I've been listening here and there for the last few days. Enjoying it.
I've been listening here and there for the last few days. Enjoying it.
Last edited by StraitR; 01-21-2019 at 08:04 PM.
I just bailed. I am sure these are all great guys who I am not worthy to wipe the boots of, but I tired of the smugness.
Maybe I will go back when I have had less coffee...
Started listening to the second episode on the way home. It took them 28 minutes to start talking guns! That can be hard to take for folks not used to it. Most episodes have some decent nuggets of wisdom but you need to have patience to find them.
I recently relistened to episodes 125 & 126 (ballistics and shotguns) which both feature P-F members as guests and even in those more focused episodes there were a ton of tangents.
A 60 mile commute each way sure helps as I’m a captive audience!
Last edited by sharps54; 01-22-2019 at 08:00 PM.
Yes, I have been thinking about this, and probably was planning for something entertaining while I was working, perhaps that was a mistake. I will probably revisit, perhaps I will download it for when I will be driving so I cannot bail for an alternative so easy. I am sure there is a buttload I could (want to) learn, just wasn't in the mood for school this morning.
I've been listening to this while driving around since Saturday and I've got 18 min left on the last part. Lots and lots of info being thrown out there. It makes sense to me, but as Proverbs 18:17 says, "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him."
So, a lot of what Joe says sounds good and he lays it on Wilson and other manufacturers pretty thick. My problem is I don't know what I don't know about 1911's. Like...at all. I'm a Glock and AR guy.
Now, I'm not the AR grand puba or anything, especially compared to a guy like @Wayne Dobbs , but I have worked on them in a semi-professional capacity (meaning, paid to do it in an FFL, but it was not my primary source of income) for several years, and I have completed Will Larson's Semper Paratus AR15 armorer's course twice with a 100% score. All that said, I see well-regarded AR companies do things and I know enough about AR's to look at it and go, "eh, not so much." Whether it's snake oil or cutting corners, I can understand and articulate why it may or may not be a good thing.
With a 1911, no idea. Joe gets into all kinds of things like a disconnector cut in the slide, barrel leg fitting, barrel lug hole size, chamber reaming, properly sprung, etc. According to him, most 1911 guys (including Wilson [inferred]) don't do this stuff.
Honestly, that scares me to death when I think about buying a 1911. Before listening to this I would've thought dropping $3K on a Wilson, Nighthawk, etc would pretty much guarantee a good reliable gun. After listening, I'm not convinced you can get away with anything much under $4K. That's like 8 Glocks or 4 Landgon Berettas!
Finally, and somewhat tangentially, I had occasion to meet Chris James of Combat Precision on the range the other day. I had no idea who he was. I just saw some guy shooting decent groups into a cool-looking target (kind of like the LTT where there were multiple dot sizes and areas). I asked him what the target was, he said it was his, introduced himself and gave me a few. Nice guy! Afterward I searched him here and it seems some members have some of his guns. Since he's extremely local, it would be cool to work with him;
but...
does he do things like a disconnector cut in the slide, barrel leg fitting, barrel lug hole size, chamber reaming, properly sprung, etc.
Or, does none of that really matter and Joe Chambers is full of it?
Food Court Apprentice
Semper Paratus certified AR15 armorer
Excellent questions and I’m not a 1911 guy by trade either, so I’d be super curious to hear someone who does know their stuff if Joe is full of it. Based on his views on things and his method of verifying the “whys” of what he does, however, makes me think that he’s probably legit and correct for the most part.
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Re: Chambers opinions on 1911 best practices
I do think he came off as a bit of a douche discussing it, but I didnt read it as coming from a place of hate or ire. It sounded to me like years of frustration at seeing really expensive guns not providing the kind of value and finishing that he tries to put into a gun and expects from that price tag. He’s obviously a perfectionist and that shows.
I can say that from playing with spring combinations a lot during my 1911 love years, what he said about the mainspring weight’s effect on recoil impulse and tracking jives with my personal experience (not a gunsmith by any means).
And the finish reaming is a thing. I don’t have any damned clue about what companies reliably do or don’t, but that was something I sent one of my barrels in for when I had some extraction issues after having an extra tuned extractor done and checked. The gun was a Baer TRS and after the reaming it extracted phenomenally and would reliably run pretty much any ammo I stuck in it including stuff my second Baer would not run for shit.
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@ASH556, don't sweat it too much. If a 1911 made to a concise specification runs well, do all the details mentioned matter? Maybe, if you pay for those details. I greatly admire Jason Burton's work, but even he says a lot of what he does isn't by necessity -- it is what people who buy a bespoke pistol are paying for.
The risk in buying a 1911 isn't that the design is bad or prone to malfunction. The problem is that manufacturers have inconsistent quality control, or deviate from the specification in ways they shouldn't. Getting into the 1911 without an understanding of what things can go wrong and how to address them is what will lead to frustration. Sometimes the solution to a problem is simple to address, but it's hard to avoid feeling like it should have never happened in the first place.
If one buys a Government Model .45 from a quality manufacturer the gun will probably run and run without a lot of drama. Deviate from that pattern and the chances of something going wrong increase a little bit. Get into 9mm 1911s only if you have the patience and determination to see it through if you run into an early snag. It may also take some time and expense to figure out which magazines work best in your gun.