Re: Thinking about getting an original 1911...
I love the orginal USGI 1911/1911a1s. I have one and I shoot the crap out of it, (doesn't hurt it one bit).
BUT, I question the "matching numbered parts" comments you see about 1911s. There is no such animal. Yes you can have all USGI parts, but they're not numbered. And the chances of them having all the parts that they left the factory with is misleading.
Let me give just two examples. When I went to MP AIT, I screwed up. This other screw up and I were put on detail, spending the weekend cleaning all the 45s, alot of them.
We took the guns about, and lined all the parts in an assembly line fashion. We went through and cleaned all the indivual parts, then got on one end of the line, took the frame and walked down the line adding parts until we ended up with a finished product, the went to the front of the line and started over. I really doubt any gun got its orginal parts.
Fast forward many years. I was in charge of the Alaska National Guard Marksmanship Unit. Part of our program was to support our "combat teams' or teams made up from BN or seperate company units firing "arms room' guns. It was difficult for soldiers to get the weapons out of the arms room for practice. Marksmanship weapons had different regulations. (they could be issued to the individual team members). So what I did was order 4 1911s for each BN & Sep Company. I also kept 10 1911s for state team use.
I had my pistol team go through the guns, switching parts until they got the ten best shooting pistols for the state team, to be issued to the unit that would go on to compete in advanced competition.
This is just two incidents involving hundreds of 1911s. I'm sure I'm not the only one in the world that did this. 1911 parts are not serial numbered to the gun so how does one know. How can anyone say they are matching serial numbers.
There is nothing wrong with 1911/1911a1 as long as they contain all government parts. Get one if you can, they arn't making them any more. But don't pay extra because someone is saying they are all matching numbered parts, there is no such animal.
My own personal 1911a1 is a colt and has two slides, a Colt slide and a USSC slide. In checking the serial numbers, I've seen a hell of a lot of different slides on Colt frames and visa versa.
