SR1911 Barrel and Bushing Matched Set

[jtvd12]

Hello there everyone.  First time poster and long time podcast listener.  Michael, keep up the great work. 

I had a question regarding the SR1911 that I was hoping someone could answer for me.  I'm getting ready to buy one and drooling over all the info I can find, but one thing doesn't seem to add up.  All the press info states that the barrel and bushing are a match set machined from the same piece of bar stock, yet in the DRTV video at minute mark 8:20 there clearly is a bin of bushings and a bin of barrels they are pulling from for assembly.  Something isn't adding up.  Does anyone have any feedback or insight on this discrepancy?  Thank you.

http://www.downrange.tv/blog/the-ruger-sr1911-video/9290/

[alfsauve]

Great question, jtvd.

If I had to guess, maybe all those parts were from the same stock. No reason to believe the "stock" is just big enough for one set.  Heck, they might get 100 pairs out of an industrial sized bar.   

The "matching" comes during assembly when they put the pieces together and file/machine the barrel and bushing so they........uh........"match".   That's the only way to make them match whether they came from the same stock or not.

Well, unless you have a finger bushing like my '70, which basically fits equally poorly regardless of the barrel. 

[tombogan03884]

Based on my experience at T/C I would say that Alf is correct, any "Matching" is done by the assembler.
And I would bet that it consists more of checking with a feeler gage  with some minimal stoning.
Beyond that I would say it is primarily PR hype.