Shortening a 1911 Govt Frame

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gunman

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Does anybody happen to know the difference between a 5" barrrel 1911 frame and a 4.25"? I'm wondering if I could shorten the longer govt frame to take the shorter commander slide without any further mods.

Any experience or insights?

Thanks in advance.
 
I have a couple commander 1911's, built on full size government frames. No mods are required. Now if you are building an officer model (prohib class), you may need to shorten the dust cover. Someone else may correct me if I am wrong but no shortening of the government frame is required to accept a commander slide/barrel assembly. I did build up one of my commanders with an O.D.I. Viking combat slide and the slide itself required some minor material removal at the end of the rails where they meet the recoil spring plug cover. I removed 1/8 inch from the rear of the slides recoil plug cover, that's it.
dunno if this helps ya, but I have never had to modify the receiver itself.
 
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I recently spoke to a gunsmith that advised me that the Officer model has a lot of reliability problems due the short stroke and the angle of the barrel in full recoil or something similar.
 
A couple of my friends have officer models. One is a colt, with all the original colt parts. It has had well over 1000 rounds through it and functions flawlessy with every type of 45 acp ammo he feeds it. The only modification was a barrel throating so it would feed wadcutters properly.
the other one is an Auto Ordnance Pitbull, officer clone. It is built up on an unaltered goverment frame. It was a very finicky little bugger when I first helped him build it up some 10 years ago. It required a serious barrel throating and feed ramp angle adjustment as well as a custom fitted extractor before it would feed and function as good as it's colt counterpart.
I like the commander size the best though, but, since the officer is a prohib, I guess i don't really have much choice hehehe
 
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