Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Vega 1911's, the nightmare that was ours to sort out

It's so cool to have James here because he has a better memory than I do, but one thing we'd all like to forget is Vega Arms. At this point, it would be cool to have James chime in on how Vega came about, and why they were such lousy guns (but great magazines).

I can tell you this...James and I can make ANY friggin 1911 work. Because it was us who had to assemble these guns from reject parts, or fix the ones that came in for warranty repair ('bout half of them). We've truely been in 1911 hell.

I arrived after Vega had offically ceased operations, but there were still many guns to be fixed, and I still assembled a few. James and his dad was there for the good (and it started out very good), the bad (quickly turned to bad), and the ugly.

A word to the wise (although most know it); DON'T buy a Vega, but do buy a Vega magazine.

Actually, I'd love to own an actual working Vega just for old time's sake.

Don't let bricktop hear you talk about his favorite chocolate guns!

So, I don't suppose Vega ever produced a Pinto?

Dan

sounds like they were kin to AMT's, which were pretty, but terrible 1911's

A friend of mine had a Crown City slide on a Vega frame, and it was a pretty nice pistola, but his dad had built it, and his dad knew what he was doing.

The internals for Randall, AMT, and Vega were all sourced from the same suppliers; they're the exact same parts...sort of. Randall got first pick, AMT second, and Vega got what was leftover.

If you find a Vega frame that has the holes drilled in the right spots, then you can have a nice gun. I've built many Vega's that worked just fine with FMJ ammo, but it was a nightmare building them. When the holes are in the right spots, things go well. When they're not, you can still get things working, and the gun will work just fine; until you break a part.

IMHO it was a toss up between the the Vega and the Pinto. I guess the Vega was better, it just broke down all the time, the Pinto blew up.


Oh, wait, we're talking firearms here aren't we?

Wow.the Vega's...I so remember those nightmares. The tooling was done by Frank Eddy of EMC. He also did all the tooling for Randall and some for AMT. One of the problems with the Vega's was incosistant holes and too many differnt small parts suppliers. Mp two runs had the same set of suppliers ever. Frank used various job shops all over the SoCal area to do the work on the frames. I doubt if one shop did more than 1 or two runs before the next run went to another job shop. There were at least 3 differnt barrel mfg's that did the Vega barrels. The best ones came from Bo Clerke. The tooling in all of its various incarnations were all over SoCal in the various job shops and for sale to cover some unpaid bills by Vega. The mags were all the same as Randall as on some of the Vega marked mags you can look into mag (after removing the follower and spring) and see the Randall mark on the other side of the floor plate..LOL....great mags.....RatSmacker (love the name) mentioned a Crown city Slide on a Vega Frame...funny thing there is that both the Crown City Slides and the Vega slide started out coming from the same tooling. Now that changed as the Crown City stuff got a rework by Bo Clerke and those are great slides. I have been looking of a Vega myself....I love Sacramento (my hometown) and its the only mass marketed gun to ever wear a Sacramento, CA address on it...sort of want it for nostalga's sake. One other issue was the type of SS used to make the frames and slides...its not the best SS at all...dont remember which one it is but it was prone to casting oclusions and as such the rejection rate of the rough castings was huge...there were a couple of casting houses in SoCal that were dumping the 2nd's off cheap...I still have some of the slide castings as paperweights

The first 1911 I owned was a AMT; it once jammed so badly I had to beat it apart with a soft hammer It went down the road not much later. I've seen a couple of Vegas but don't think they ever had much of a reputation.

Nowadays I probably have enough knowledge and patience to get one to run, but unless it was really cheap I wouldn't bother, I have plenty of nice 1911's now.

With a name ike Vega they had to be good!

I carried a Randall SS 45 for a while. Got a good one but this is an intersting story. Thanks for the heads up to avoid the Vaga Frames and guns!