in the shop without being able to use the machines, this .50 GI comp for a bowling pin gun has finally been finished and shipped. The barrel had already been fitted to the gun; it's going to JC Custom where Jess will install it, double check everything, test fire and zero.

I don't want to be thought of as a competition guns -only 'smith, that is far from the truth. The occasional project like this is just kinda fun once in a while. The first blast "box" will slow erosion; on the prior Delrin comp we knew erosion would eventually be an issue, but it was thousands of rounds before "measures" had to be taken. Things like this really ought to be prominently marked, "experimental."

The week without machines was due to an electrical problem of the self-induced variety. Lessons learned in hooking up a new TIG welder: if in doubt, call the electrician out. A couple dumb mistakes were made in our anxiousness to see an arc. A couple grand later we are back up and running.

Back from DLC via Evolution Armory, and.... so very well done. Awesome finish on what was a very well made 1911 right out of the box.

You had to put the logo on the back face of the blast insert, right? Because everyone looks there to see who made it? (As if anyone else would have, or could have.)

I assume the insert pins holding the delrin comp to the barrel are not blind? Otherwise, how to remove them for further maintenance/upgrades?

During a toolmaking apprenticeship you learn to never, ever do blind pins, quite right Patrick. Very few exceptions are made!

With my electro-etching setup I hadda put the logo on metal..... although we are looking at getting a laser engraver which would allow us to do it on pretty much everything short of Clingon armor.

This was a great pistol right out of the box. I have examined and been impressed by many DW's but I think this is the one I've been inside of the most. There was no need for fitting the slide to the frame. No need for a new barrel. No need for straightening lines. Slide and frame sides were straight and parallel, not wavy. Although some internals did get swapped, it was customer preference end not a quality issue.

The debate about what constitutes factory / semi-custom, and custom goes on; I would call this a factory gun I guess, but a very high-end one. Well, now, it's a custom gun. But what a rock-solid starting point it was. That's not me having a deal with DW being given the OK to use FRAG. It's just my earnest opinion, I get nothing for saying that. It's just nice to see a factory gun that didn't need a bunch of mechanical rework just to be safe and reliable.

I can't recommend Evolution Armory highly enough for being good wo work with for getting DLC. They made a big deal out of having no parts attached to other parts, lest some contaminant leach out and create bad spots in the finish. I thought I was going to convince them to do this with the plunger tube attached-- I hosed it good with mineral sprits, practically boiled it in dishwater, and hosed it again with contact cleaner, but-- they called me and said they've have to pull the plunger tube. They kindly put a fresh one in with the other parts so I could install it here.

The welded-on rail would have the same situation but of course they weren't gonna be pulling that off. It is amply welded but where it mates to the frame is not 100% sealed with weld. There was no flaw in the DLC caused by it. Very happy with the results, but it ain't cheap. $702 which includes return shipping. FedEx-ing it to the was $155. Looks like bluing but of course it was a stainless gun. This finish is about as wear-proof as you can get through. It's going into an AIWB Kydex holster and I doubt it will show any holster wear for a long time.

Since it is going to be carried appendix I included the Fallarrest© feature.

That 50GI makes me think of a top fuel dragster. Everything done for a specific purpose. Not practical for street, but eminently correct and necessary for gittin' 'er done.

There are a few similarities-- performance in the race is prioritized over it being able to go 250,000 miles.

A few final pics of this DW 10mm:

Very nice indeed. I noticed you did a gentle de-horning of the slide edges, and the slide stop slot has what appears to be a very slight flare to the slot, so you didn't pull the cutter fully across it?

Given how much machining is now CNC, i can't help but wonder why we still see wavy surfaces, not-straight rails, etc?

That chamfer along the bottom of the slide is right from the factory-- another touch by DW that shows they are paying attention.

BTW I had forgotten how hot 10mm can be......

As mentioned several posts above—page 15, June of ’25-- I bulged the barrel on a most-cherished pin gun, one of the few custom guns I’ve done for myself:


With a little time between paying jobs, I need to get this done. But like everyone else, I hadda wait for it to get fitted in to the schedule. OK, maybe I didn’t wait as long as some people. But I need to hurry through it. With a small hole gage I was able to determine the diameter of the bulge (.010 per side) and find the center of it along the bore axis. Honestly I came this close to just using it as-is….. probably would have been fine for the rest of my days. But when this thing shows up somewhere in 200 years I want it to be right.


Let the heartbreak begin. With the barrel bulged into the comp’s gooseneck, there is no threading off of the comp. There is no boring out of the barrel at the bulge to relieve the interference. Theoretically I could, but I determined the best approach was to cut it all off at the middle of the bulge.


Boo-hoo……thirty-five years ago I went to a lot of trouble to make the comp and gooseneck all once piece, from a 2” bar of Crucible 4140. Now, two pieces.

Gage pins confirm the measurements I took with the small hole gage. .019-.020 oversized in the barrel.


The threaded stub came out pretty easily with an easy-out; at that exact spot the thread was to some extent tapered, in my favor (because of the bulge.).

Why is the hole in the comp, where the guide rod goes, so large? The recoil spring plunger telescopes into it so the recoil spring does not have to be cut off short to accommodate the shortened slide. Short springs are unhappy, long ones are happy and live longer for it.


Well…. if I need a new barrel some day for the OACP, this one will work. Shortened to the right length, the bulge will be completely gone.


While I’m at it, I will smooth out the topography that has worn into the breech face after tens of thousands of pin loads. It’s only a couple thou but it can eventually be an impediment to feeding.


I didn’t get quite to the bottom, but what’s left looks worse than it is—about .0002, two-tenths of a thousandth.

You couldn't un-thread the comp and its cone? Or was the bulge enough to interfere with such an approach?