Transformation P13-45 to P15-40(ish)

About a week ago I picked up a Para Ordnance P13-45 that looked like it was rode hard and put up wet. It had broken wood grips, missing the front sight, and the trigger felt like it was a 17 pound pull.
When I stripped it down, I found what looked like a bubba paint job had been done to it. A really thick white coat of what looked like ceracoat primer was on every internal surface of the frame.
I put the frame into the ultrasonic cleaner with straight simple green. It didn’t even soften the crap. So I broke out the bead blaster and went to town.
So far so good, it took about 5 minutes and it was free of the bubba paint job. Then I broke out the Brownells cold blue gel and got to coloring it. Took about 30 minutes (sorry forgot to get pics) to finish bluing, cleaning and oiling the frame. Then I decided to change the slide and caliber. I think I will send out the 13-45 slide to get milled for a red dot, but that is another story.

I tossed a Nighthawk drop in trigger assembly which was anything but drop in. The trigger bar was making contact with the Nighthawk trigger housing. So break out the file and take a little off the trigger bar and the housing to get it functioning. I kept the series 80 firing pin safety in tact since the new slide was also equipped with the firing pin safety.

Back when guns were fun and Double Stack 1911s were new Para Ordnance made four different size frames the govt frame depending on caliber were designated the P14-45, P16-40, or P18-9, the next size down was the P13-45 or P15-40, then the P12-45or P14-40 final the warthog (P10-45).

I have only seen the P15-40 in magazines and old sales pictures on gun broker or gun auction sights. It is a true unicorn. I did have a spare 14-40 side assembly which was supposed to go on an 80% full sized double stack frame. However I decided to mate it to this frame and have my own 15-40ish gun.
Just for comparison sake below is a picture showing the difference in size between the P13/P15 and the P12/P14 size frames and magazines.
Now I only need to source some elusive P15-40 magazines. The P16-40 magazines will function in the meantime.

I don’t think it turned out bad, will see how it shoots today.

Jmac00 said:

I have a P16-40 for my race gun, with 8 double stack mags that will hold 21 rounds, each. I LOVE this gun. I all the years of running competition at GCL, and doing all my own reloads, I have had ONE miss fire.
When I got it, it had a trigger job done, match grade barrel, spring and buffer pads, all the safeties were removed, except for the thumb safety, extended mag release, and large mag-well installed. And very little recoil.
The only down side to the gun was I had to oil the crap out of it. I used a combination of Mobil 1 and trib-logic oil additive, which was crazy slippery.
the Para is a great gun. The other problem was, I learned I can miss, r e a l l y fast . Of course, that would be the guns fault

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lol yep I remember those days you can’t shoot fast enough to make up for a miss. My first two race guns were a Para/Colt comped and dotted 45 open class gun and a Para/Colt 38 Super that I could shoot in the limited class. Both had Barsto Barrels and the 45 Had the Smith and Alexander magwell.

With the extra capacity mag plates, 16 in the 45 and 22 in the 38 Super mag changes felt like they happened only during required mag change stages. Once everyone started running double stacks it seemed like the stages went from 14-20 rounds to 57-70 rounds. I had to reload on Wednesdays to have enough ammo to shoot on Saturdays.

Seems to shoot well, albeit low.

Found unicorn magazine bodies for 10 bucks each, so I bought 10 naturally. P15-40 size magazine.