Milly,I shot a Colt Combat C.C.,.45 A C P (older unit,mid-70) with the standard G I guide rod, probably similar to your Smith, and it was brutal in felt recoil. While I did not get "hammer bite", the left side frame tang drove into the web of my hand to the point of drawing blood. I installed a FLGR, which requires a new recoil spring plug as well, and there was,to my mind, a less "sharp" feeling to the recoil, and, no more blood. Perhaps that was due to the slightly more muzzle heavy feel. I then added the Wilson Combat "shock-buff" plastic device, which supposedly reduces a little of the battering affect on your slide operation, which in theory would lessen the felt recoil. No help, and in fact, there was a return to the sharp recoil feeling??? I removed the shock washer, but kept the FLGR....... As several other posts have stated, the guide rod is for guiding the recoil spring, and for me, no effect on accuracy. More importantly than the size of the guide rod is to make sure the tighter coils of the spring are pushed firmly onto the rod. Installed the other way can lead to spring binding, "they" say, but fully half of the 1911 platform semi-autos I have disassembled, had the spring in backward, with seemingly no effect... Nice Smith ! Regards
