1) Trijicon's standard nite sights offer a good sight picture without messing up the lines of a classic Colt 1911 too much, and also don't require a ton of milling and the consequent refinishing of the slide. That's why they went on my pre-Series 70 Colt, and now my roomie's has them too. We'll be like the Bobbsey Twins!
2) The MGI QCB upper that I traded into was a big hit.
3) Did you know that a Colt 1903 Pocket Hammer and a Colt 1902 Military have takedown plugs that look nearly identical, except the 1903's is shorter. This means that if you whittle the 1903 plug out of drill rod, it won't be long enough to use in a 1902 and you can't exactly add metal... So you have to whittle a second plug.
Question: Is it possible to get a triji front with the insert NOT in it? I need to silver solder my front on, and I'm afraid that will booger up the insert. (My 1911 has a normal slide with a flat top, so very little surface area underneath- a staked in sight comes out after a couple hundred rounds.)
ReplyDeleteHave you considered going with a .125" wide tenon?
ReplyDeleteI've been using a wide-tenon Trij on my GM for years...
You can sweat on any generic front sight that is wide enough, and then send it to Tooltech to have it loaded.
ReplyDelete-Gunsmith Bob
No tenon. No room to cut one, either. I'll have to show it to you, you'll grok. Bob, I will have to check that out.
ReplyDeleteHuh, I just ordered the Meprolights for my officer's model. I've heard night sights are a bitch to stake without fubaring the vial inside the front sight. How'd you accomplish it? Did you buy that ridiculously expensive trijicon tool?
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of supporting the front sight on the shoulders so I wasn't putting pressure on the top of the front sight and see if that does the trick.
I can't wait to see my 1911 with the new sights!
ReplyDeleteAlright, Tam, what the H. is this reference to the"Bobbsey Twins"? If yer old enuff to remember them, how come you don't look it? Yer a Witch, ain'tcha!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I havn't seen a reference to them in decades unless I was making it. So, satisfy my curiosity, please...
Reprints, Castr8r...
ReplyDeleteThough the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew & The Bobbsey crew et al were products of the pre & post WW1 era, every decade or so you'd get another run out of the publisher, just as a new cohort of kids reached reading age.
So even us spring chickens born in the late 60's had a shelf full of syndicated ghostwritten juvenile whodunits!
Jose,
ReplyDeleteThe staking tool is a pretty required piece of kit for ensuring that you won't bust the tritium vial. It's just that the tool is sold in fairly small quantities, priced accordingly, and usually purchased by folks who are going to recoup the cost over the course of a few dozen sight installations.
Gunsmith Bob seemed to think that staking the sight without a proper fixture was about guaranteed to trash the vial.
I wonder if it's possible to buy the vials? I bet they have them somewhere. That's what I need to check. I can drill my own sight, silver solder it in, and epoxy in a pill. Dang, this has been hugely helpful. Now I need a couple of tritium pills.
ReplyDeleteThe vials are, of course, the expensive part of a night sight. Popular lore has it that Tritium is about the most expensive stuff you can buy, at least by weight. I know the bottleneck for vial production is that very few companies in the US actually have the NRC certs to handle the crap (I think all tritium vials for sights & watches and what not actually come from only one or two companies in the U.S.; Meprolite uses Israeli Tritium...)
ReplyDeleteJust make sure that when you're inquiring about buying Tritium, you don't be funny and tell them your name is Achmed or something; I'm pretty sure that gets your phone tapped. :D
wuts a takedown plug?
ReplyDeleteOg,
ReplyDeleteThe Trijicon front sight on my 1911 was reenforced with a dab of acraglass due to the hole in the slide being a hair too long fore-to-aft. Might work for what you need.