By Patrick Sweeney
Soft Cover, 285 pages
Available from Gun Digest Books
920-471-4522
GunDigestStore.com
Price $37.99 plus $4.50 Shipping
Gunsmith Patrick Sweeney has gotten with other pistol smiths to produce an overview of work commonly done on the M1911 pistol.
All the exotic variations and calibers are covered along with the problems they sometimes faced and how they were overcome thus broadening the readers knowledge and giving a more in depth understanding of the design. This is not intended to make the do-it- yourselfer a competent gunsmith but rather to explain to him what and how a gunsmith does his magic on the pistol. It’s always better if both parties understand what is going on in a project.
The book starts off with a brief history of the M1911, goes into the pros and cons different people voice on the M1911, delves into the surprising number of calibers it has been chambered for, gives a good discussion of the various sizes the gun has been made in and discusses buying a Model 1911.
There are chapters on disassembly and cleaning as well as the complete takedown, tuning and first shots, the feeding system, and the ammo requirements of the pistol. It then breaks down the sub-assemblies with complete chapters on slides, safeties, barrels, grips and frames, mainspring housing, recoil springs, sights, and magazines, It concludes with chapters on service life, trigger and accuracy work, and high end custom work.
A great deal of the book is devoted to non G.I. specialized versions for various match and concealed carry use. While the guns may or may not be of interest to everyone the broadening of knowledge on the subject of the M1911 never hurts and there are a lot of people who want this sort of pistol. I enjoyed learning of what they went through making these guns even though I prefer the Remington Rand WWII G.I. issue M1911A1 to all others. This is the M1911 that I have used all my adult life and it has never let me down.
The unaltered WWII G.I. issue M1911A1 may well be the greatest fighting and all round pistol of all time. A book on gunsmithing the M1911 is certainly worthwhile reading and this one is well written and enjoyable to read instead of dull like so many books on technical subjects. There is a lot of information to be gleaned from this book that will be found to be useful to the users of the M1911 in whatever configuration of this gun that they choose to use.—Jim Dickson
