Mountain Muscle - Master Gunsmith

[mountain muscle]

Okay so the title is a little far-fetched. But had my own little personal triumph today installing my new extended magwell on my Kimber.
Being fairly mechanically inclined I decided to do it myself instead of having a smith do it.
First attempt, all went well until I removed the mainspring cap pin.
Out came the pin easily, unfortunately so did the mainspring cap, at near Mach 2 to parts unknown.
Cue: cussing, yelling and generally throwing a hissy fit.
Looked for that bugger for two days and finally found it in an empty casing in my box of casing.
Cue: rejoicing and praising myself for my highly tuned tracking skills.
Finally got the thing all together and the damn hammer wouldn't cock.
Disassemble, scratch head in wonder. Open a beer to help ideas flow more freely.
Ahh easy solution appears. Sear-spring isn't placed correctly. Got the sucker seated how it should be and presto! everything is just fine and dandy. Open another beer to reward my gunsmithing prowess.
Now I just have to fire it tomorrow to make certain. If you do not hear from me, you will know something went wrong.
Just thought I would share while I peruse the gunsmith section of the yellow pages to let someone who knows what he is doing work on my gun for now.

 

[Colonel Ingus]

As a piece of advice, and you can take it or not, load a dummy round and mark it appropriately. When you are testing your handgun after having removed any of the fire-control parts, load a single round in the magazine and test for function. Do that a few times until your confident that everything functions as it is supposed to function. Then load the dummy round under a live round in the mag, and repeat the function test. Doing this will allow the slide to chamber another round, and you'll get to see if the hammer follows. Even if the hammer follows, it shouldn"t fire because of the "half-cock notches" on the hammer. If it jumps those notches, you'll only have a dummy round in the chamber when the hammer drops, no big deal. I've been next to a few other "master gunsmiths" that have had their 1911s go full auto after doing their own trigger jobs. It's scary, especially when nobody is expecting that to happen.

It doesn't sound like you took the sear or hammer pins out, so those parts should not have been affected by your modification, and they don't need to come out when installing a mag well, but better safe than sorry.

 

[dirty~d~]

If you do not hear from me, you will know something went wrong.

I hope the test went well today.

 

[mountain muscle]

Good news...Col And D.

I did a test as Col suggested, and I appreciate his help more k when I can
Ran trhough only about 95 rounds today and everything worked perfectly. The trigger seems a bit more touchy, but may have been me. I am getting a trigger job done soon to reduce to 3 lbs pull so I will know for sure then since Kimber come factory with around 4-4.2lb pulls and a very slight creep.
Went to but some more ammo today but only got 200 rounds because the academy is having their shooting tests and most .45 ammo is gone.
All in all good day of shooting, still shooting on the move is not as accurate as I would like but it will get there with practice. Looking forward to my first competition against the clock and other shooters.

 

[USMC fighter]

There is no shame in going to a gunsmith. Im a armorer and still get in over my head from time to time.