M1911A1 Small Parts

[Mikecp@2022]

I'd like to have your opinion on M1911A1 small parts.
For as far as I know Remington Rand changed checkered for serrated slide stop and mainspring housings in 1943 at about #1'000'000, and they keep doing checkered safeties to EOP.
I know for US&S they used for all prod. checkered small parts.
About Ithaca I'm not sure but the transition for all three parts has been made around 1943
at #900'000.
About Colt they used serrated slide stops and mainspring housings (exept for safeties) from end 1944 to EOP.
Singer used fine chekered small parts.
That could help to recognized authenticity of the pistol.
Thanks.

Information

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[DaveN]

I'm new to 1911A1 collecting and correct me if I'm wrong but it seems the transition from checkered parts to serrated parts would have been done to eliminate a step in production hence (always wanted to say hence) cutting valuable production time in an attempt to speed up war production to get weapons in the hands of our troops faster.
The question is why did some do and some didn't and some somewhere in-between? Perhaps the companies involved were run different? You know what can we do to make it better,faster while others approached it with " If it ain't broke don't fix it" or is that "Don't fix it if it ain't broke" well you get my drift.
Anyway there are some much more knowledgeable then I who I hope will chime in as I always look forward to their comments.

[emmagee1917]

Well , let's see :
1) war on
2) shortage of all machinery , fixtures , tooling
3) wear it out or do without ( see 2 )
Everyone today focus on the last year of the war when we had pretty much won and had scads of most everything and forget the dark years when we had shortages , losing on every front , back against the wall , losses to subs , etc. , etc. H3ll , we even ground the last digit off of the ammo headstamp dies to get a few more months use out of them.
Chris

[Bill Ricca]

I do not know for sure if this applies to the fireamrs productions, but I have studied accessories and I know it applies to some of them.

A contract was sign for a specific price. A change came about and Ordnance notified the producer. The company then either accepted it, or replied that the cost will increase. Sometime the costs were adjusted upward to include the change, sometimes the costs were denied and the change was not made, sometimes the cost were not a problem and the change was made without increased money.