Maybe they're lots better made now, but the broken gun I saw was made of the finest faucet metal known to mankind.
These guys wouldn't even put rifling in the barrels if it wasn't a BATF requirement.
“Maybe they’re lots better made now ...”
They’re not. The safeties and trigger bars still slip when the grips warp, the firing pin springs are weak, and they still contain the lifetime RDA of zinc.
If you want a really cool paperweight, get a plated one for twenty bucks and take a plumber’s torch to the front of the slide. The zinc runs out and makes a puddle, but the plating retains the shape of the slide.