1911 Pistols: Myth vs Reality And My Experience

[buckshotbarlow]

before my boat sunk and house burned down, causing me to loose all my guns, i had 4 1911's. The sig xo has ran like money, never failed. I now use it as my nra instructor gun. My SFA ran like a typewriter, and now another member on the forum has it. My dad really loved our 2 colts, but now they are boat anchors. They also ran like typewriters...If I had to pick one to put my life behind, it'd be the sig. Great lock up and never had a problem...

SFA milspec SS
1991 series 80 colts x 2
Sig X0

Only money i put into the guns were new sights, bigger beavers and smaller grips.

[asmo]

I've had 1911s that have worked right out of the box (Kimber/Les Bauer) and I have had 1911s that I spent more time futzing with to get right than I ever care to remember (Colt, STI, RRA, Wilson, etc). In the end, I want a gun that I can pick up - from anywhere - and know I could, with a very high degree of probability, defend my life with it as my only gun. So I got rid of all my 1911s - I don't have time to dick with machinery and I don't feel confident enough in them (in them, not with them) to carry them.

Just my $0.02.

[MarkCO]

The ones I had in the very early '90s had some minor issues. But in general, I have had very few problems with them. Bought a few used, mostly new and still have them and use them.

[<MADDOG>]

The three that I personally owned (Taurus, Colt 70, and Les Baer), I never had a problem with. My fiancee's S&W, another story: I had to do a complete teardown to fix an issue ( I can't remember what it was, but it was common to the S&W's).

I have sinced moved on from the 1911 platform, and have no intention on going back.

[brutal]

I only own one (real) 1911 and while my Springfield Loaded has been mostly flawless, I did have some stovepipe issues running some new Wilson mags while the gun was somewhat dirty, as in two or three range trips and not cleaned dirty. Cleaned it, oiled it, and it ran like a champ again. Would love to own a TRP. Would love to own a Sig in 1911.

My mini wannabe 1911 style P238 is pure reliability. Haven't shot the P938 yet, but I expect the same. But then, these aren't real 1911's are they? Particularly since the P938 has an external extractor.

[BPTactical]

My .02
You get what you pay for.
Rock Island, Armscor, Taurus and the rest of Phillipino, Turkish etc made items are cast frames/slides for the most part, with tolerances all over the place which is normal for cast items.
Poor machining, lack of consistency.
Taurus is the worst of the lot, what fits one pistol ok may require major work on another identical pistol. I just had to spend 2 hours of careful file work on a PT1911 to try and correct bad trigger slot machining in the frame so a Greider trigger would fit. Got it to fit but there is a 1/16" gap between the top of the trigger and the frame.
Horse hockey.
Colt had major QC issues late 80's to mid 90's but as long as the frame and slides are machined correctly, usually repairable with quality components.
Never seen a bad Springy from the factory aside from the occasional little tweak need like tuning an extractor etc.
Not a Kimber fanboy at all, I have worked on a bunch of them out of the box that would not run and majority was for stupid minor crap that should have never left the factory that way such as barrels overhanging the ramp, bad extractors, out of spec mag catch machining and such.
Their external extractors are crap.
When they were a small volume manufacturer their pistols were very good but going big hurt them in the QC area.
I also think you pay too much for what you get. Order a custom Colt or Springy and you get a handcrafted pistol that was built by a true pistolsmith.
Do that with a Kimber and you get a assembly line gun that has aftermarket parts assembled by a group of technicians, not a pistolsmith.
Their customer service sucks.
That being said, you get a good one, they do ok.

MIM parts-MIM stands for Metal Injection Molding. Metal powder is mixed with a binder agent, usually a plastic or resin and injected at high heat and pressure into a mold. It is a way of producing large amounts of relatively close tolerance parts quickly.
The problems arise when you look at the pitfalls of any molding process, for steel items the molds are actually 3% oversize to account for shrinkage, hard to hold really precise tolerances with a 3% fudge factor. Also molded components can suffer from cold wrinkles, voids and the like.
I will stick with precision machined tool steel components.
Nighthawk-again overpriced for what you get.
Wilson- you get a good one and they are great.
ParaOrdinance-where is the puke icon when you need it?
Les Baer, Yost, Cylinder and Slide- Crime de la creme, none finer.
Volkmann-very nice but pricey.

[Bailey Guns]

My mini wannabe 1911 style P238 is pure reliability.

I love the P238. When I was a member of Kimber's dealer advisory board (06-08) that was the most recommended pistol from dealers to add to the Kimber lineup. Higher ups said it was a non-starter and wouldn't sell. Meanwhile, Colt has reintroduced the Mustang and Sig is selling the hell outta the 238.

Funny story about a P238. I bought one new and like a dummy, sold it. The guy I sold it to said it didn't work and couldn't hit anything with it when it did work. I told him to bring it over. Put 2 or 3 mags through it without a problem and accuracy was impressive. He didn't believe it was shooting where I was aiming for some reason. He took a small twig and stuck it into a hole in cardboard target. He placed a 12ga hull on the twig with the primer facing me (the shooter). He said he's believe it was shooting where I was aiming when I hit that shell. This is the first 3 shots from about 10 yards (the first shot was directly through the center of the primer):



I wound up buying the gun back from him.

[wctriumph]

I have owned 4 1911's, the first being a AMT. I don't really count this one in my poll response because it was so bad. The store I bought it from was owned by a retired Marine armorer and he could not get it to work, took it back to the factory in Arcadia in person twice and they made it better but never so i could trust it. Not once did it feed and fire a full mag without a stovepipe or misfeed. I traded it for a 8mm camcorder that I never used and eventually gave to my sister in law and I still consider that I received the better part of the deal.
Two SA that worked flawlessly and my current Colt which has worked perfectly once I put 200 rounds through her.

[battle_sight_zero]

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[O2HeN2]

I bought a Gold Cup during the 1980s that wouldn't even feed ball and I had to send it back to Colt. Then it worked like a charm. It went on to be modified and became my first IPSC gun (well, second, shot my 686 revolver for awhile first).

I've had several 1911s since then.

The 1911 design requires an excessive amount of complex machining to make, there are several fittings that require close tolerances and therefore the 1911 is quite susceptible to tolerance stack-up. It's a very, very poor design to cheaply mass produce in this day and age. All you have to do is look at any of the modern tactical tupperware firearms out there to see the improvements made above and beyond the 1911 design in terms of simplification, overcoming tolerance stack-up and cost reduction.

Despite all that, I love 1911s nevertheless!

O2