1911, what's the meaning of needs to be fitted?

[stevosmith]

So I bought a 1911 Springfield MC Operator and it has a Rowland460 kit on it. When I got it used, I wasn't able to remove the slide but after some efforts I got lucky and got it removed somehow. I inspected the guide rod and it was bent. Im wondering how the heck would a guide rod get bent, unless it was the hassle of removing the slide banging on it hard? Then I inquired why was it so difficult to get the slide out and some FFL shop said all 1911 needs to get fitted if one is to change anything from OEM. With that said, what does it mean but a 1911 needs to get fitted, how who would need to do it? is this something i can do myself or it's very precise to be done?

[ar15barrels]

If you hammered on the slide to force it off, that's what bent the guide rod.
If you have a 2 piece full length guide rod, you normally unscrew the two pieces to get the guide rod out of the slide.
Otherwise with full-length one piece guide rods, you pull the spring out the front of the slide before you can get the guide rod out.
The barrel bushing rotates and that lets the spring plug and the spring come out the front of the slide so give you more room to remove the guide rod.

Fitting is removing material to make parts fit,
Gunsmiths typically fit the parts as the gun is put together.
No fitting should be needed later unless somoene used parts that do not fit an forced them together.
If someone forced the gun together before you, the rod could have been bent then and that's why you had to hammer on it to get it back apart.
Without seeing the gun in person, it's not really possible to say what's wrong with your gun using your description.

This video shows a springfield MC operator being disassembled:

https://youtu.be/rhccZfufq8k?si=Dc8NuBIadK97981q

Does your gun use that same guide rod?

[stevosmith]

That vdo has a 2 piece guide rod and mine is a 2 piece guide rod too. So in replacing the bent (picture shown) guide rod, i wanted to buy a one piece guide rod, but per Rowland460, they only recommend to use a 2 piece guide rod with their Rowland460 kit to the MC operator. The new guide rod part I bought is https://460rowland.com/product/460-r...fer-guide-rod/

[ar15barrels]

The video actually shows a one-piece milspec (short) guide rod which does not cause any problems while being disassembled.

Did you force the gun apart and bend the rod or was this done before you obtained the gun?
Maybe you don't know that the purpose of a 2 piece guide rod is so you can unscrew the front section of the rod from the rear section of the rod in order to get the rod out of the slide.
If you did not know that; In the future, you unscrew the front portion of the rod from the rear portion in order to make it possible to remove the rear portion from the slide.
The bent guide rod should be replaced with a straight one.

The linked guide rod is smaller diameter then normal for use with a special flat-wire spring.
If you have the flat wire spring, you will notice it has a smaller inside diameter than a standard round-wire spring.
That is why it requires a smaller rod.
You also need the non-standard recoil spring plug to use that smaller diameter guide rod.

[Spyder]

Just means that 1911s are so poorly designed that they can't be produced to be reliable without hand finishing and modifications to make them actually work.

[foothillman]

Glock


1911
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[ar15barrels]

Just means that 1911s are so poorly designed that they can't be produced to be reliable without hand finishing and modifications to make them actually work.

False.
Hand-fitting is for parts that people want to fit TIGHTER than milspec.
Milspec 1911 parts are sloppy loose fitting just like a glock/xd/sig so that you can buy parts for them and drop them in with no care for how tight the new part fits.

For the record, there are parts for glock/xd/sig that also require hand fitting so if your standard for the "design" of any gun is that all parts ever made for a gun simply drop-in, then there are few guns that will meet your standard because there are oversized parts made for most guns for people that want that feature.

[Spyder]

I bet you're fun at parties.