Incidentally, despite watching several youtube videos and reading the owner's manual, I STILL cannot manage to strip down my Rock Island Armory Compact 1911 for the life of me. I can pull my Colt 1911 apart like it's a stick of butter, but the RIA has me totally flummoxed. It's like all the videos and the manual are about a different gun: Nobody talks about how difficult one particular step can be.
I've thought about just going ahead and taking it to the range and putting a couple of hundred rounds through it. Maybe it'll loosen up after that and I'll be able to disassemble it. But I still haven't done it.