The Art and Science of Keeping Your 1911 Running

[JTQ]

Did we recap best practices for 1911 lubrication in a single post in this thread? I know what I’ve been doing, but am curious how it compares.

These are the videos that I find the most helpful. I take a little something from each.

I don't use grease like Dave Anderson does, but his lubing without field stripping at the end of the video is a very handy technique.




Hickok45 with Ballistol, a CLP




Wilson Combat with their lube




and then this from Atlas Gun Works is another since grease often comes up

[Ichiban]

Nope I don't think you can. I just limit my lubing or else I get stains in my underwear/undershirts.

Whoa! That made me do a double take to verify what forum I was on.

[JAH 3rd]

I have stains too

[SwampDweller]

My .02 cents on Dan Wesson's. I think they are probably pretty good guns. Before you buy, do some research on Dan Wesson "stainless galling" and "Duty Treat finish" issues.

Do I think either are real issues, well, maybe, but I thought the gun world had worked out the galling issues with stainless steel guns about 35 years ago. Until this stuff started showing up in the Dan Wesson forums a few years back, I don't recall having seen issues with galling on stainless steel guns since the mid-1980's. Either Dan Wesson didn't get the memo on how to avoid it or something else is going on. I know folks will say "tight fit" and everything, but Ed Brown makes a whole bunch of stainless 1911's and I'm pretty sure they are fit tighter than Dan Wesson's and there aren't an galling reports with Ed Brown's guns.

I'm convinced the real issue is it seems as if it is Glock owners are the one's jumping into the Dan Wesson pool more than anybody else. Many of these folks are very knowledgeable gun owners, but know next to nothing about 1911's. They are also used to spending $500 on a pistol and not $1,500 on a pistol, so there is a lot of "for $1,500 I expect a gun to ...".

"Galling issues" = "6 drops of lube". If you're going to lube your 1911 like a Glock, you're probably going to have problems.

"Duty Treat finish issues" = if you're going to spray your gun down with brake cleaner, you're going to make your pretty Duty Treat finish less pretty.

I have not heard about the galling issue. Is that a common thing? Has anyone here experienced it?

[Ichiban]

I have not heard about the galling issue. Is that a common thing? Has anyone here experienced it?

I've had a stainless VBOB for over ten years with no galling.

Some moron did leave it in a leather holster for too long though.

[Bergeron]

I hope that there will be a better answer than this, but- Stainless can be susceptible to galling, depending upon alloy type and lubrication. The earliest stainless guns used the earliest stainless steels, and were at the greatest risk. My understanding is that the SS used in the AutoMag .22s contributed to the bad reliability reputation of the guns.

Best current practice(as I understand) is to use modern alloy variants, and to use different alloy variants for the frame than what makes up the slide.

While I have no doubt about the veracity of the story above, I do wonder what sort of lubricant, firing schedule, and environmental conditions were all present.

In a modern gun, I would worry about stainless galling.

[SwampDweller]

In a modern gun, I would worry about stainless galling.

I assume you meant to say "I would not worry about stainless galling"?

[Bergeron]

Agh, and yikes- yes sir, you are correct- I blame doing this from a mobile device, and I apologize.

[SwampDweller]

Agh, and yikes- yes sir, you are correct- I blame doing this from a mobile device, and I apologize.

Hah, no worries. Damn smart phones!

In the event that I get a Dan Wesson and it's not as reliable as I want it to be out of the box, are there ANY good 1911 smiths that are currently accepting work and have reasonable turnaround times to do a Reliability Package?

[03RN]

Got the C&S extractor installed last night. I just added a little tension and the fp stop was a perfect fit in the slot.

I labeled the old one and put it with my 1911 parts.