1911 stainless steel barrel in a carbon steel slide

T

The 45 Dude

New member
I want to build a 1911 and mix metals a little but how well does mixing metals work? I know that stainless steel is softer than carbon steel so how well would a stainless steel barrel work with a carbon slide? Will the barrel wear out quickly? Will the locking lugs on the barrel or slide be fine with normal lubrication and proper fitting?
 
It will be fine.

Barrel will probably be hardened 420 or 440 stainless. Steel slide is probably 4140 or similar. Should not wear any worse mixed.

Think it was the Detonics automatics they made in the early 1980's that were all stainless. They apparently had bad galling problems as all the components were the same stainless at the same hardness.
 
Mine

Doing just that with a Tisas after a squib round ruined the factory barrel. Using a stainless bushing supplied with the barrel . Round count approaching 1000 since the mod with no issues.

BTW, the E.A. Brown "drop-in" (well, almost) match barrel yielded much better accuracy and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to improve upon the accuracy of their import 1911.
 
No problem; the combination is fairly common.

From Colt's Combat Commander webpage:
The New Colt Combat Commander® combines Colt history with modern innovation. Carbon Steel Blued frame and slide and Stainless Steel barrel are ready for rugged use.
Click to expand...
 
45 Dude, to answer,generally there is an advantage (wearwise) to having wear parts of dissimilar material or hardness. I won't say its a hard and fast rule,but a guideline. Its not a problem.

If I may ask, you tend to post a lot of questions about firearm longevity.

I'm curious,lets make this easier.Over the next ten years, what is a reasonable estimate of how many rounds you will shoot?

Serious competition shooters MIGHT wear out guns.

Most shooters will be able pass their firearms on to the next generation. (With some exceptions) Most shooters won't shoot enough to significantly wear out a firearm.

Do your centerfires average more than 100 rounds a month per gun? 200?

500? :Lets start with that,if you don't mind.
 
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Correct.

There are lots of types of stainless steel (some of which have enough carbon to quality as "high-carbon" steels) and lots of types of high carbon steels.

All of them have differing material properties--or they wouldn't have come up with a new alloy and just used an existing one.

BUT, even that misses one important fact. With a few exceptions, most gun parts are not hardened to anywhere near the limit that we normally think of as being hard for a steel. Usually we think of hardness figures based on knives and while it's possible to get RC hardness figures into the 60s with knives while still maintaining decent toughness, the large steel parts of firearms are much softer than that. Rimfire barrels can be under 15 RC (softer than some bronze alloys) and even centerfire barrels aren't anywhere near 60RC, more like in the mid 30s.
 
Think it was the Detonics automatics they made in the early 1980's that were all stainless.
Click to expand...

I thought it was the AMT Hardballer. Or was that the first commercially successful one, I know they sold more than Detonics but it seems to me they weren't breaking any sales records.
I had an AMT Skipper which was a Commander sized little brother of the Hardballer.

I may be wrong but I was under the impression that most "1911" barrels made these days are made of 416 stainless.
 
I second the whole thing of not discounting stainless as soft. I work with a lot of 416 and 410 SS that is properly heat treated to around 50 HRc. It can wear as good as many other heat treated steels.

Galling can be an issue with similar metals with similar hardnesses. If you have one harder than the other, or tougher than the other, then wear will be fine.

You’ll be ok.
 
How soon we forget the first all stainless steel 1911 ...it wasn't made by Colt or Detonics ...it was the
AMT ( Arcadia Machine & Tool ) Hardballer - 1977 , came in all stainless steel with fully adjustable sights .
All my Colt's have moved on but the AMT Hardballer sits on the desk as I type this ...
I loved the stainless steel right from the start and the adjustable sights were just icing on the cake .
The AMT Hardballer will be with me forever ... I just love it !
Gary
 
The thread has tracked off topic, its not really an AMT thread,but...
Back in the day,there were not a lot of options for 1911 frames. At my LGS,I found an AMT and bought it.
A friend/1911 Smith built me a 38 Super with a Colt slide. He did a great job.

But he was not shy about his thoughts on the AMT frame. It made his job harder.

I'm not knocking any AMT guns you might own and enjoy.

In those days, technology was not what it is today. Reverse engineering was not so simple. Shrinkage is always a factor with cast parts.Estimating shrinkage is always a crap shoot. Shrinkage will be within a range. It can depend on molecular orientation and grain structure.

For a critical dimension part,its good practice to make your mold steel safe (leave some extra stock) Then produce parts. In the computer model,the database for the mold can be "warped" and the mold corrected. The mold will overcome shrinkage variation ,and parts will be to desired spec. To mold a round disc,it might require a mold cavity that is not dimensionally round.
During AMT's time,for a smaller company,that may have been out of reach.

Another option is to cast the parts and alter the CNC programing to machine a set of parts that work together,but they may not be 1911 standard.

It appeared to me that was the path AMT chose. An AMT gun might be fine.

Starting with an AMT frame can pose challenges. An example in my experience is the mag catch. A standard 1911 part just isn't useable as is.
It will require a semi custom part be milled up.
Problems like that will make custom building with a 1970's or 1980s vintage AMT frame...perhaps go "Over time,over budget" Nothing about my comment is a put down on your beloved Hardballer. Enjoy it!

I've found Caspian frames excellent,Rock Island and ATI frames pretty darn good.
 
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