1911 Barrel Link side to side play

[devildave31]

I plan on trying my hand at a little bit of amateur 1911 smithing in the near future. I plan on swapping out my old GI sights, as well as converting my grip safety to a high rise beavertail, and maybe trying a little trigger work. I have a Rock island GI model, which shouldn't be too financially painful if I make any mistakes that cannot be fixed. I have purchased Jerry Kunhausen's shop manuals as well as performed a lot (a lot) of internet research.

One thing that I cannot seem to find any info on is lateral play in the barrel link. My RIA seems to have a lot of lateral and radial play where it connects to the barrel and on the slide stop pin.

Would replacing the link with a more tailored fitting affect accuracy? On the flip side, would it cause any problems if the tolerances tighten up?

I would appreciate any constructive input on this topic.

 

[1911Tuner]

The link's function is to disengage the barrel from the slide at the proper time to prevent having the upper lugs torn off of it. That's all it's there for. As long as it does that, lateral play is a non-issue.

As for radial play, the hole in the link is necessarily larger than the slidestop crosspin diameter so that the link doesn't get into a bind and cause a failure of the barrel to drop the last few thousandths of an inch to the bed after linking down.

On other words...it sounds like your link is okay.

 

[devildave31]

Thanks for the clarification. I'm glad i didn't spend any money or risk any damage for nothing.