If you care to go back into our Country's great history- a fore-runner to the great Industrial Revolution was Eli Whitney's "made to gauge" and interchangeable common parts- for muskets and rifles- prior to that, a blacksmith/gunsmith hand-made and fitted each part- now we had the key to standards and gauges and mass production- this later gave us great (for that time) Armory produced military weapons with interchangeable parts- that and some common calibers (used by both sides in WW1 and WW2) enabled the USA to become the "Arsenal of Freedom" mass producing M-1 Garands, 1903 Springfields, Browning Automatic rifles and 1919A-1 light machine guns (all firing the common 30-06 0r 7.63x63mm round-
Your 1911 (or 1911-A-1) same basic weapon was developed by the great gun genius John M. Browning, he started working on it in 1905-- All parts are made to gauge, so a slide or frame or barrel bushing or magazine made by: Spring Field Armory, Remington, Remington-Rand, Singer (sewing machine Co.) Ithaca, and others all would interchange, both in the field for the basic components (known as a field strip and fix) or back in the main Base Armories (where I worked) So you are a soldier issued a 1911 as a TO weapon- and in firing on the range the barrel bushing develops a slight crack, you return it to my bench, I strip it down, grab a new barrel bushing from the inventory basket, re-assemble and test fire it for function- As long as that great sidearm functions properly, it matters not one bit which supplier made that bushing- or any other part-
Over the years, many "as-issued" military weapons have been both re-fit and re-assembled, with a "Duke's mixture" of parts, some canibalized from otherwise scrapped weapons. The great M1 Garand rifle, first developed by a Canadian named John C. Garand, working at the USA Springfield Armory in 1928, is a first class example- I see many really worn out Garands at gun shows, and the "hustler" will try to promote it at as NM (National Match) grade Garand, becauise it has a NM stamped operating rod- sometimes this "tricky business" extends to the 1911 .45ACP, such as you have-
If you are a purist, or have a 1911-A-1 customized by Bob Chow or Bo Swenson, a Gold Cup, NM or Combat Commander, you want only those replacement parts suited to a "tuned" combat pistol-- but if you keep your .45 for a reliable self-defence CQC weapon, what you have, with proper ammo and lots of practice (a handgun is a difficult weapon to master, IMO) you should be fine-
You already know that what some "dealer" told you about your 1911 is just their way of "lowering the price" they will pay-a common practice. I am very prejudiced towards Colt handguns, as was my late father, and would stake my life on the reliability of a 1911-A-1 in .45ACP- or my .357 Python.
You might also like to know that John M. Browning refused any compensation from the Army Ordnance Board for all the great weapons he perfected for our Armed Forces- it was his way of thanking America for the great opportunity he found here as a premiere gun designer. A great man indeed, IMO--
