Gun slide...
Took it to the range yesterday (the Tisas 1911A1 service model). It’s basically a Series-70 1911, with small GI sights, plastic grips, but a forged slide, frame, and barrel. Barrel is stainless. The basics are there, they went cheap on non-critical (IMHO) items.
At the range, it was consistently hitting about 2 inches left at about 22 yards, grouping was a little larger than I can do with my Colt Government 1911, but part of that is getting used to smaller sights, and part of it is the somewhat heavy 5.5-6 pound trigger pull. It is crisp, just takes a little more squeeze than some. I can get the windage right without much trouble, if only I could get that rear sight to move. I’ll have to take a bigger hammer and non-marring brass rod and give it a little better whack. I tried to field adjust it using a spent case and a small hammer, but all I did was ruin a couple of spent cases. LOL
I’m going to take the trigger parts out and hone/polish them a bit. Not too much, I’m not a real gunsmith, but I have had some success with just smoothing and squaring surfaces as needed, keeping the factory angles (I have jigs and the right stones) and being gentle so as not to change the geometry of the parts. I’m spoiled by having good trigger pulls - not crazy light, but I like my 1911s around 3-4 pounds.
Racking the slide with the hammer down is a little bit tough - I don’t know if the hammer/mainspring is a higher rate than usual, or they use a stiffer recoil spring, but it takes a big effort to rack it. Once the hammer is back, it takes less effort (leads me to believe that the hammer spring is a little stronger than others). But my Colt Government is considerably easier. Again, comparing $350 to $750+ here. Plus, it’s new so everything is tight.
That part about the racking effort being greater is usually traceable to the surface finish on the front of the hammer as well as the bottom edge of the firing pin retainer. That bottom edge should be slightly rounded but I’ve seen many that are just square and that makes the rack feel like a sharp break. They’re all here so it’s easy to compare.
And I always advise to not screw with spring tension unless first checked against factory specs. Lightened tensions can cause excessive recoil and/or un-reliable feeding/extraction. Most of the non-Colt 1911’s that are out there now are made of decent stuff but the reason they’re cheaper is they cut corners on working surface finish and that is where half the price of a good one is. Even the high end ones like, oh, say Kimber, get caught “simplifying.”
If your windage error is 2 inches at 22 yds that would indicate a 0.002 inch adjustment. Please don’t try to get that with a bigger hammer!!! We use jack screws for that sort of movement. But as you noted the trigger pull is rougher so when you fix that compared to your other pieces, the 2” problem might go away. Shoot a few rounds with your other hand and see if the POI moves?
Another check you can do is insert a proper bore rod and survey the bore alignment to the sight alignment. Some of the knockoff 1911’s use a lock screw from the bottom up to pin the rear sight. Any sign of a lock screw?