Finger barrel bushing?

[wonderwolf]

My dad has a nice colt full frame and he has one of those nice springy barrel bushings on the frame/barrel and it does a nice job for increasing accuracy on his piece. Recently I got my 2nd handgun which is a Rock island 1911 (I'm 19 and on a low income budget) and I would like to do some work to this gun ie. change hammer,barrel, grips etc. but I cant seem to find any of the finger bushings around. Are they still made? or is there somthing better out there?

[Jim Watson]

Colt quit using them years ago.
They are considered to be at risk of breaking off a collet finger and jamming up the gun, so a lot of people have taken them off of Series 70 and early Series 80 Colts. You could probably ask around and find one in somebody's odd parts box at home or a gunsmith shop.

Note that the Colt barrel is flared at the muzzle to expand the collet bushing into the slide when it is locked up. Your RIA surely has a straight barrel and the only way the collet bushing would help would be if it applied some spring tension to center the barrel. Which is might MIGHT do, but that was not the original design.

The MGW drop-in bushing is a good fit for most 1911s, but I don't know about foreign copies.

[wonderwolf]

Ok, so are there any good barrel/bushing combos I should look into since I'm gonna replace the barrel most likly

[johnniekirk]

Wonderwolf-How is it shooting now? Have you tried shooting it off a sandbag yet? It might already be a pretty decent shooter. If it already shoots good, I would'nt do any barrel work to it.
If it shot good, spend the money on a reliability job,get some good high quality magazines,and practice.
The best 1911 tuning job is useless unless the gun is rock solid reliable.
Just my 2 cents worth.

[Mtrclass]

Without seing your gun I have no idea if a tighter bushing would improve the mechnical accuracy of the gun. However, if you are going to replace the bushing the best value for your money would be to have a bushing made to fit your slide and barrel. You can either go with a oversized bushing offered by several companies or go with someone such as ourselves who manufacture bushing's and have one made to specifically fit you slide/barrel.

[JesS2K]

I'm not sure on the budget barrel and bushing. But, bushing is very important part in accuracy department, even more so than slide to frame fit. Make sure you get it done right with fitting and what not. Don't forget to add a decent gunsmith cost to this picture as well.

Good luck