Roy Huntington
I’ve had the pleasure of helping a young veteran build his custom gunsmithing business over the past couple of years. Now, Dustin “Dusty” Housel is open for business. I wanted to show you what time, energy and great tool skills can accomplish in a short time. As of right now, Dusty is backlogged a good six months on custom 1911 work — and this gun I’m going to share with you is one of the reasons.
The “Tri-Cut” slide Dusty created from the Nighthawk Custom base slide. After a lot of “set-up” time with indicators, Dusty took a deep breath and began cutting. I think the results are fetching.
We’re sharing this success story to help motivate you to trust yourself and your dreams when it comes to pistolsmithing and building custom guns. Dusty had a dream, then worked toward it.
But first, for a bit of backstory on Dusty read this article I did on his first “official” build.
A Tri-Cut
This particular gun is what’s called a “full-build” meaning creating a gun from a series of un-fitted parts. This one happens to include some custom-made pieces Dusty built using his lathe and mill in his shop — as well as careful hand work.
The slide is “bushing-less” meaning the barrel is indexed with a tapered fit into the end of the slide. To do this, the barrel is threaded and a Chambers Custom Coned Sleeve installed and turned down on the lathe. The slide internal diameter measures 0.7025" and the cone is fit to 0.702" so everything locks up like that bank vault you always hear about! Here’s Dusty’s set-up to start on the muzzle of the barrel assembly.
In this case, the gun started out as a Nighthawk Custom un-fitted frame and slide. The customer wanted a “COO”-sized gun — a Commander slide on an Officer ACP frame — in .38 Super, no less. And, he wanted the slide cut in a special way, called a “Tri-Cut.” Unlike a conventionally shaped 1911 slide, this one has heavy angular cuts in the top of the slide, giving it a unique sort of “triangle” top. Since this build, Caspian now offers slides with the “Tri-Cut” treatment already done.
The first cut begins to establish a square face at the muzzle, critical for accuracy.
Dusty did plenty of careful set-up in his big mill and nailed it on this first slide cut. He admitted it was scary — but was pleased with the result. He also made the front and rear sights to fit the special cuts he made for them. Amazing work for someone who didn’t own a mill or lathe a year ago!
Here’s where Dusty adds the the convex “crown” protecting the actual chamfer cut from dings and banging around.
The pictures show various stages of the build but not all of them. The “fire control” parts (trigger, hammer, disconnector, etc.) all need fitting, grip safety fit and blended/tuned, and a hundred other details all need to be sorted out, blended and tuned to work together. Dusty usually does test-firing once the build is complete, but not cosmetically finished.
Ta-Da! Note the neat fit of all the bits. This arrangement also requires a special recoil spring guide rod assembly. Don’t you think that Tri-Cut looks great?
Final Fitting
If there’s any tweaking to be done, he does it after the test-firing so the final fit and finish isn’t compromised. When things meet Dusty’s approval, the final hand finish gets done. That’s where tool marks are smoothed out, flats are made flat again, checkering finished, French borders added — basically getting the gun to the point it’s ready to be sent out for the final finish to be applied.
After the initial test-firing, note how the gas marks are evenly placed around the bore, proof the chamfer is square to the rifling. Check out the target photo too!
Once everything is dialed in “just right” it gets a final cleaning in preparation for the finish. Finish options include Cerakote, classic bluing, hard chrome, Black Nitride (which is what this gun is getting from Nighthawk Custom) and lots of other options.
Dusty built a custom rear sight for this .38 Super. Here it is in the rough form while he checks fit. It will eventually be profiled and the final cuts made. This was made from bar stock steel.
Check out the pictures to see a bit of what goes into something like this. I often help Dusty do the final shooting/sighting in on his builds and I have to say, this one shot like a laser beam! Check out the 25-yard target, on a 20-degree, blowy day!
There’s five shots in those four holes! Amazingly enough, Dusty’s sight dimensions were almost spot on right off the bat. The upper target was for fun. We moved in to 10 yards and tried to shoot around the center green spot. Almost got it right! This gun ended up amazingly accurate, and the straight trigger and crisp break helped matters
If you have questions about building your own custom 1911, touch base with Dusty. I know he’d be happy to answer some questions. And who knows, you may decide to have one built just for you!
A “Hat’s Off” to Dusty for taking his dream from an idea in my garage — to a working shop!
I was able to get Dusty to send over a picture of the Commander build since he just got it back from final finish as we were about to put this to bed. Note the front sight (blued with gold bead installed now), fancy grips and grip screws, French Border and checkering, among many custom touches. The flat trigger looks swell and feel great too. It’s done — and ready to return to his customer!
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