An inch is huge in my book. There is no way to control the alignment with that much movement, thus it is "squirrely".
I have always felt that there should be essentially no play in the pins and just a tiny bit in the bearings. Some toe in takes care of that under normal driving and makes the steering feel solid. Some folks like the bearing tight, I like a very little play.
I have no experience with swapping axles, I have only overhauled to factory specs, someone else will need to help with that.
