[kat1950]

In the old days when a steel-frame 1911 cracks, it is almost always through the very thin section of slide rail right above the slide-stop pin cut.

It is purely cosmetic.

I used to weld, re-cut the slide rail & refinish them, but have since concluded it is a waste of time.

Once they crack after thousands of rounds, they never get worse anyway.

This is the same case with the Beretta 3032 Tomcat, the piece of thin metal over trigger bar serves no purpose, Beretta went to wide slides to slow down the action instead of spending millions of dollars to replace tooling machines eliminating this thin piece of useless metal. I have 2 Inox tomcats 1, with 3200 rounds through and no cracks, 2nd one when it came in I cut out thin piece of metal that had been cracking and polished area, have over 2300 rounds through that one with no problems with weapons function.

In the 70s Colt Custom shop used to not only cut the frame but also the rail above the slide stop to alleviate the problem with the aluminum frame cracks at slide stop instead of changing tooling machines.

But I do understand that under the current environment with all the new gun owners that have not lived through the early days when buying a gun also meant modifications to make 100 per cent reliable, thus the Pistolsmith and gunsmith came into picture.