Dave DeLaurant
Member
I bought my RIA 1911 in .38 Super because I quite like this cartridge. The gun shoots reasonably well, but it tended to stay in the safe longer than my 9mm Paras due to handloading laziness on my part.
With .38 Super I try to recover as much fired brass as possible, but with 9x19 I don't bother. Whenever I feel that handloading 9x19 is worth the effort, I buy processed (resized, deprimed, cleaned) once-fired brass -- it's cheap enough and saves me considerable time. So I figured, why not try to fit the gun with a second 9x19 barrel and get a little more use out of it?
I realize 1911s are not known for drop-in interchangeability but how hard could it be? Experienced 1911 experts may want to skip over the next bit. I'm sure I did this all wrong, but it seemed to work out OK in the end.
I ordered a barrel of the same type along with a suitable recoil spring from RIA's parts distributor, plus three Mec-Gar 9mm magazines from GunMag Warehouse. Cost for everything was around $140 with postage and tax.
When the new barrel arrived, the .38 bushing fit just fine but the link was very stiff and the barrel would not fully go into battery. I watched a few of YouTube videos about 1911 barrel fitting, and compared the dimensions of new barrel with the original .38 Super barrel using my digital caliper. As far as I could determine, the differences between the two were confined to the length of the barrel hood.
I began using a fine file until I could detect the very beginnings of lockup, then switched to using stones from my Lansky sharpening kit. A pro could have done the job in a minute or two but I spent over an hour at it, stoning, trying fit, measuring, rinse and repeat. When the slide could just barely fit into battery I switched to finest stone until it would lock up without the recoil spring installed and a little helping push. I stopped stoning with the barrel fitting the slide noticeably tighter than the original .38 Super barrel. I also lubed and worked the link back and forth until it moved freely.
I initially shot the pistol with a box of CCI Blazer ammo (121 grainers, if I remember right) and function was flawless. Extraction seemed consistent, and the gun grouped a bit tighter than with the original barrel, slightly to the left of center. There were no signs of obvious peening or unusual wear on the slide or barrel when I took it apart to clean up afterwards, and the fired brass looked fine.
On my second range session with some handloaded ammo, I experienced one double feed that I suspect may have been caused by the magazine. I had noticed that all three MecGar mags tended to put up a fight when loading the third round, and that was the point where the double feed had occurred. Perhaps there's an internal constriction, possibly around one of the spot welds for the spacer at the back. I've ordered one 9mm mag each from Wilson and McCormick to see whether the problem recurs with different magazines.
I'm quite happy with this combination so far. Fitting was a bit of a risk for an utter 1911 neophyte, but it seems to have paid off. The gun now reminds me of the 9x19 Auto Ordnance 1911 a high school friend of mine used to own, only mine shoots a bit tighter than his did.
I swapped grips as another visual cue about which barrel is installed. I'll swap barrels and grips back to continue shooting .38 Super whenever the urge hits.
With .38 Super I try to recover as much fired brass as possible, but with 9x19 I don't bother. Whenever I feel that handloading 9x19 is worth the effort, I buy processed (resized, deprimed, cleaned) once-fired brass -- it's cheap enough and saves me considerable time. So I figured, why not try to fit the gun with a second 9x19 barrel and get a little more use out of it?
I realize 1911s are not known for drop-in interchangeability but how hard could it be? Experienced 1911 experts may want to skip over the next bit. I'm sure I did this all wrong, but it seemed to work out OK in the end.
I ordered a barrel of the same type along with a suitable recoil spring from RIA's parts distributor, plus three Mec-Gar 9mm magazines from GunMag Warehouse. Cost for everything was around $140 with postage and tax.
When the new barrel arrived, the .38 bushing fit just fine but the link was very stiff and the barrel would not fully go into battery. I watched a few of YouTube videos about 1911 barrel fitting, and compared the dimensions of new barrel with the original .38 Super barrel using my digital caliper. As far as I could determine, the differences between the two were confined to the length of the barrel hood.
I began using a fine file until I could detect the very beginnings of lockup, then switched to using stones from my Lansky sharpening kit. A pro could have done the job in a minute or two but I spent over an hour at it, stoning, trying fit, measuring, rinse and repeat. When the slide could just barely fit into battery I switched to finest stone until it would lock up without the recoil spring installed and a little helping push. I stopped stoning with the barrel fitting the slide noticeably tighter than the original .38 Super barrel. I also lubed and worked the link back and forth until it moved freely.
I initially shot the pistol with a box of CCI Blazer ammo (121 grainers, if I remember right) and function was flawless. Extraction seemed consistent, and the gun grouped a bit tighter than with the original barrel, slightly to the left of center. There were no signs of obvious peening or unusual wear on the slide or barrel when I took it apart to clean up afterwards, and the fired brass looked fine.
On my second range session with some handloaded ammo, I experienced one double feed that I suspect may have been caused by the magazine. I had noticed that all three MecGar mags tended to put up a fight when loading the third round, and that was the point where the double feed had occurred. Perhaps there's an internal constriction, possibly around one of the spot welds for the spacer at the back. I've ordered one 9mm mag each from Wilson and McCormick to see whether the problem recurs with different magazines.
I'm quite happy with this combination so far. Fitting was a bit of a risk for an utter 1911 neophyte, but it seems to have paid off. The gun now reminds me of the 9x19 Auto Ordnance 1911 a high school friend of mine used to own, only mine shoots a bit tighter than his did.
I swapped grips as another visual cue about which barrel is installed. I'll swap barrels and grips back to continue shooting .38 Super whenever the urge hits.
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