full length guide rod

Welcome Farley !!!

Unfortunately, this topic has been beaten to death before your arrival here....

Use the "search" function, and type in "full length" or "guide rod" as the keyword. You should have no problem finding a wealth of opinion on this subject.

(I LIKE THEM, AND USE THEM)

shane45-1911 is right. The topic has been discussed at length. I would venture to say that the correction solution is about as clear as the questions concerning 9 mm versus .45. I have had guns with and without full length guide rods. I do not feel they increased the gun's reliability or kept the spring from kinking. In my guns without FLGR, I have never had a spring kink. I also don't feel the FLGR adds to accuracy in any way. The only possible real benefit that I see is that it adds weight to the muzzle end of the gun and the extra weight may reduce the effects of recoil slightly. Is that slight difference going to be significant? Probably not, but who knows? Some gunfights are won on the basis of fractions of a second. The guide rod could allow you to land your second shot on target more quickly than with out one. Then again, the extra weight might slow down your draw ever so slightly such that you lose the fight by not getting your gun out fast enough, by just a fraction of a second.

Additional weight at the muzzle end of the gun is part of the reason smaller .45 go with the cone barrels and no barrel bushings. The muzzle end of the barrels are quick thick (compared to a normal 5" barrel.

Do like shane45-1911 says and read everything you can.

When you do read other people's opinions, there is one bit of reasoning that you might not need to consider as totally valid. If you read that John Moses Browning didn't see a need for it and as such the gun doesn't need it, that isn't completely true in the sense that we don't know all the parameters under which Browning was operating. A FLGR may preclude easy field stripping without a bushing wrench or other tool, and so that might be a reason he opted for a shorter guide rod. I don't know. There may have been some other reason as well. For that matter, Browning did not think that the gun needed a grip safety either, but we have them as a result of the military's demand they be a part of the gun. In other words, there were likely many factors affecting why the 1911 is what it is that go beyond what Browning did or did not think the gun needed.