WWII 1911A1 "Idiot Mark"

[horge]

The M1911 improper assembly/reassembly surface imperfection ™

 

[nrmcolt]

.

 

[Ky Larry]

My Kimber has the mark on it. I did it. Yes, I have often suffered from the medical condition called "Rectal-Cranial Insertion."
I'm not nearly as sharp as the man who designed this pistol but, who is?

 

[Steelharp]

BB, thanks...

The M1911 improper assembly/reassembly surface imperfection ™

I now have my morning coffee in other places than where it's supposed to be...

 

[longeyes]

Once in a great while the thumbnail doesn't work, and then I have to use a very small flat-blade screwdriver to depress the plunger while I insert the slide stop.

That works (to depress plunger); so does a ballpoint pen.

Every 1911 neophyte has re-assembly problems at first, I'm guessing. Hey, this is part of the fun. The faint of heart are quickly discouraged. After a while you get the hang of it.

 

[dsk]

Some people call it an "idiot mark", but to many collectors it is simply called the "GI scratch". If you only have a small mark below the slide stop on the frame consider yourself lucky. The worst manifestation of this is when the slide stop slipped upwards and put a nice circular mark all the way across the slide itself.

The other common "blemish" is to find all sorts of marks and scratches on the frame under the slide stop from trying to pry the latter out with a screwdriver. On the other side of the pistol you may find evidence that somebody was banging on the slide stop pin with a drift punch and/or hammer. All these are the result of somebody having no clue how to take a 1911 apart. Sometimes it happened while in the service, sometimes it was caused by a later, ignorant civilian owner.

 

[middy]

Shouldn't hurt the value much. Who's to say it wasn't put there by a genuine American WWII GI idiot?