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- Apr 4, 2006
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I went to the Range yesterday and one of my friends had his Dan Wesson 1911 there. While shooting it with factory hardball I noticed his groups kept moving farther and farther to the left. After I asked him if I could look at the pistol I noticed the small set screw that locks the rear sight in place had come loose. After we got back home I repositioned the rear sight (you could tell where it was by the marks) and tightened it up with the small Allen set screw. While doing this I wanted to hold the pistol very steady to get it perfectly aligned so I removed the grip panels and held it steady in my vise with wooden jaw face plates (I made them for gun Smithing work) to avoid any scratches. After doing so I notice that the G10 grips (I believe they are called VZ Grips) had completely scratched through the Electroless Nickeled finish! After using a little gun oil to clean it up so I could inspect it, one could plainly see the abrasive grip panels had scratched the grips frame up to the point where the finish was penetrated and permanently marked up pretty bad.
I was pretty shocked that Dan Wesson uses such an aggressive material on a gun, I believe it was G10 but am not 100% sure what they call it. The grip screws were tight and they were not moving around under recoil. He said he had never taken them off either. Anyway, I recommended that he replace them with another set of grips in another material or use a very thin spacer to protect the surface of the grip frame. He was pretty upset as the Dan Wesson is otherwise a pretty nice gun. I did not take any pictures but I should have - at least for this posting.
If you have a set of these type of grips on a pistol (any brand) I might suggest inspecting the grip frame! While G10 is durable and popular now (started off mostly on knives), it does NOT seem to play well with an applied finish to metal. It would also scratch up plain stainless steel too as they are pretty abrasive on the inside! Just wanted to give you guys the "heads up". Anyone else have this issue?
I was pretty shocked that Dan Wesson uses such an aggressive material on a gun, I believe it was G10 but am not 100% sure what they call it. The grip screws were tight and they were not moving around under recoil. He said he had never taken them off either. Anyway, I recommended that he replace them with another set of grips in another material or use a very thin spacer to protect the surface of the grip frame. He was pretty upset as the Dan Wesson is otherwise a pretty nice gun. I did not take any pictures but I should have - at least for this posting.
If you have a set of these type of grips on a pistol (any brand) I might suggest inspecting the grip frame! While G10 is durable and popular now (started off mostly on knives), it does NOT seem to play well with an applied finish to metal. It would also scratch up plain stainless steel too as they are pretty abrasive on the inside! Just wanted to give you guys the "heads up". Anyone else have this issue?
