Firearms Hotrodding

I've had a real urge to do some firearms modifications lately. Part of this is my general urge to take things apart and put them back together. Part of it is because members of the UD football team are breaking into apartments a mile from my place.

Anyway, I have this desire to do some gun work. First step is bobbing the hammer on my 1911. My RIA has what is known as a GI setup. This is a long spur hammer and a short grip safety. The GI setup tends to have a problem called hammer bite. A little bit of the web of your thumb can get pinched. The fix is to either put on a "beavertail" safety and officers hammer or to cut an eighth of an inch of the GI spur. I'm going with the latter because I'm cheap. My dremel will work for the cutting, but I need to pick up some masking tape and a bottle gun blueing to refinish afterwards.

I also want to build myself an AR-15. Unfortunately I have discovered that getting someone to order you a lower receiver can be tough. This isn't because lowers are dangerous or anything. It is because once you have a lower, the gun shop may not get any more of your money. You see the lower is the firearm in the legal sense, everything else you can just mailorder and not pay your gunshop's 10-20% markup. I don't think they like that possibility.

Lastly I want a cowboy pistol. Amy thinks I'm nuts about this by the way. She thinks it is perfectly normal for me to own a longsword and knit chain maille, but cowboys are weird.

I've narrowed down my choices to the Remington New Model army clones. The Remington a percussion revolver that can be modified to shoot cartridges with a little work. The work entails grinding out the recoil shield and popping in a conversion cylinder. Right now I'm just deciding who to buy the parts from since rumor has it that the R&D may be bringing out a new conversion soon.