Lots of sort of right stuff and kinda wrong answers in this thread. Great knife board not so great on Gun info. :foot: ( At least I hope the knife info is better
) Consider going over to the high road or the 1911forum and asking there.
Forged in reference to the Mass produced guns talked about here...
means DROP FORGED. This does not impart the mystical properties that hand forging does to knives.
The truth is Cast frames and slides have really come a long way!! Only the very best "forged frames and slides are better than than the cast ones now a days. For instance I would take a Cast Caspian frame over a Springfield Brazilian (Imbel) drop forged one.
People in this thread have made claims about such and such a brand being forged and others cast... pretty meaningless, perhaps more important are the small parts.
Kimber Springfield and Colt all use some MIM ( metal injection molded) parts.
Colt last time I checked uses the least. Even some custom makes use MIM now days. I like tool steel parts and I have a little lingering dislike for MIM.
I have had a MIM hammer and thumb safety fail! Thumb safety! of all things break?
Possible mis-information about recoil springs as well. the 1911 is a delayed opening recoil operated pistol. The slide travels backward for a short distance fully locked before the pulled down out of battery. The slide stays put until the inertia of the slide and barrel are over come. A weak recoil spring has little effect here. Believe it or not the Main spring and shape of the firing pin stop effect this more! Much more to slide velocity than recoil springs.
In fact going to heavy can really cause issues...The slide can smack the next live round so hard it is bumped away from the bolt face and does not make it under the extractor. This causes the extractor to slam over the rim or causes a miss-feed. Also it is VERY likely you can damage a gun slamming the slide HARD going FORWARD with all the impact on the standing barrel lugs and the Slide stop pin. I have seen frames with elongated slide stop holes!
A properly tuned 1911 with a correctly dimensioned chamber will extract and eject spent cases with out a extractor even installed. ( erratically) tight match chambers offer so little accuracy improvement I bet none of us can hold a gun well enough to notice the difference. But they make pistol far less reliable. One of my first mods on a 1911 is to touch the chamber with a finish reamer.
I saw some mention of firing pin safeties. There seems to be two kinds out there I prefer the Colt version over the swartz version employed by Kimber.
Both when tuned correctly work well or are easy to remove/defeat if you don't like them. The Swartz when it works correctly does not impact the trigger pull weight or feel of the break. ( colts is operated by the trigger and Kimbers (swartz style) is operated by the grip safety
I also wonder about the California requirement comment. I know having a firing pin stop makes it easier to pass the drop tests but unless that has changed in the last year or two it was not a requirement. If it is a requirement now, does this only apply to new guns?
The Springfield gun lock built into the Main spring houseing...now that thing pisses me off!
I own about 40 1911 pistols now.... and used to shoot as much as 5000 rounds a month...
The most reliable and well made pistol I have ever owned was a Les Baer custom carry. Smooth and tight wear it was supposed to be and to spec wear it counted... All tool steel parts.
Next we should talk about Magazines!
