Looking for an armorer's course for 1911's

Cylinder & Slide has a high end class, but it would be a long drive for you.

If you want to make $$$ assembling 1911s, you need to bring value to the equation. There is no money to be made in assembling parts and selling "commodity" 1911's. If your idea of building 1911s does not include a machine shop (minimum a Bridgeport and a lathe), and you talking "assembly", not "custom build" you won't get the necessary premium prices.

Assembling a 1911 from parts is a lot more involved that building an AR15. You need to deal with slide to frame fit; safety fitting; hammer/sear engagement; barrel lug lockup; barrel link selection (get it to tight and you will egg the frame and wreck the gun; too loose and you get bad lockup); fitting the feet on the barrel; milling the frame if you are using an integral ramp barrel (with two different possible cut styles - Wilson and Clark); plus some things I forget and a few I probably never even heard of.

Some of the people locally who have succeeded at this are Greg Derr and Lou at Business End Customs. Look at their work and ask "will I have the tooling and skills to do similar?".
 
I've been searching online and cannot find much. I'm looking to build 1911's for (mostly) fun and (some) profit. Planning on buying serialized frame, slides & internals and if I sell it will be on consignment through an FFL. Not planning on direct sales, this will be a "profitable hobby, not be a business.

I'm familiar with the 1911 platform, field & detail strip. Want to learn the finer details of assembly, part fitting & tuning. I already have a list of tools needed.

All Colt's courses seem to be for active LEO's & .Mil, Sig Academy has a course but it's in Oklahoma City and seems to be more maintenance oriented than assembly. The offering by American Gunsmithing Institute is video only and I want "in person" instruction.

There's a place in Randolph, NJ; RTSP range & Firearms offering a two day course which might work for me. Anybody here know about them or any place which offers an 1911 armorer's course ?

I'd prefer to stay in New England but I'm willing to drive a day away if necessary. Not gonna fly.


I wouldn't do the RTSP class. $375 to learn how to do basic fit and tuning is a rip off. You really want a class that gets deep into barrel fit.
 
If you google for "1911 roll your own," you will get hits for Bob Rodgers classes. I have no experience with this course, but there have been some great threads about it on other forums. From a brief examination, the costs and curriculum appear similar to the Bob Marvel course mentioned above.

I am not sure if this course is still offered, and it may be too far away for you, but if you are interested in building 1911's, you should google it and read some of the long threads. My impression is that the course has helped some guys who were already pretty good raise their game up to a custom level.
 
If your mechanically inclined, and can follow directions, this is all youll need...... Get it on amazon....60-75 $$

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