Well, the good news is..,.

Doc

I can now completely disassemble and assemble a 1911.

The bad news is the project failed.

I have a Frankengun 1911. Slide and frame are from different manufactures, and a mixture of commercial and military parts.

I don't care for the extended grip safety and round hammer. So I bought a bag of 1911 parts including a spur hammer, standard grip safety, and a commercial thumb safety to replace the military style one currently on the gun.

After 4 disassemble and reassemble cycles I finally got it all together. The most amazing thing was when the spring in the plunger tube went shooting across the room and I actually found it.

But the gun wouldn't function. The hammer is very stiff and won't lock back manually. If you work the slide it stays back but not if you try to just cock the hammer. Obviously some fitting and tuning is required. This is beyond my capabilities. I was hoping the parts would swap in without further attention but it didn't happen.

So I put all the old parts back on and it works fine. Have to live with it for the time being.

dcs shooters

To add, if the grip safety is new it needs to be fitted so it blocks the trigger until depressed and the notch unblocks it when pressed.

wiz1997

Not a gunsmith but could you replace one part at a time until the culprit is found? Small changes instead of one big one?