A Million Little Pieces

At least, that's what it looked like spread out on my desk. Part one of my shipment arrived, so I wasted no time prying open the box and arranging its contents on a convenient shop towel. (You'll notice that shop towels figure prominently in this account.) It made for an impressive display of itty-bitty pieces of expensive metal I would be responsible for assembling into something that contained 20,000 PSI of pressure in order to throw half an ounce of lead at 80% the speed of sound.

Not at all daunting.

As it turned out, I was missing a piece; see if you can spot it. If not, all is revealed later. The missing part wasn't the only thing wrong with my order: Close inspection of the slide lug nearest the barrel hood showed what looked like either spalling or tool chatter. Although the problem might have been merely cosmetic, I didn't like the ramifications of finding out otherwise.

No way I'm putting 1.5 tons of pressure on that.

Disappointed, I acquired an RMA number from Sarco and boxed up the slide for return. The frame was still in transit, so there wasn't much to do until either it or the slide made its way to me.

While I waited for the slide's RMA to be processed, I looked over the parts some more. The barrel left quite a bit to be desired; the chamber area was pretty rough, featuring a casting line along the bottom. The lower lugs had seams or flanging along the outside of the lugs. Finally, there was a burr inside the lugs that prevented the link from enjoying a full range of motion. It would definitely need some cleanup.

So this is what a $40 barrel looks like.

On the bright side, I was happy with the styling of the parts, even if a few of them were a little rough around the edges. Although I requested the arched mainspring housing with lanyard loop from Sarco, the inclusion of a spur hammer, checkered slidelock, and GI-style safety (visible on the left in the top photo) were pleasant bonuses, as they would contribute to the classic look I hoped to achieve.