He had never taken a pistol all the way apart before, but he said that he wanted to see what makes it tick. Don't get me wrong. He has field stripped all kinds of pistols. He has built AR15s. He recently added a Sage EBR stock to an M1A Loaded, which required him to modify parts with a dremel tool to make the stock fit around a National Match medium contour barrel. He's done a lot of stuff like that. This was just the first time he had taken a 1911 all the way down to its individual parts.
Then, he put the thing all the way back together again without missing a beat. Once he had it back together, he said it was easy. Then this morning he says, "you know, I'll bet I could do a pretty good trigger job on a 1911 if I wanted to." I said, "Really? Go get my 5" Springfield Loaded and do me a trigger job." So he did. He got after all the mating surfaces in the action with a small hard Arkansas white stone, and then put it all back together. It is now a perfect trigger. In fact, I would call it a match grade trigger, which it most certainly wasn't before he did the work. Mind you, it's only the second 1911 he's taken apart, and the first one he's ever done any work on. I asked him how long it took him to do it, and he said a couple of hours this first time, but he bet he could do it in an hour the next time. He did it just for the fun of it, and I got a trigger job worth at least $100, just for the price of raising him to the age of 18.
My boy is smart, and he wants to be a gunsmith/armorer, and a firearms designer. I believe he can do it if he applies himself, and I couldn't be more proud of him. Anyway, he says he would like to do some more of them, but he doubts he could improve much on the trigger of a really nice gun like a Kimber. But if you live in the DFW area and have a 1911 that could use an improved trigger and would be willing to pay $50 to have your trigger smoothed out and made a bit more crisp, PM me and I'll put you in touch with my son.
