Actually, one of the best gunsmiths I know of brought this up in an article that was written about his custom pistols. The gunsmith I'm talking about is Larry Vickers. Here's some of the things he mentioned... (Quoted from American Handgunner July 2001)Browning's Mistakes
At the risk of invoking a bolt of lightning, Vickers feels there are two design flaws in the 1911 that need correcting by a manufacturer; the defects are beyond the ability of a pistolsmith to fix.
The problems are the extractor and the plunger tube. The extractor should be an external style, Vickers asserts, like on a SIG. The plunger tube should be replacable, Vickers says, but it should be retained in a better way than with that "two-legs-and-peening nonsense."
"The way the plunger tube is held on the gun is basically archaic. The plunger tube was made to be held on by the grips, but with the many different sorts of grips on the market now, you can't count on that. There are only two little legs that hold it on there. If the plunger tube comes loose, it can pop over your safety and keep you from taking the safety off. That can get you killed," Vickers soberly stated.
He also doesn't particularly like the way the ejector is press-fit into the frame. Vickers stakes both the ejector and the barrel link to assure they don't wiggle loose.
The extractor, though, is a sore spot for the veteran operator. "The extractor is the key to the gun. The more you know about a 1911, the more you realize that the extractor determines everything in that gun. The extractor is more of a functioning issue and the plunger tube is more of a safety issue," Vickers said.
"The spring steel that John Browning originally spec'd for the extractor was some pretty darn good spring steel, but they have tried all sorts of steel in the intervening years and there're a lot of weak extractors out there."
"I can't count the number of 1911s, especially Colts, I've seen with minimal or no extractor tension out-of-the-box. They need to be tuned. A gun that needs that sort of work out-of-the-box is unacceptable. That's like buying a car and needing a tuneup before you can drive it. It's just not acceptable. That design needs to be changed.
"Name the last HK USP or S&W 4506 or SIG 220 - those are the other .45s that compete with the 1911 - that wouldn't function reliably out-of-the-box because it didn't have sufficient extractor tension. You can't. They all work perfectly, except the 1911," Vickers fumed.
"A good external extractor needs to be designed into the gun and a different plunger tube needs to be designed. That's something that needs to be addressed by the manufacturer," Vickers said.