Radical 1911, thoughts?

I'm acquiring parts for my next build, (for me) and I'm considering something pretty radical, at least to us bullseye shooters. A six inch barrel with a five inch slide and a 1 inch piece of "extra" slide attached to the end of the barrel as a muzzle weight. Thought is to give a long slide "feel" with standard slide recoil impulse.

The reason I'm considering this is because I built a similar gun for a USPSA shooter last year and was pretty impressed with the overall shootability and lack of muzzle rise the gun displayed. The gun was an open sight 40 s&w, STI 2011 frame, and 5.5" barrel with tungsten counter weight, shooting 180 gr bullets at 950 fps so recoil is similar to our loads.

I have a kkm barrel which is oversized the full length forward of the chamber and had planned to do a taper fit to the slide in anycase so the bushing won't present an issue. I was thinking of filling the recoil spring tunnel in the extension with a solid rod of steel or possibly tungsten for additional weight as well. Recoil system would be a standard spring guide and reverse plug so as not to interfere with the slide extension.

So, talk me down off the proverbial ledge before I jump, or give me a push. As Fusion won't send me a slide, I've got six+ weeks till the caspian slide gets here so there's time to think about it and get some opinions.

Am I crazy, dumb, innovative, or a mix of all three and/or more?

Don't listen to those people down there...JUMP!
Sounds like your building a 1911 version of the H&K P9S competition package.

In the “slide extension” put a tungsten rod in place of the recoil spring plug to add more mass to counter recoil jump.  

Put the front sight on the barrel extra slide.  

Use a standard not double stack frame.

Look at Travis Strahan's work for a slide extension on the barrel and lock-up ideas.

Use a reverse plug that fills the gap between the recoil plug channel and the barrel to support the additional weight of the bull barrel/extended slide weight. Are you using a full length guide rod? You can get tungsten guide rod for weight and use a 6” rod in the 5” slide; yeah it will extend into your extended slide weight. Irons or optics? How mounted?
Have fun!
Jon

6" barrel 5" slide, Tungsten full length guide rod. Started as a 40 cal. I think I got most of them. It is a single stack frame. I love the recoil on this thing. It feels like shooting my 52 but not as unforgiving. It is a 38 Super now. Three weeks ago I took the 6" barrel off and put a 5" on it. I just wonder if the 6" might cause follow thru problems as I decrease the load. Just experimenting but it would look funny if I had an extra inch of slide.

sharkdoctor wrote:Look at Travis Strahan's work for a slide extension on the barrel and lock-up ideas.

I've seen his work in person, an interesting concept that works, but for this build, I'm going to try to emulate the late Jerry Keefer with the taperfit lockup.

Jon Eulette wrote:Use a reverse plug that fills the gap between the recoil plug channel and the barrel to support the additional weight of the bull barrel/extended slide weight. Are you using a full length guide rod? You can get tungsten guide rod for weight and use a 6” rod in the 5” slide; yeah it will extend into your extended slide weight. Irons or optics? How mounted?
Have fun!
Jon

yes, a Keyed reverse plug was the plan.  I had planned to use a short guide rod as I used a full length (5") tungsten in the USPSA gun, and with a full dust cover frame (which I am doing, from JEM), disassembly is a royal PITA.  I was at the Shot Show last month and found a supplier (in theory) for small tungsten pieces so had planed to fill the extra recoil spring plug with tungsten for the extra weight while keeping disassembly reasonable.

It will be an optic gun, but I'm also hesitant about slide vs frame.  I shot slide mount for years, but changed to a frame mount with an aimpoint micro mounted at 90 degrees to reduce barrel to sight height.  I like it... I think... I had planned to shoot the new gun with no sights for a few hundred rounds to get a feel for recoil before I start drililng holes in either the slide or frame for a mount.  I'm going to have it PVD coated so I could most likely hid extra holes if I wanted to, but I hate to drill holes only to fill them in again.

Sounds like a good limited gun set up...but if you want a radical bullseye gun:

How about a 1911 with a long/heavy dustcover profile (heavy non-reciprocating mass to counteract recoil), a frame-mounted red dot (reduce slide mass), a slide shortened by 0.75" and milled extensively to reduce to weight (minimal reciprocating mass to reduce cycling time, quicken perceived recoil impulse), a 4.5" barrel with a threaded steel cone for lockup instead of a bushing (reduce the effect of stacking tolerances by eliminating required clearance between the bushing and the slide), with a 2" 3-chamber aluminum compensator?  Even with a relatively low pressure cartridge like .45acp shooting mousefart loads, I figure there might be enough pressure to still make the comp somewhat effective, especially with some lighter bullets like 160gr. SWCs.  I figure the comp would have to be made of aluminum or the barrel would have too much mass to reliably unlock with a recoil spring stronger than a ballpoint pen spring.  
Over time, the aluminum comp might eventually erode, but I'd consider it a consumable...with weak .45acp loads, it wouldn't be as bad as with .38super or 9x25 running light bullets with a boatload of slow powder to make USPSA major power factor.

Or, for another radical bullseye gun, start with a Korth PRS5 (to enjoy the mechanical accuracy benefits of a fixed-barrel roller-delayed locking system), a frame-mounted red dot (to avoid increased slide mass affecting reliability), and replace the stock barrel extension with a steel multi-chamber compensator.

Or, for yet another radical bullseye gun, take a 1911, and convert it to a fixed barrel, gas-delayed blowback gun.  I believe Ed Masaki did something along these lines with his "Dragon Gun."

So something like the attached slide coupled with the frame below is what your suggesting? The slide had more work done and I think would qualify as "radical lightening" you don't see the underside where more metal is removed. The frame is in my safe waiting patiently for the slide.
I think we're on a similar page, just not going with shorter barrels or compensators. I'm leaning toward frame.mount, but am not positive.

10sandxs wrote:So something like the attached slide coupled with the frame below is what your suggesting? The slide had more work done and I think would qualify as "radical lightening" you don't see the underside where more metal is removed.  The frame is in my safe waiting patiently for the slide.
I think we're on a similar page, just not going  with shorter barrels or compensators.  I'm leaning toward frame.mount, but am not positive.

Wow, I definitely want to see pictures of that when it is done!

mpolans wrote:Or, for yet another radical bullseye gun, take a 1911, and convert it to a fixed barrel, gas-delayed blowback gun.  I believe Ed Masaki did something along these lines with his "Dragon Gun."

Found this drop-in mod.
http://www.ncggasgun.com/

Yep, but definitely with a frame mount; having the lightening cuts and still slide-mounting a scope kind of defeats the purpose.  I was thinking of trying to eliminate that feeling of a heavy slide moving back and forth.

Slartybartfast wrote:

mpolans wrote:Or, for yet another radical bullseye gun, take a 1911, and convert it to a fixed barrel, gas-delayed blowback gun.  I believe Ed Masaki did something along these lines with his "Dragon Gun."

Found this drop-in mod.
http://www.ncggasgun.com/

Yep, but near as I can tell, it's vaporware.  Website hasn't been altered in almost 15 years, I didn't get a response to the email I sent a year or two ago, and I can't find *any* additional info on them anywhere.

mpolans wrote:

Slartybartfast wrote:

mpolans wrote:Or, for yet another radical bullseye gun, take a 1911, and convert it to a fixed barrel, gas-delayed blowback gun.  I believe Ed Masaki did something along these lines with his "Dragon Gun."

Found this drop-in mod.
http://www.ncggasgun.com/

Yep, but near as I can tell, it's vaporware.  Website hasn't been altered in almost 15 years, I didn't get a response to the email I sent a year or two ago, and I can't find *any* additional info on them anywhere.

Too bad.
Like the Chiappa gas delayed 1911 that was shown at Shot Show 2012(?).

Here are a few images of the uspsa limited gun before coating. The slide.extension is a tungsten block

Looks nice. Philosophically, I think USPSA should've never allowed "sight extensions" like STI's TruSight, but once they did, I totally understand people taking advantage of it.  Funny how the hot set up is like a late 1970's era Clark bowling pin gun that takes doublestack mags.

mpolans wrote:Looks nice. Philosophically, I think USPSA should've never allowed "sight extensions" like STI's TruSight, but once they did, I totally understand people taking advantage of it.  Funny how the hot set up is like a late 1970's era Clark bowling pin gun that takes doublestack mags.

My customer initially wanted an island barrel and I strongly objected as you cut a 1/2" wide slot in the top of the slide almost to the locking lugs for the barrel to be in.  he pushed hard as he wanted the sight to be mounted to the barrel.  This gun was our compromise, which he ended up being much happier with.   I put a few hundred rounds through it in accuracy testing and function and I was really surprised at how flat the gun shot, and how fast follow up shots were as the front sight doesn't move, it just sits there waiting for you to pull the trigger.  this is what got me thinking along the lines of muzzle weight, light slide, frame mount, etc.  BTW, Accuracy was OK for bullseye, but steller for USPSA.  about 0.7" 10 shot ransom rest group at 50 FEET with no load development and crap cast bullets.