i have built a few 1911s before, including one on an ESSEX frame.
the questions i have are

1. can a slide be fiitted to more than one frame and still be reliable on both frames?


2. can multiple slides be fitted to one frame and still be reliable?

yes

any more opinions on this?

Of course

The first one is maybe. How close in spec are the frames?

On the second, if they are same or compatible calibers. .45 and 9 use different ejectors for example.

one is a government frame and the other would be an officer. ALL .45

Yes, more likely if both frames are from the same manufacturer and production run. Otherwise you'll run into issues with sloppy fit, or a slide that is too tight to move/doesn't fit the ejector, etc.



Yes, without a doubt.

Why yes it can be done.... But it is very difficult to get "perfect" or near that on both frames.

Obviously you would have to start with the frames as near identical as possible. This is a very difficult task to pull off.

That is getting both a great fit. If you don't mind having one that is at "the way it is" yea it's quite doable.

Basically the 1911 slide is interchangeable. If you had several Colts and USGIs, you could have a 'swap fest', shoot them and see for yourself. Obviously, some slides will fit some frames better than others but they all should work. Now if you're talking about custom fitting frames and slides, you could easily end up with a slide that might be too tight for another frame.

i am talking hand built pistols, not commercial crap.

It's a military firearm, and like all military arms they want interchangeability. You can swap parts no problem for the most part. Now while you can fit a slide to many frames, the tolerances on those frames may vary, so the slide might be nice and tight on one frame, but it might be loose on another frame. This won't affect function though, they will still shoot and work fine, but don't expect custom level. I've built several 1911's and sometimes like to swap complete slide assemblies around. Some slides won't fit other frames because they are too tight, but they might fit some frames just fine. Looser slides fit all the frames just fine, but they are loose. The old school GI 1911's from WWI and WWII are all very loose fitting guns, because again they wanted parts interchangeability. If you have custom super tight guns like Les Baer's, well then those parts won't interchange at all hardly.

You say you have built pistols, so if you know so much, why did you have to ask the question, the answer to which is obvious?

to the literate members it is obvious that i am not asking if it is physically possible, but if the pistols involved will still be reliable if you were to keep swapping back and forth.