Mismatched 1911

john carr

Have been reading the posting "Colt 1911 Question." One reply was that rebuilt Colts often had mismatched parts. This sounds logical, but another said that if it was rebuilt it would be parkerized. I have a 1911, Colt frame, Remington UMC Slide. All other parts that I can tell appear to be Colt. Has the inspection mark (eagle head with S12) on left side. In the blue, wearing very thin. The serial on the frame indicates a 1918 manufacture and the slide, of course, was 1918. I brought this up on another gun forum two or three years ago and asked for suggestions why the mismatch.One suggestion was that in cleaning in the field the parts had simply been switched. I can't buy this. My supply sergeant would have gone thru the roof when he checked the pistols.One other suggestion came from a dealer in militaria who said that he had read in a book (couldn't remember the name of the book) that when Remington filled the 1918 order they had a quantity of slides left over and these were shipped to the Colt factory who assembled them on Colt frames. I can't say yes or no because I haven't ever read that.Was this a hard and fast rule that on a rebuild that the pistol was parkerized?

v35

Unlike commercial guns, the separable parts of US military guns are not hand fitted.Their parts are 100% interchangeable with guns made by other subcontractors. It's very likely for parts to get swapped during inspections of a group of guns.Its unlikely for surplus US small arms to have the same parts they left the factory with and not because of wear or breakage.

john carr

Yes, but here we're talking about only a slide and frame. Anyone familiar with Colts can tell at a glance a Colt frame from a Remington UMC. Maybe like you say the inspectors weren't all that critical of propriety in reassembling.

v35

In my military experience, personnel were mostly concerned with condition of finish, matching color of parts and a bright bore to pass inspection with. If one was lucky and had a good connection with his armorer or with Ordnance he could swap bad looking parts for good looking parts.There are several legitimate and illigitimate scenarios that could account for one makers'parts on another makers'frame but the Army just recognized it as a pistol,cal45 1911A-1, s/n

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nmyers@home.com

While there are few absolutes, I have never seen an arsenal rebuilt .45 that wasn't parkerized. Also, I have never seen one of these that did not have the initials of the armory doing the rebuild stamped on the left side of the frame above the trigger, although some stamps are so faint that I would expect to see some without a marking.All the possible explanations given, as well as many others, are possible.Neal

MIKE WISKEY

i was a small arms repairman (mos 45b20) in germany in 1969/70 and had a mp company bring in a dozen or so 19ll (not 1911a1) colts, some orignal, some mismatched, but all had com. blue finish. when we repaied or inspected these we were not conserned with keeping the right frames and slides together.

john carr

Mike Wiskey - Were these pistols then parkerized after the repair? Saxon Pig - From what I have been able to find out, all Rem-UMC slides were 1918. Thanks for all the comments, appears that it could have been, after all, just sloppy reassembly.

Der Gebirgsjager

I've always found it interesting that so many of the bretheren believe that a U.S. military weapon that has seen any service at all will have parts that match by mfg., finish, wear--or almost anything else except model (and that is sometimes suspect!). How well I remember upon the completion of my Basic Training Cycle at Ft. Ord, CA, in 1961 how the entire 250 man Company gathered around open top 55 gal. barrels of solvent by platoons and disassembled their M1 Garands down to the field stripped components, tossed them all in the barrels (not the wood) and then withdrew and scrubbed them piece by piece, each piece being inspected for cleanliness by the Platoon Sgt. for rust and carbon, and reassembled them into rifles by the numbers; this in preparation to turning them in for re-issue to the next Cycle. As mine was made by Intl. Harvester during the Korean War this process had been repeated perhaps 100 times?

llib

I have a 1918 Colt that had, at some time, been rebuilt, or repaired. It has been parkerized and the barrel replaced. It has no arsenal initials on it, but the inside of the slide has all sorts of inspection marks. The refitted barrel has a "7" infront of the link leg and an identical "7" stamped below it in the frame. I assume this identifies the worker that fitted the new barrel to the gun.There were repairs and refitting of parts done at Ordnance Depots that did not place any identifying marks on the frame to indicate where, or when, repairs were done. But the repair person stamped his work with his assigned number.