@Dawn, Thank you.
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I guess I will start with my newest toy.
I picked a 1911 Rock Standard a couple weeks ago, factory new. I ran it through my pre-purchase checks and determined it had good bones. Dry fired it a couple hundred times and started making my list. Trigger had a lot of reset travel, adjusted the screw and got rid of most of that. The ambi safety on it was digging into my knuckle on the trigger finger side. I started by taking off about half the width of the pad and then started to contour the curve of the pad to push it forward. I realized the bottom of the safety was also dragging on my hand so I started cutting that up and contouring it. That’s about where I am now. The mating joint of the beaver tail has a couple sharp edges that need to be addressed. Oh need to fit an extended slide release but have to do some research to get the pad close enough to safety that can make them match. S&A mag well and flush fit grips will go on when I feel like spending the $$$.
Once I get the external controls right I will put about 1K through it and then get into the inside. Ramp & Throat so that it will feed empties from the mag. Buff and polish all the rubby bits, Mebby squeeze the slide or flatten the rails or both if needed. Cut a bushing if I think it will be worth the effort. Then I will shoot the snot out of it just to see if I can break it.
Cheers,
Craig6
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@Craig6 I wanna be you when I grow up. 
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@Zee
You may be a little behind the curve, I started working on 1911’s the day I turned 21 and picked up my stainless Colt 1911 Officer’s model. Back then there were no upgrades for that frame. 30 days later I took a hacksaw to it to install a Ed Brown beaver tail. I actually cut down a Pachmyer main spring housing from a full size 1911 to get the rear of the pistol right. Had to wait several years for aftermarket stuff to become available so I started building 1911’s for fun and profit. Somehow I ended up trading or giving away all my full size 1911’s, other than my collectable’s. So this RIA is the first “1911 fun gun” I’ve had in probably 20 years. It’s probably going to be the black full size version of my Officer’s when I’m done.
Oh… I may have to get older but NOBODY said NUTTIN’ about growing up 
Cheers,
Craig6
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No doubt about that 
but nothing sayin’ I can’t try to catch up. 
On modifications: I ordered tungsten guide rods and springs for my glocks today, and extended takedown levers - the guide rods are drop-in, but I had to check the video on how to replace the takedown levers. Not difficult.
I’m modifying because:
- Extended takedown levers will make it easier to maintain my glocks in excellent working order. These are also precision milled and should improve the accuracy repeatability, if only just a little, by ensuring the slide/barrel position is exactly the same every time.
- Tungsten guide rods add a little weight to the front of the gun, decreasing muzzle rise and improving accuracy. The springs are in the original factory strength (17 lbs) so the performance of cycling and racking won’t change from the manufacturer’s settings.
I also ordered a lighter/heavier pair of guide rods and springs for my Canik. I have some issues with stovepiping on the Canik (it’s me, it’s not the gun) and I’ll keep the factory spring for now because its training me on improving my grip and malfunction clearing, however I’m going to want to try the lighter spring to see if it cycles more consistently for competition.
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Except for extra magazines ussually leave my carry guns stock. Shotguns different story. Add stock spacers to make the gun fit, change the charging handle, pull the beads on the barrel.
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I beveled out the hard plastic mag well on my Sig 229. I did it very very slowly after having seen other gunsmith’s work. It was a beautiful job. It really worked. I no longer have the firearm, and I miss it.
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My cataracts, which have since been corrected, weren’t agreeing with the sights on my LCP. I had Innovative Arms Silencers modify my slide with their sights. Even with my eyes working better these days, it’s a huge improvement from the original setup.
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What a list this would be. I do have some bone stock guns. There’s a Taurus G2 and a Canik and a Ruger 1911 and a S&W Model 66 and a Ruger Security-Six and a few others that I’ve never done anything more than clean and shoot. But the guns I use the most, including a couple different CCWs, do have various “mods” to them. I don’t do any shady, back alley modifications. Anything I do is current practice, armorer-approved upgrades and refinements to improve the performance over factory.
My S&W Shield has an Apex Action Enhancement & Duty/Carry Trigger kit installed. Why? Because the factory trigger on these older Shields has too much creep, a sloppy break, and the mid-trigger hinge for the trigger safety is one of the worst trigger-block designs I’ve ever seen. The Apex kit makes the gun far more reliable and much more accurate, without changing the trigger pull weight.
Nearly all of my well-used and carry auto pistols have stick-on decal grips on them. My favorite brand is TractionGrips. They are wrap around instead of flat panels and you use a heat-gun to shrink them into place after you get them stuck on. They never move and won’t peel off without considerable effort. I’ve used grip enhancements for the last two decades. I often wear gloves and live/work in an often wet environment. Factory plastic grips are just too slippery to be safely handled without some grip enhancement. Ah, it just dawned on me that I have decal grips on that Canik, so I guess it’s been “modified” as well.
I’ve home built a couple 80% Glock-style pistols, so I guess you could say they are “modified”, even though the internal workings are essentially factory Glock. Have an 80% AR that I’m working on now, but my other ARs (several) are home built from FFL receivers. I suppose they all get a “heavily modified” status because of that. I really enjoy hobby gunsmithing; heck, building things in general. I suppose the big city-folks wouldn’t understand, but if you look around my property, you’ll find that a LOT of my stuff is home fabricated. So, if you want to “justify” my home-built guns, it’s pretty easy in my mind. I build most of my stuff. A person’s worth comes from what they can personally produce with their own two hands. If I can make it myself, I’ll do that instead of buying something that was made in a Chinese sweat shop. At the very least, I prefer to buy quality parts and do the fitting and assembly myself.
My home defense shotgun is also very modified. It’s an old Rem 870 Wingmaster that has Magpul stocks, a short 18" cyl barrel, a TRL-1 light on the fore end and a reflex red-dot sight on top of the receiver. Why? Because a shotgun is a very effective home-defense tool and making it as short as possible to maneuver around inside of a house along with adding the definitive low-light sighting of a red dot with a powerful LED flashlight are logical steps to take to ensure the best possible target identification and better sighting accuracy in a highly stressful situation.
I’ve never bought into the “gun mods make you a pre-meditated murderer” claim. Maybe a jury trial in some big anti-gun city could lean that way. But I don’t live in such an area, thankfully. Pretty much everyone in my region is pro-gun. I even had to sit on a jury once and the case involved a firearm “malfunction”. After a couple weeks of some big-city lawyers trying to make the case that it was the gun dealer’s fault (not the manufacturer, but the store that originally sold the gun) that the gun broke and caused an injury, we went back into the jury room looked around the table and unanimously agreed this was the biggest waste of time any of us had ever seen. We ordered lunch and then announced our “for the defendant” verdict.
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I know, right? Human beings should learn everything they can, then DO something with it. Thinking is fun but doing is funner! And nothing beats wondering like trying. Specialization is for insects. People should do everything they’re capable of.
Regards.
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I think that might be my motto. I may have to put it on a banner or something.
"is there anything you don’t do?"
~ half of everyone I know
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The only thing I have done to mine since I brought it home was put bullets in it. 
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On my Dan Wesson PMC, I filed down the rough edges on the front and rear sights. Not sure why they don’t put more beveled edges on the guns, I mean the C is for Carry, and those edges were pretty sharp.
Also bought a flat trigger, sanded the trigger bow and polished the trigger track. Flat trigger works well for me, trigger finger placement is not as critical, and trigger pulls seems much better, making me shoot a bit better. Considering getting a disconnecter cut on the slide someday.
My Sig P365 is stock, looking for a flat trigger for it as well. Liking the new flat trigger on the Sig. Too bad I got it after a range weekend…
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I typically switch between my Glock 19 and 43. Both of them have trijicon night sights. The 19 has a Zev slide on it so I have the capability to install my rmr on it should I see fit, I don’t while I carry. I also have a trident defense custom trigger as well as a streamlight TLR-7. The 43 has custom slidework done to it, a Hyve Technologies trigger and a streamlight TLR-6 on it. Both go with me in custom vedder light tuck holsters.
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Just ordered up some Trijicon HD Night Sights for my M&P 2.0. I have no idea how to put them on but I will figure it out…eventually…with lots of frustrated cursing and possibly thrown tools…(I kid…partially…I’m not good with my hands…)
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YouTube is your friend @Spence… lots and lots of YouTube
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Just a warning with Trijicon’s the Tritium in the sights that make them glow is Radioactive. Not terribly so, but if you hammer them on and break one of the vials and you get it on your hands and get it into your mouth/eyes etc bad things can happen. This is an old warning, they may have changed things since the last time I messed with them (1990 ish) but worth taking care just in case.
Cheers,
Craig6
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This is what I am doing currently.
Cheers,
Craig6
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To my Sig 226 Dark Elite I installed a Grayguns trigger for feel and because take-up and over travel are adjustable. To my Beretta 92G Elite LTT I installed a Langdon Tacticle trigger job in a bag. Only because it is the finest 92 and ordering and installing saved me from sending it To Earnest for him to do the work. This is mostly because over the years I have admittedly become a trigger snob.
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Not lighter triggers, smoother triggers. I shoot better the better the triggers are. I will guess I am not alone.
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