Seriously considering going back to the 1911 for carry. Anyone else?

[Shorikid]

Cerakote and ArmorTuff both will wear as shown above.

It’s more expensive and might “break the bank” for some, but I’d recommend IONBond or another PVD-type finish. They’re more expensive but much more wear resistance.

I have dlc matte finish on the CCO I just finished. Honestly, I don't thing the price was too bad for half a gun. Slide and all small parts was around $180-190 from Nighthawk.

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[Poconnor]

JHC- your photo of your rail gun w surefire and hill people kit bag has me thinking of getting a Springfield LW rail gun to go with my hill person kit bag for walks

[JHC]

JHC- your photo of your rail gun w surefire and hill people kit bag has me thinking of getting a Springfield LW rail gun to go with my hill person kit bag for walks

Oh man you and me both. About a year ago I had the chance to shoot Kevin B's LW 5" Operator (lightly tuned by whom I cannot recall) and it was sweet. Noticeably lighter on the belt but I really didn't perceive much difference in handling during strings of fire.

[Poconnor]

Then you would love my favorite 1911. I have a Springfield LW 10-8 rail gun. With the x300 it feels like a government model in my hand and shoots like it has eyes. I need to build a cheaper carry version

[farscott]

If you’re carrying a 1911 daily, what is your preferred finish?

I’ve got a parkerized gun I carry on duty, then off-duty appendix. With the summer heat, and working through a monsoon while riding a bike, I get that more maintenance is required. Just detail stripped the gun today, and there’s some rust starting to form under the safeties and under the grips.

Looking to get some work done on the gun, so figured now would be a good time to get a new finish too. What’s the best option in terms of protection/durability that doesn’t break the bank?

Lots of finishes out there, and I think I have tried enough of them to get a sense of the pluses and minuses. Literally I have tried everything from bluing to nitrocarbuizing to NP3 to polymer coatings to hard chrome to carbon-based PVD to NiB to Parkerizing. The most corrosion-resistant finish of my experience is NP3 Plus; it just will not allow corrosion. But it is pricey and you asked about protection and durability at low cost. To me, that is one of two options since your pistol is already Parkerized:
1) Cerakote over the Parkerized surface, or
2) Grease-impregnation of the existing Parkerized surface. The second option is described at http://xavierthoughts.blogspot.com/2...-vs-tales.html and the only costs are the time to detail strip, the tub of petroleum jelly and, if applicable, the ire of the wife/girlfriend whose oven you have despoiled. You can also do this with Cosmoline as at https://www.cosmolinedirect.com/cosmoline-hot-melt-360/ The advantage of the Cosmoline is it eliminates the weeping of petroleum jelly grease from the surfaces for up to one month. Both will result in a finish that is impervious to corrosion at very little cost.

Most finishes are not suitable for the bore, so the bore needs some protection. The ones that are hard chrome and some of the PVD finishes. I would recommend getting the barrel hard chromed if the barrel material is carbon steel and you do not want any lube in the bore. Personally I run carbon steel barrels with G96 or CLP with no issues.

[Shorikid]

BK14,
Have you looked into Robar's coatings? I have seen good things about their offerings. Coatings in combination with NP3, polymer coatings, etc.

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[Bart Carter]

A worn finish is a great look IMO.

My new plans are to use Eezox to protect the bare parts of any gun that starts to show them. Why pay for a custom battle-worn cerakote finish!

[Robinson]

Pure BA!!! I'm sure you must have detailed this before but I can't resist asking about those grips. Source? Material? They are neat.

Esmeralda.

[BK14]

Thanks for the input guys. If I can find a local shop with a good deal I may just go with cerakote for now.

I’m having some work done on the gun near the end of August by AJ Zito, hopefully to include checkering the front strap, so I need something to protect the frame at the least.

The end goal is to NP3 the whole gun, but I don’t want to send it out for NP3 until I’ve got more money to get the trigger guts all replaced, beavertail redone, and some other work that’s less “critical” but still something I want done before sinking NP3 money into it.



Pic for the sake of the thread:

[KevH]

If you’re carrying a 1911 daily, what is your preferred finish?

I’ve got a parkerized gun I carry on duty, then off-duty appendix. With the summer heat, and working through a monsoon while riding a bike, I get that more maintenance is required. Just detail stripped the gun today, and there’s some rust starting to form under the safeties and under the grips.

Looking to get some work done on the gun, so figured now would be a good time to get a new finish too. What’s the best option in terms of protection/durability that doesn’t break the bank?

Grease

One of my favorite smiths told me to stick with a blued pistol for a duty gun and use grease to protect it over any of the the spray and bake finishes out there. His reason being that since it's a 1911 and will have a long service life and inevitably some small parts will need to be swapped in the future and re-bluing the gun is much easier than having to strip the paint finishes off and reapply them.

Yes, it's more work to clean your gun often and grease it down, but I've now been doing it for years without issue and it gives you a chance to re-lube the internals and check for wear anyway. The nice thing is that a 1911 isn't a very hard gun to detail strip.