A shooting buddy of mine said he read an article that stated if you want to ruin your nice trigger on a 1911 all you have to do is let the side fall on an empty chamber.  Is this true?

He told you the truth, the weight of the trigger and such jars when slammed on an empty chamber is enough to chip the sear/hammer notches. If you have one of the aluminum triggers installed it will lessen the chances of this occurring. The surest way to get a 1911 owner/user mad is to let it slam empty[V]

Another no no with the 1911 is to drop a round into the chamber and lower the slide. This will mess up your extractors tension and claw. Always feed a round from the magazine as the round is supposed to slide up and under the extractor, not for the extractor to snap over the rim.

mountain Goat, 1911 fanatic

apple: goat is right, but mostly on highly tuned light triggers. go glock they can take it!

Yeah! They have a crappy trigger to begin with
so who would notice.[:)]

Ouch! but so do 1911's!

Non-shooters begged the industry for
heavier triggers and they listened.
I guess we can thank all of the "gun just went off" idiots who provided the stats.

Doesn't this only apply if: 1)You release or don't hold the trigger back while the slide closes, and 2)It primarily affects match triggers not the typical out of the box 5-6lb trigger.

?????

If it is a properly done trigger job with "bulletproof"parts ther should not be a problem.

I've never had any problem with my 1911s, granted I do not drop the slide on an empty chamber, but if someone did it to my gun I would not have a panic attack over it.