Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 1911 Fans - What Would You Say to This?

What's your reaction to a FACTORY gun with these specs? And how much would you be willing to pay for it?

Commander-sized .45 ACP, weighing only 29 ounces, with a bobtail grip, 8+1 rounds, 4.25 in barrel, 7.95 in. overall, G10 custom grips, Scandium alloy frame, stainless slide (two-tone gun), match-grade trigger with 3.5-4 lb. pull, competition speed hammer, throated barrel, precision crowned muzzle, polished feed ramp, Briley spherical barrel bushing, 30-lines per inch checkering, ambi frame safety, distinctive ported lightening cuts in slide forend, hand-cut chamber, hand-polished feed ramp, hand-tuned action job and hand-lapped frame and slide rails.

Kentucky - Most of it looks pretty good to me. I don't care for the ported/lightened slide but other than that it sounds pretty fine if the work is well done.

I don't believe you could better than what you just listed.

It exists. It's brand new from a major manufacturer. What price would you guess it lists for?

1750????

Who makes it?

Smith, I'll pass, until I find one to shoot. Not a fan of those front slide cuts either.

MSRP is 1530. New from S&W Performance Center. I'll have one in my hands to test in a few weeks. If it performs... this will be interesting.

Do you get a choice of grip colors?

No, I'll dig up a photo in a bit.

I would blacken the whole thing if I owned it. lol

To each their own. I kind of like the look. The slide cuts don't bother me at all -- especially when getting weight down to 29 ounces. Its big brother is tuned for competition, but this might just turn out to be a very good carry piece.

Yep..

I'd still like to see someone make a titanium slide on aluminum frame, but from what I gather it's just a nightmare to machine.

I like everything about it aside from the slide cuts IMHO

The slide cuts are a complete deal breaker for me. I can barely stomach front slide serrations, and they're tame compared to the huge slots on this new pistol. Personally I don't care for S&W's scalloped rear serrations either. They're on my M&P40, and tend to fill up with dirt---------and blood from my left hand.

I'm an unabashed traditionalist. I like my 1911s as clean and simple as possible (within reason). S&W has a different vision, and that's OK since they own the company and want to offer things that other companies don't.

This news will make Ed Brown even cheerier!

He's definitely NOT a cheerful person. Is there a back story I missed--------like he's suing anyone who bobs the frame?

Those holes or cuts on a carry gun are nothing but dirt and lint collectors . I would rather have the pistol without them . Other wise a great looking pistol.

There�s a good reason why you don�t see such custom pistols on aluminum frames; they are a righteous pain to work with. So much so, that pretty much only a manufacturer could produce such a thing for that price. If anyone else tried it, the price would be much higher. When you fit slide rails, you�re actually lapping down the surface of the aluminum. When you do that, you have to re-anodize the frame, because anodizing is a very important part of the hardening process for aluminum. Same thing for checkering on an aluminum gun. The anodizing protects the checkering very well, but eventually you will wear thorough the anodizing, and then that checkering will wear out very quickly. For this reason, anytime I did checkering on an aluminum frame, I always insisted that my customer hard chrome the frame; that makes it all but indestructible. Just keep that in mind if a decade from now you see the anodizing beginning to wear through.

All in all, that�s one very nice pistol and I�m sure you�ll be VERY happy with it. I have a SW1911PD and it�s been my daily carry piece for a good 8 years now and I don�t have any plans on replacing it anytime soon. Mine weighs 27.5 oz from the factory. I think the difference may be the mainspring housing, yours being steel, mine being aluminum. Regardless, the 2oz is negligible. I have found my SW1911PD to be pretty much the ideal carry piece, so I�m betting you�ll find yours to be as well; even more so since overall it�s a nicer gun.

I have made several changes to mine, but as to function; it�s really a stock gun. I swapped out the full length guide rod for the standard arrangement; I really dislike the full length guide rods. I was fortunate in that a friend with a Colt�s Commander was looking for a FL guide rod, so we just swapped. I added PT Night Sights to mine, replacing the Novak�s that it came with. I swapped out the silver trigger for a black one; just cosmetics on that. And I blued the hammer to give it an all black appearance. Again, just cosmetic.

Functionally, I put around 1k rounds through her per year and she has yet to have a single bobble whatsoever. It�s accurate, and the trigger was great right out of the box, no need to mess with it. I find it to be very easy in an IWB. Congratulations�VERY nice carry piece there!