Nice article with cutaway views describing 1911 operation- good for 1911 newbies

[Rmiked]

Below is a link to a page that describes the various operational phases of a 1911. It is good for newbies like myself. In particular I wanted to see what stops the forward movement of the slide and how the force transfer occurs between the frame/barrel locking lugs and the slide stop cross-pin. I gained a similar understanding of the Beretta 92 action with its non-titling barrel and locking block. The article also claims that for a National Match barrel hoods are hand fit to maintain horizontal lug engagement until the barrel links down. If this is true I never knew what it meant to have “match” stamped on the barrel- very neat. Another observation I made is the barrel bushing to slide interface must allow rotation (about a horizontal axis perpendicular to the slide) within the slide, the same angle as the barrel tilts down. This means the barrel bushing can’t be too tight, otherwise something would have to bend and that isn’t happening. Just guessing at the barrel lugs being 0.1” tall with a 5” barrel (slide in rear position) the angle of rotation is about 2 degrees of barrel tilt. So it isn’t much. But this must be designed into the dimensions when discussing how tight things can be and still get proper action operation.

https://www.m1911.org/locking.htm