a set of the correct walnut, double diamond grips for a 1913 M1911.
I would point out that the "correct" double diamond grips are only "correct" if your desire is to restore the look of the pistol as it appeared in 1913.
Since the later 1920s (and the adoption of the 1911A1) military policy has been to maintain 1911 pistols with A1 parts, as needed.
this creates two classes of "correct" appearance. There is correct for the day it left the factory, and there is correct for a gun that has served up through the Viet Nam era (or beyond). One might call them "original issue" and "service issue" classes.
Obviously, an original issue condition gun will have all the period correct parts, and the only difference from the day it left the factory will be the degree of finish wear.
A Service issue class 1911 could have any combination of 1911 and 1911A1 parts, up to the only 1911 part being the frame, and be entirely historically correct and accurate.
GI pistols got carried a lot more than they got fired. Some got carried a lot more than others. A gun that went into a Navy arms locker before WWI and did its service life on guard duty and the occasional shore patrol tends to look a bit different from one that went to an Army or Marine rifle company and served its duty life in and out of ground combat.
However there is no hard & fast rule. During my time inspecting Army small arms in Europe in the 70s, I found three 1911s still in service in the brigade I supported. All had the later (WWII) style grips, but otherwise were all original parts.
I read through the linked page, and the stuff from the fellow at the APG museum is boilerplate advice about shooting ANY collectible firearm (or any old one, really).
The information provided by another poster there, about the heat treating of slides, is new to me, and somewhat at odds with what I believed, so I will have to do some checking to see which of us is right. I had heard that the heat treating of GI guns was exactly the same as the commercial version, until WWII, when production pressure led to heat treating of the slide being dropped entirely to save time & money.
I would have no issues shooting the OP's pistol occasionally. GI ball or reload equivalent ONLY!!
As to the finish of the gun, there are only two options I would find acceptable.
One is to leave it the hell alone (other than cleaning it) Don't buff, polish or do anything else to it, and don't apply any kind of spray on/baked on finish, or you will (eventually) find out which circle of hell is reserved for people who to that...
Accept the dings, pits, and damage as honest wear, proud badges of a long and honorable service.
The other option I would find personally acceptable is to have it professionally restored. Turnbull is the best I know at that kind of work, they can literally make it look like it did the day it left the factory floor. Not at all cheap, though.
Its your gun, and your choice, but if it was the gun my dad carried (in Viet Nam or anywhere else) I would PRESERVE it, and not refinish it in any way.
(if you reach a point in your life where you don't have your dad, but still have his gun(s), you'll understand my point in a way I cannot put into words here.)
That's just me, and I'm known to be a " bit odd" about such things.
