1911 Grip Screw Color
- Thread starter Roland Thunder
- Start date
The GI 1911 /1911A1 was made so it can be detail stripped using only one "tool", which is anything small enough to depress the firing pin to remove the firing pin stop, and such an object is almost always available.
ALL the rest of the removable parts of the pistol can be removed using only your hands and the parts of the pistol itself.
The sear spring is a screwdriver, for both the grip screws and the magazine catch "screw" (which is not a screw), the firing pin a punch.
Actual tools do the job better and easier, of course, but its a thing of design beauty that a GI in the field can do it without any, really.
Of course the more you get away from the original GI issue pistol, the less this applies. Different screws, bushings that need special wrench, one piece guide rods and all the other "improvements" come at the cost of requiring special tools to detail or sometimes even field strip.
I’ve always like the look of the Torx screws, but saw a video once where someone (Larry Vickers maybe) shared his preference for slotted screws. He apparently had seen situations where someone tightened the Torx too much and snapped them off. He believes this is less likely to happen with slotted screws. He also made the point that G10 doesn’t compress like wood does, so the screws are more likely to work loose. To keep them tight He recommend small o-rings as opposed to thread locker.
Not to sure where that came from, but you can put a lot more torque on a large slotted screw than a allin wrench.
But I am sure you can over torque ether. And that was the one thing I liked about the Altamont screws. I had never heard of using O rings before and now that I have experienced them I will use them from now on.