Right. I think I paid somewhere in the $15-20 range for the ones I have. Maybe not even that much.

I flipped through some back issues of "American Handgunner", and found a 1981 review of a solid, full-length guide rod that was selling for under $29. A few years earlier, Seecamp sold their nested guide rod "Spring Extender" for $30. The latter design was patented, and variations of it are now widely used in sub-compact pistols by manufacturers like Glock, Colt, Kimber, Springfield Armory, and Para-Ordnance.

Never had one. Still think it's a solution in search a problem.

Again, props to El Jefe for a term used in this thread. Did he get it from somewhere else???

Why does no one ever complain about FLGRs on more modern pistol designs?

Because that didn't mean "change." You know how we all like to accept change...

And because most are assemblies with captive springs.

I'll admit to having one two piece rod. I use(d) it on a compensated 1911 slide/barrel assembly to make it easier to install on the frame if I was in a "gamey" mood. No fooling with spring plugs & wrenches, just run the slide till the notch lined up with the slide stop and insert the slide stop.

As I think about it (or as close as I can get at this hour), I do believe I also had some concept that the slightly extended rod would help support the compensator when the slide was at full recoil. I remember some really finely machined guns with shelves built on the guide rods to support comps that looked like they belonged on tank guns.

It seems to me that there were other tungsten rods, and wasn't there one filled with mercury, in that price range.

Sarge has it just right although it isn't even two inches but between the recoil spring plug and guide at each end and the dust cover and barrel "guiding the rest" it isn't hard to argue that the gun already has one.

I have a one piece FLGR on my Kimber (it came with of course). It doesn't cause me any problems with assembly or dis assembly, or with functioning. Are they needed? In my admittedly less than expert opinion, no.

Do they hurt anything?

I have read and understand about the FLGR interfering with the possibility of "tactically" reloading the 1911 should you sustain
an incapacitating wound to one arm, but if I were really worried about that, I'd carry one of those FiveSeven's or similar handguns that held 20 round magazines.

I guess the bottom line is mine works, doesn't cause me a problem, and I ain't gonna fix what isn't broke. Kinda like the plastic mainspring housing and MIM parts my pistol came with.

During the period when I had three small children at home, I considered this an advantage in my house 1911. I could leave the gun in Condition Three and not have to worry that the kids would figure out that they could jack the slide and charge the chamber by pressing the front of the gun against a table or something. (I had a 21 pound recoil spring and a full-strength GI mainspring in it, too.)

Yes, it was the Haarts Recoil Reducer. It used lead balls suspended in mercury and it worked as advertised; mostly. No, you didn't feel anything much different, but if you were shooting against a timer, your splits were shorter. I had one in my IPSC gun (actually, ALL my IPSC guns) back in the early '90's when they came out.

However, even back in my IPSC days, I still carried a standard guide rod in my "social" guns. I figured if there was anything truely wrong with the standard setup, the military would have identified it by the end of WW I at the very latest.