Buffed
Back in the mid-60s, my sainted old daddy and his salty old brother used to hit the shows and buy ratty GI pistols...mostly WW1-era...for as little as 25-30 bucks apiece.
They were stacked on vendors' tables like so much cordwood, and they could barely give'em away. The next table had pretty much any new old stock part needed on the cheap. Those two would bring'em home and rebuild the guns.
They sold a few to finance their hobby, but mostly, we shot'em to death with 35 cents per box surplus ammo. Then, they'd strip'em down to the frames...go buy more parts...lather/rinse/repeat until the frame rails were so worn out that another peen-down was pointless.
I still have a couple of those old home-built pistols that didn't get shot much after the final rebuild. Not one shows any impact abutment peening or deformation. They're cracked at the junction of the rails and the spring tunnel. They cracked many years and many tens of thousands of rounds ago. The cracks never progressed past a certain point. They're retired now, and I rarely shoot'em...but when I do, they work just fine.
At this point, it might be good to note that more than a few slides and barrels were replaced due to lug deformation, and a couple cracked at the junction of the breechface and the port...most often on the left side...but the frames fared very well.
In those days, there was only one spring available...and they probably wouldn't hit 15 pounds new.
When I first heard these dire warnings over frame destruction, I was like:
"Uh? LOLWUT?" But...it was accepted and swallowed hook, line, and sinker...and the marketers have since made a mint on shock buffs and extra-power springs.
