The Project: parts list Updated

Partly just to cover the mix, partly my contribution to the '1911s aren't reliable without a lot of work' argument.

Upper assembly: Kimber, all parts.

Frame assembly:
Frame: Caspian
Sear, disconnector, sear/disconnector/grip safety spring, slide lock, mainspring housing assembly, hammer, spur: Kimber
Grip safety, thumb safety, magazine catch, trigger: GI spec.  From a Argentine Sistema Model 1927.
Plunger tube and innards, ejector: Ed Brown.
Grips: Crimson Trace.  Did have to adjust the zero a bit on the  new frame; not exactly a surprise.
Grip screws: these lovely things.
All the pins- except the hammer/spur pin- were replaced with new stainless from the Ed Brown rebuild kit.

Modifications:
The grip safety had to be modified to work with the round-spur hammer; with the GI-style hammer worked perfectly.

I started out with the Kimber trigger, but decided to try the GI.  I had to polish the top front corner of the trigger a bit, as it was binding slightly in the frame.  I find I like the short trigger better than the long Kimber one.

All other parts just dropped in.

So far it's had about three hundred rounds through it, handloads using 200-grain X-Treme flat-point plated bullets, factory ball and factory hollowpoints(mostly 185-grain Federal Hydra-Shok, also some 230-grain Speer Gold Dot).

I did polish the ramp; that was mostly to make myself feel better about it and could have been skipped.

The only failures have been a half-dozen failures to feed with the X-Treme bullet handloads, all when they're the first round in the mag and I'm chambering them.  For some reason some of them don't want to ride up out of the mag to chamber.  However, if you take that round and make it the second in the mag, it WILL feed while shooting.  Every time.  I think this is probably an ammo problem more than pistol or magazine.
I had one Hydra-Shok do the same thing.  That's one out of fifty, and if I remember correctly it was in the second magazine of them.  Everything after that fed flawlessly.  All the Gold Dots fed.  All the ball fed.

For a pistol made up of that mix of parts, using three different types/more brands of ammo, not bad.  I'll give it more ball and-especially- hollowpoints* just to be on the safe side but I think I'd trust it to carry with them.


Update:
Put about forty rounds of handload with those bullets through it today.  Had that FTF problem twice, and looked at it closely; both cartridges had nosed-down a bit.  Locked the slide back, reached in and pushed the cartridge all the way back, dropped the slide, they chambered.  I think I've got a mag with a spring that's getting a bit weak.




*Unfortunately, I don't have any ammo dealers offering a few boxes of stuff to try out in it, so with the cost of HP ammo there's only so many I can afford to burn through.  If any doubts as to reliability with any of those I do have, I'd not carry it; at this point I don't think I'm going to find any problems.