Help needed with wood grips.

[novioman]

I have a set of 1911 wood grips that need a little work to fit. They line up but the holes are obviously a bit small. I’am not sure whether to work from the back of the grip or from the front. How do you avoid removing the step inside where the screw tightens up against.
Sorry to be thick, i can work on my pistols without issue, but seem to have a mental blank when it comes to grips..

 

[JimFromHorsham]

I’d use a tapered hand reamer or tapered file and work from the back , open it up a little and test . Using a “drill” you may find it snags and splinters the wood or pulls through at an offset .

 

[Lyndication]

I used hand files on mine and took my time with it tbh

 

[novioman]

I used hand files on mine and took my time with it tbh

Click to shrink...

Think that’s the way I would need to go.

 

[Lyndication]

I think it was about 20-30 minutes in the end. Put a good video on

 

[TheFull9]

If the shanks of your screws are a wider diameter than the stepped portions inside your current grips' holes, you are necessarily going to lose said steps and you'd have to create new ones with a milling bit or a lot of careful effort by hand. That would be an unusual circumstance though.
If that's not the case and the smaller portion of each hole only needs opening a very small amount, then if you don't have the exact right size of drill or reamer then yeah, hand file time. Probably would be smart to work from the back, ideally you'd keep the file perfectly parallel, but we're only human so if you do go at any angle then going with the file handle outboard from the hole would be preferable.