PT-1911 barrel swap

[PegLeg45]

Nice camera, I tried a shot like that but it came out way too blurry.  The back of my barrel is rougher looking than that one, Pegleg.  I am debating about upgrading to a match grade barrel, or leave it as is and buy an STI Spartan sometime this fall.  I seem to like 1911s with billboards on the slide.

That was a stock photo I got from an old website years ago for demonstrating 1911's in a power-point presentation for a friends gun class.

As for your barrel throat and ramp, you can smooth it up a good bit with red jeweler's rouge and a cotton buffer on a dremel tool without fear of removing too much metal. As long as you have that little 'shelf' between the frame and the 6 o'clock edge of the barrel throat (around 1/32" or so).
Below is my old (1974) Series 70 Colt that has had thousands of rounds fed through its factory barrel after I originally polished it and still has a smooth polish on it (best shot I could get with poor lighting, it is way smoother than it looks in the photo).


Here is part of an article on 1911's that has some pertinent info:

Now place the barrel into its slot in the frame and push it back and down until the link support legs contact the back of the slot in the frame. The barrel should rest on the curved support surfaces of the frame. Note the gap between the bottom edge of the feed ramp in the barrel and the forward edge of the feed ramp in the frame. This gap should be at least 1/32nd of an inch, and could be as much as 1/16th of an inch. If there is a smaller gap than this, (or no gap at all), the chambering cartridge can and probably will hang up on the lower lip of the barrel’s ramp. That gap is absolutely crucial to smooth chambering. If the gap is not at least 1/32nd of an inch, the solution is to file the bottom of the barrel feed ramp back until that gap is achieved. Then the ramp is re-shaped carefully with files or a Dremel grinder so that the barrel feed ramp is once again close to the bottom of the barrel. Be careful – do not extend the ramp much, if at all, deeper into the chamber, and keep the same upward angle as before. In the 1911 design, the ramped barrel leaves a portion of the case unsupported, and if the ramp is too deep, it increases the possibility of a case blowout. This could have serious consequences for the pistol and for you!

http://www.sightm1911.com/lib/tech/reliability_secrets.htm