Buying strategy and factory assembly question...

[flomofo]

1) I have a chance to pick up a series 70 tommorow with the anniversary roll mark and I wanted a commemorative tier III model for the safe.

Both would be shot but the replica would remain bone stock while the series 70 would go to John Jardine or Ted Yost before being carried for work.

I'm now wondering about the thinking in buying the real thing (a GI pistol) and shooting it occasionally while it is somewhat still affordable in collector grade condition and then getting a replica down the road...

2) On a side note are these replicas and series 70 (custom gun designation because of no firing pin block to get around drop gun requirement for places like CA) 1911's receiving real hand fitting time at the factory or the "hand fitting" any other 1911 gets at places like kimber etc who simply use hands to slap together parts a computer mill previously "hand fitted"...

[1saxman]

There is no way a collector-grade USGI pistol should be fired. The slides are either not hardened at all or only in the critical spots. They are known to fail, which would cost you a ton by turning your expensive collector into a rather ugly paperweight.
The other aspects of your plan sound fine to me. I don't think the ANIVIII is ever going to be valued higher than the WWI repro so you may as well shoot it.
The guns you're asking about are basically production guns. Colt's does employ some hand-fitting on these as well as on all their production pistols.

[Rio Vista Slim]

It has been awhile since members of the staff of the M1911.ORG Forum and M1911.ORG E-zine visited the Colt plant. During that last visit, Colt was in the process of acquiring some of the new "wonder" machines we've been hearing and reading about. However, at that time, there was still a great deal of actual "hand-fitting" taking place at the Colt facility.