whatnickname
Member
I know very well that the more popular 1911s out there on the market come out of the box with one of those little nifty guide rods running up through the slide spring. If memory serves, the original thought for these was to keep the spring from kinking and to aid accuracy. If memory serves, the company that started this craze was Detonics. Their first offering was pretty skimpy by today's standards. That said the original Colt Goldcup never had one and it was damned accurate. Neither did Giles or Clark put guide rods in the incredibly accurate pistols they turned out way back in the day when they got started. Ruger seems to know a good bit about guns and their SR1911 doesn't have one. In fact IMO the Ruger 1911 may just be the best value in a 1911 today. However, there are more accurate 1911s out of the box than the Ruger. However several of those may require a second mortgage on your house in order to buy one. John Moses Browning was certainly no dummy and his design didn't incorporate a guide rod. All the big name 1911 makers seem to favor the guide rod. So here's the question: Are guide rods really necessary for reliability and accuracy or is all of this just marketing hype?