Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Is a Wilson Combat "worth it?" Check out these pics...

If you weren't a reputable & reliable source, that would be hard to believe.......what time frame was that from as that is just unbelievable from any manufacturer, much less Wilson; I'd love to hear their response today. That gun obviously had sear & hammer engagement issues.

As to a Wilson Supergrade & any other cosmetically fancied up gun, 1911 or not, they are just absolutely never worth the money paid and are usually just an ego stroker.

As to Wilson's in general, I've had the opportunity to handle & shoot 10 or so different versions w/o any issues......they have all been very, very smooth & well done......but those are/were fairly recent vintages.

Of the dozen or so 1911's that I currently own, one is a Wilson X-Tac, a fairly plain Jane, low end gun as Wilson's go.

It is extremely smooth, very accurate & has performed perfectly over around 2,000 rounds, mostly 200 gr SWC handloads; the trigger is clean & crisp at 3.5 lb........it's as good a gun as anyone could ask for; I have not done a single thing to it other than to shoot it. My wife, who is not the biggest fan nor the best with a 1911, even shoots it very well.

MM

That's what I bought a plain jane Classic. It seems to shoot just honky dory. I have well over a thousand rounds through it and that is since June.

I don't care if people have BBQ guns but I wanted a shooter. To be honest if I won the billion dollar lottery I would not want anything different than what I have.

I will say that the Willsons that I have been around functioned flawlessly, but I was less than impressed with their accuracy especialy for the price. I had much less money in mine and mine were more accurately and functioned just as flawlessly.

Geez, if you can't build a .45 1911 that functions flawlessly you shouldn't be building guns. As a builder of custom 1911's myself, I'd really like to tear down a Wilson sometime to see just what they do with them as far as fitting.

As I said earlier Wilson's is a cult thing but I think all custom makers is a cult thing for the people who own a particular maker's gun.

As to fit I think that the guns are very tightly fitted' maybe too tightly fitted sometimes' but probably not any better fitted than any other custom maker's gun.

What Wilson's does have is that they no longer use MIM or cast parts for what they call their bullet proof parts. These parts are machined from bar stock. Also Wilson's bullet proof ambi safety is as good or better than Colt's old ambi safety. No sloppiness at all. And their battle sight is super for tired old eyes with cataracts.

I don't believe Les Baer has ever made use of MIM parts.

That maybe true I don't know. Wilson builds most if not all their parts in house now. Wilson just move to new buildings the other because they out grew everything else.

I've heard some things that lead me to believe some of the Wilsons are perhaps too tightly fitted in some areas for optimum performance. Some of this is undoubtedly due to consumer demand for tight,tight,tight when they really don't know that super tight ain't neccesarily "right" or indicative of proper fitting in some areas.

Based on what I've seen, I'd not say that is not true, but I've only seen a limited number.

Snug, yes, but not overly tight & no barrel wrench needed for the bushing. Barrel lockup on all has been well fitted in all the right places.

The slides on all the ones I've handled (as well as Nighthawks) have all felt like they were on ball bearings.........much better feel than any Baer I ever handled.

As for accuracy, all I've seen were plenty good in spite of not offering a 50 yard guarantee; their guarantee is 1" at 25 yards.

MM

I was talking with Joe Chambers (http://chamberscustom.com) about a year ago about custom 1911's and mentioned that I just couldn't bring myself to like cast parts on serious guns (actually it was during an anti-Ruger rant ). He mentioned that over his career, he's seen a lot of cracked Colt 1911 frames, but NEVER has he seen a cracked cast 1911 frame of any manufacturers. I hate it when people point out how subjectively ignorant I am.

I forget, were you 'for' or 'against'?

Yup...really happened...even worse the owner of the gun, who was a member of the combat shooting group I ran, was named...Wilson...Frank Wilson.

Time wise it was a while ago... Maybe early 2000s. Wilson didn't make the 1911s for TR very long as I recall so if you can find out when that was that would be the time period. As I recall it was between $2300-2500.00. You would think that when someone sent back a gun that the trigger pull was too light and was going burst fire they would have put a trigger scale on the remake before it was returned...

Bob

Best one is the upper right

On a gun that doubles, the problem really isn't the trigger, per se'; it's the sear and/or hammer hooks..........the sear can be cut too low or the hammer hooks too short or a combination of both. The trigger pull is just a manifestation of the other problems.

MM

John, you always get a smile out of me with your humor............given the ones I've been exposed to, I'm pretty strongly "for".

MM

I know,it's a keeper,now looking for another for the SIL...