Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 1911 ....Why is it..

Oh SURE!!!! And that is why the OP started this thread. To quote you: He doesn't have a clue what exactly "quality" means or how it relates to manufacturing or claims by a manufacture.

And the military ordinance department Sarge mentions doesn't know anything either. They are just a bunch of dumb asses. But you know what? We didn't have the problems with 1911's back then that we have today. All of the parts in those military guns would interchange. I guess that was just luck?? It had nothing to do with manfacturing standards or quality? Try interchanging parts in some of these new GEE WHIZZ 1911's today and see how far you get with that.

I wish all of you who believe the glib Madison Avenue advertising hype splashed all over every gun magazine out there and therefore know everything would just spit it out here so we could learn it and then you wouldn't have to be correcting we dumb asses all the time.

NEWS FLASH: There were dam good 1911's around a loooong time before Kimber and the other "we make 1911's too pistols" ever even thought about making a pistol and some of you boys need to learn that.

It's only substantiated by experience, smallfry; mine. I don't expect everyone to agree with it. When someone does disagree, I count it as a difference of opinion. Simple as that.

I started building/rebuilding 1911's under the tutelage of an old Army armorer who spent some time at AMTU. He knew his stuff and had a seemingly endless supply of USGI parts. Those parts are all but dried up now. There are plenty of 1911 parts that are as good as USGI. I haven't rebuilt one for 4-5 years so I can't comment on current production. I like Wilson parts except their extractors, Ed Brown without reservation and MGW about as well. Wilson' 'factory plus' parts are what I use when I wan good, GI grade replacements.

In closing, I don't consider or represent myself to be anything other than an armorer-level mechanic.

The "military ordinance department", the various contracts and agreements the military had with mfgs', and the methods they had for incoming inspection are irrelevant to the civilian market for 1911s today. Almost all manufactures today aren't claiming thier 1911s are exact replicas of 1911s made for the U.S. gov. or that their parts are interchangeable with all other manufactures. Like I said, "Sarges" advice on buying Kuhnhausens book is literally priceless for a variety of reasons.

Sarge, I hear ya.

SF, I completly agree with that. But what pisses me off is some of these so called "modern makers" claiming their guns are superior to the originals and that they have "improved" them. That is simply not true because it is the originals that established the 1911's well deserved and hard earned reputation for reliability which is something many so called "modern 1911 pistols" do not have. What they have is advertising hype and glossy ads.

And I KNOW from painful experience, that many of todays parts do not interchange in many 1911 guns. They require hand fitting before they will work. What we have today are 1911 PATTERN guns, because they dam sho AIN'T an original Browning designed 1911 or 1911 A-1 pistol. If they were, they would work and we wouldn't have forum threads like this one.

But what the heck? It's something to talk and argue about until it cools off and hunting season get's here.

For what it's worth, if any of you boys feel inclined to build a 1911 pistol, I have not had problems with parts fitting or interchanging in the 1911 Colt built frames or slides, but I siick with the Series 70 guns because of the triggers. I was able to make a Series 80 Officers Model trigger improve a lot, but those new triggers with the firing pin block are an unnecessary aggravation, so I stay away from them and if you want a good trigger, you may want to also avoid them. And if you are afraid to carry a Series 70 type gun with a round in the chamber, cocked and locked, a 1911 ain't the pistol for you anyway. I even pin my grip safety down because I don't want to have to grip it like that to make it fire in case my shooting hand gets injured in the fight, or I have to shoot it weak (left) handed. But then, that's just me. I don't forget to take the safety off. It's an automatic thing.

I recently bought a stainless steel Taurus PT 1911 because it was cheap and a good platform to build a pistol on. It has a forged and machined frame and slide and came with good Heinie Straight Eight sights. I was a little anxious stripping all the MIM parts out (which means all of them) and replacing them with Cylinder and Slide parts, but I had no problems doing that and only the safety needed a little hand fitting, and even that didn't need much. It actually worked as a drop in, but it didn't work as smooth as I wanted, so I polished it up and that solved the problem.

I replaced the Henie rear sight with a Bomar (yeah. You have to file or machine the rear of the slide to make it fit) and installed a magazine funnel. I use that pistol for area combat matches and have no problems with it at all. It's had about 4000 rounds through it so far without a hickup of any kind while shooting my reloads and the accuracy has remained excellent using the Taurus barrel and bushing. I was surprised and pleased with that. I had expected to have to replace them also. If you can get over brand names on your pistol, you might want to try one of those. Or not. Some guys just have to have that fancy brand name. It must be nice to have money.

Catching up today on this thread.



Now we talking good stuff here.

1911forum.com has nothing over this thread.

Kudos

A friend of mine wanted to out do me on his 1911. For his first 1911 he bought a $8,000.00 Cabot new. He had many problems with that gun. We finally got it running, but it should have never left the shop like that. If you knew this friend of mine, you would say it could not have happen to a nicer fella.

He ate Crow.

A lot of FANCY 1911 owners have learned to like Crow because they have had to eat so much of it. I also have a friend who has two FANCY 1911's with the same FANCY name on both of them. That of course, means that he is twice as good. He failed to finish the last combat match after having broken BOTH of his FANCY guns and finished the match under alibi shooting my Taurus PT 1911 pistol with the modifications previously mentioned. Oh the SHAME of it!!! He'll NEVER live it down.

Actually, I feel sorry for those guys. They laid out good money and they have the right to expect it to be like the advertising hype. But they also had the responsibility of actually going to matches and seeing what works and what does not. But did they do that?? Helllllll Noooooooo. They went to a FANCY gun forum where everybody owned one and they all said their FANCY pistols were perfect. Many of those responding had probably NEVER even fired their FANCY pistol because they didn't want to ruin the "collectors" value of an unfired FANCY pistol.

I got one of those FANCY pistols on a rifle trade, but it is blue and if you shoot combat with it much, it will quickly wear the finish. That is why I went to the stainless Taurus to build a competetion pistol. Stainless pistols don't show the wear nearly as bad as blued guns do. You can completely wear off almost all of the finish on a blue gun in one season. It's no big deal. It doesn't change how the pistol shoots. Actually, that is how I spot the real pistoleros at a match before it even starts. Their blue guns look like schitt because they have shot them so much and holster worn them. So watch out for the guy with the ugly pistol.

Who made his 1911's?



Clark

So there are no quality production 1911's?

I can't carry a gun I put together.

Dink

Clark, they are Kimber's. I don't mean to pick on them, but they just AIN'T all they are cracked up to be IN MY OPINION and I could be wrong. And yes, I own a nice Kimber 45 auto pistol. It is one of the first batch made and it has the Clackamas, OR roll mark on the frame. I don't shoot it much because I have the Taurus gun and a Colt made in 1942 (the year I was born) during WWII. The Colt was apparently issued to an officer because it had not been shot much and the finish is excellent. I got it in 1962 from a guy who had a 5 gallon bucket full of Colts and cosmoline. Actually, he owed me 40 bucks and asked if I would take a pistol instead of the money and I was happy to do that. My dad looked at it after I got the cosmoline off and told me it had likely been an officers pistol or stored in a military arseonel because of the condition it is in. It had only been made 20 years when I got it and I have had it the 54 years since. All of them are steel 5 inch barreled pistols like Browning designed them to be.

Dink. I feel for you. Like Sarge says, buy a Colt made pistol. Then send it one of the 45 auto pistol smiths of your choice and have them go through it for you. I used to have Jim Clark over in Louisana do mine, but Jim is dead now and I don't know who the modern day hot rock pistol smiths are any more. Or heck, see if Sarge will do that for you. He is a lot younger than I am and can still see. I would offer to do it, but I am 74 and scheduled for cataract eye surgery later this summer. I can't see well enough to do good close work anymore. I do it for myself, but I don't want to do it for anyone else. It ain't easy getting old, but that sure as hell beats the other option.

Ditto

Especially the new models.


Blue Book of guns does not like Kimber's. Their values fall fast.

For the average fella,if you have a Kimber for Conceal carry, just don't go out and sell it. Just put it through the motions. A lot. Make sure you can count on it. Cost cutting measures tend to surface over time.

And, they don't fit my hand as well as a 1911.

I guess I'm one of the fortunate ones who have owned multiple 1911's and never "had" to tinker with one to get it to function.

I've had after-market magazine and ammo problems that caused malfunctions, but not a single one that I could attribute to the design or the manufacture. I have owned Colts and Springfields in full-size, Commander, and Officer's models.

I am a Colt factory trained armorer and have built several 1911's, including the two I currently have which are built on Springfield frames and slides.

The older 1911's, pre-CNC tooling, quite often need tuning up to become 100% reliable, and it's usually extractor and/or magazine issues that cause the problems.

The 1911 was not John Browning's final design and is not the "be-all, end-all" solution some folks claim.

It just happens to work for me and I trust my life to it.

One aspect of the thumb safety on a 1911 was, when I started shooting an AR-15, manipulation of the safety was automatic for me.

Ed

Sure there are. But you can't tell if you got a 'quality' one until you run 500 rounds of ball with no malfs except those conclusively attributed to out of spec rounds. I had a new mid 90's 1991A1 Commander that never choked in 4000 rounds rounds of ball, JHP or SWC reloads. More recently, I had a nickel rock Island GI that choked a few times when new. I discovered it had a short chamber, but RIA sent me a new, perfect barrel in 7 days flat. That one ran thousands of mixed loads and went to cop friend who left the biz for real money. He still shoots the piz outta that gun and it just chugs on like the Energizer Bunny. So it's not about buying a certain brand to get a good gun. You simply pay your money, take your chances and correct any small deficiencies you find.

The best analogy is that a 1911 is like a Briggs and Stratton one-lunger. Use good parts, put it together to factory specs and the damn thing can't help but RUN.

People I trust tell me recent production Colts are as good as they've ever been.



A couple of years with a Sig 220 started me down a trail that eventually led me away from the 1911. These days my 'Commander' is a Sig 229 in 40 caliber. It is as mechanically accurate as anything this side of a hard-fit match gun. It's grip fits me and it's SA trigger is sweet and crisp enough that 6" plates at 25 yards are no work at all, shooting one handed. The 22X Series Sigs are fantastic pistols.

The 1911 design is cool. It's just not practical.





Dave

What ain't practical is get caught somewhere when a bad guy comes in and starts shooting up the place and there you stand with no 1911 auto. Talk about not being practical? Funerals ain't practical unless they are for the bad guy.

Agreed, I've more or less gone strictly to carrying one of my P226s. The grip on a 229 is just a tad too short for me and I keep inadvertently hitting the slide release

Huh?



Dave

Colts built today are a good as they ever were for sure.


A genuine 1911 (1991A1) can be had for $799.99 List. Everything is built correctly. $22.00 Colt magazines ( C's and M's)are the industry standard in reliability. Hard to beat.

I don't know that the 1911s carried in WWII were all that great, on the whole. My dad carried and cussed them throughout the japanese island campaign. He was not a fan, and claimed that they were not reliable. He was not an avid handgunner by any means, though.

I like the 1911, and consider it my favorite centerfire pistol to shoot, bar none. I've bought new colts and old RIAs. Problems have been few and mostly related to hillbilly gunsmithing and/or bad magazines.

The 1911 is not my favorite gun to carry.

He's saying if you're unfortunate enough to get caught in that situation with a Glock, Sig, S&W, CZ or anything except a 1911 you're S.O.L.. You know, because "they all fall to hardball." But only if it's fired from a 1911.