a pair of $5 each Dewatt slides from Sarco. Worked fine. I had a helluva time cutting the barrel locking grooves into the slide. they are bigger than is possible by spinning a cutter from the front of the slide. I used a flex shaft grinder and 3 cuttoff disks to get them as close to done as I could. then I ground down a carbide lathe bit to the right size, mounted it in a pipe "handle" and a bit at a time, goughed out the sharp corners needed to get the slide to lock up adequately on the barrel's lugs. All in all, the making of that slide took an entire day. But it converted an AR sales pos $50 frame into a $350 "match" 1911, in 1983, when I needed that money desperately. that would be $1400 in today's money. The rest of the parts I had just lying around, or I made them, like the sights, pins, etc. I drilled out the grip screw bushings for standard screws, to save $2.
I also had a Commander slide warp on me after I let some twerp tig weld a barrel positioner into the ejection port area. It's supposed to be done wih heat conrtrol paste, silver brazing, and a heat sink, taking an hour or more, and I found out why (the hard way). I had to make a mandrel for both the slide interior and the rail-slots, , buy my own torch, heat the slide redhot, and beat the mandrels into place, then let it air cool, but I made that slide saleable again, on another junk AR Sales alloy frame.
the AR sales frames always tore out below the mainspring housing (MSH) retainining pin. So I drilled the frame and drilled matching (blind) holes into the sides of the MSH itself. This effectively took all the stress of firing off of the MSH retaining pin area. without that mod, even a .22 unit's firing would break those cast aluminum frames.
but I have NO "practical experience" Just ask Garand about that! He'll tell you all about how he's done lots more smithing than me.
in a couple of minutes, I can weld together a couple of hunks of baling wire, grind and polish it, and you'll never find the joints. I can teach you to do the same in less than an hour, too. almost nothing about machining, welding or smithing is ever 10% as difficult as the "masters" would have you believe, cause they don't want your competition.
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