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Sidearms & Scatterguns 1911's Love/Hate

Re: 1911's Love/Hate

This again?

Love and hate are two faces of the same emotion: Passion

And they are both just outward expressions of personal opinion. We all know what opinions are like...

Me personally? I shoot/carry an old Springfield Compact (Colona, IL marked). Why? Single stack fits my hand, and its what I train with, and ALL I train with. We're a 1911 family.

Sneak in the back window at night? My hubby will introduce you to his 1911, a 1918 manufacture Colt that's still his go-to piece even though its 94 years old.

You shoot what you want to, and what feels right in the hand. If you buy based on brand and the opinions of others then you are probably too stupid to own a handgun. When people ask what handgun I would recommend, I tell them to go to a range that rents and choose the one that fits and feels the best.

But your mileage may vary. One thing I will always hold the strongest opinion about? If you carry and regularly go in harms way, don't screw around like the range commando's that have a bench that could double as a gunshow table covered in every POS known to man. Learn to shoot one, and shoot it well. Muscle memory can save your life.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Downzero</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: X-fan</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I do most of my shooting with a 2011 and for competition. I don't think it gets much better....They pretty much go bang every time....Though as much as you would expect a 2,000.00 STI to run out of the box they don't...Pure bullshit INHO. Once tuned mine have been at least as reliable as a Glock.
</div></div>

That's not been my experience, AT ALL. My STIs are nicer in every imaginable way compared to my other guns, and they have a lifetime warranty.

The only problem I ever had with one of them turned out to be about 20 bullets in a box of 500 that were .004" oversized and had nothing to do with the gun itself.

If your experience is different, you are definitely the exception. </div></div>


Easy on the Koolaid dude!

Both STI Edges I own have need every mag tuned before they run 100%. Do a search you will find I am far from alone...In fact this is well....Commonplace.
It is so common my dealer offers it as an optional service...Not a big deal, but it pisses me off.

You think Dawson sells this for looking at?
http://www.dawsonprecision.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80000868-1194659225


Brian Enos himself
http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=5188&st=0#entry65267

Think these mags would exist if STIs ran perfect?
http://www.thundermountaincustomrifle.com/WhatsNew.html

If something isn't right it isn't right.
I don't give a shit what I paid for it.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Pointblank4445</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> You need to learn how to PROPERLY fit your own parts if you don't want to send it off to the smith when something goes wrong. Of course this commitment is already on top of the the several thousand dollars spent on the gun itself.

</div></div>

already making it sound way scarier than it is.
No need to spend thousands of dollars on the gun itself. There are hundreds of thousands of Kimbers, STI's, Sigs, Springfields and Philipino 1911's shooting tens of thousands of trouble free rounds, all for well under a grand.
If you buy a new 1911 and it doesn't work, don't arse around, send the fucker back to it's maker and get a gun that works just like you'd expect from any other platform. Or , indeed, anything else you pay good money for.
If your gun is working, the only things you need to learn to properly fit are different grips, the recoil spring and maybe the extractor. When people start ordering shit from the Brownells 1911 catalogue, that's when things start going tits up.

 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate



This is why I love my 1911.....45's just make bigger holes in targets than most other calibers short of 44's & 50AE. This target was shot at 25 yards with my Fusion Tact-5/. Accuracy is just crazy but thats to be expected from a custom 1911.

While I still am a 1911 fanatic, I am going to get a Gen 4 Glock 21 in 45 just because I know can beat the hell out of it, scratch it or piss on it and it'll still work.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: X-fan</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Easy on the Koolaid dude!

Both STI Edges I own have need every mag tuned before they run 100%. Do a search you will find I am far from alone...In fact this is well....Commonplace.
It is so common my dealer offers it as an optional service...Not a big deal, but it pisses me off.

You think Dawson sells this for looking at?
http://www.dawsonprecision.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80000868-1194659225


Brian Enos himself
http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=5188&st=0#entry65267

Think these mags would exist if STIs ran perfect?
http://www.thundermountaincustomrifle.com/WhatsNew.html

If something isn't right it isn't right.
I don't give a shit what I paid for it. </div></div>'

I have yet to see a stock STI that will not run with 100%, factory, untuned, unmanipulated, as-assembled magazines from STI. Magazines are tuned to maximize capacity for various USPSA divisions, especially in the Limited division, where the difference between an 18-19 round magazine and 20-21 is important to a lot of competitors.

I would gladly stuff my gun full of stock mags and shoot Limited-10 all day long. The only Kool-Aid is from the people who sell you the "service" of tuning mags. The best part, for them, is that they're making retail profit on the magazines, which is $30-40 each, and then charging you another $30-40 for "tuning."

You can link to other forums and talk all the trash you want, my experience is based on loading my mags with ammo, taking them to the range, emptying them, and repeating this process. Actual results are pretty hard to argue with.

The only other thing I'd mention is that no magazine lasts forever, and while if it were a cheap mag like a Glock mag, you'd replace the springs a few times and then throw it away, STI magazines cost at least 3x as much as a Glock magazine, and so continuing to adjust the feed lips to assure long, reliable life is part of the economies of owning an 2011.

I am not an apologist for STI's stuff. I wouldn't recommend them if I hadn't tried their competitors. STI's stuff is consistently higher quality than anything else I've seen on the market that is even remotely close to their price.

There are definitely some tips and tricks to getting a 2011 to run perfectly, which I would be willing to share if someone asked. But the suggestion that STIs aren't just as reliable as basically everything else on the market has not been my experience, at all.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

i dont own one but i will one day. Owned a glock and sits gone to bulky for my likes. 1911 are alot more comfortable and look way better imo
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

Day I turned 21 I bought a Glock 23. After a year of shooting with it...I still couldn't hit shit with it. Later traded it for a Glock 26. I can hit what I'm aiming at now (weird that I shoot a smaller gun better I know) but still can't tighten up the group.

Went to an indoor range and started chatting up a guy about his Kimber Custom. As he was packing up he asked if I'd like to pop off a mag. Uh HELL YEAH I WOULD! Never shot a 1911 before but knew the reputation. Target on 10 yards away but was able to put the first 4 round in one ragged hole. Been in love ever since.

Why do I love them? Because being able to hit what I'm aiming at consistently is more important to me than how many rounds the gun can hold.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Downzero</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
I have yet to see a stock STI that will not run with 100%, factory, untuned, unmanipulated, as-assembled magazines from STI. Magazines are tuned to maximize capacity for various USPSA divisions, especially in the Limited division, where the difference between an 18-19 round magazine and 20-21 is important to a lot of competitors.

I would gladly stuff my gun full of stock mags and shoot Limited-10 all day long. The only Kool-Aid is from the people who sell you the "service" of tuning mags. The best part, for them, is that they're making retail profit on the magazines, which is $30-40 each, and then charging you another $30-40 for "tuning."

You can link to other forums and talk all the trash you want, my experience is based on loading my mags with ammo, taking them to the range, emptying them, and repeating this process. Actual results are pretty hard to argue with.

The only other thing I'd mention is that no magazine lasts forever, and while if it were a cheap mag like a Glock mag, you'd replace the springs a few times and then throw it away, STI magazines cost at least 3x as much as a Glock magazine, and so continuing to adjust the feed lips to assure long, reliable life is part of the economies of owning an 2011.

I am not an apologist for STI's stuff. I wouldn't recommend them if I hadn't tried their competitors. STI's stuff is consistently higher quality than anything else I've seen on the market that is even remotely close to their price.

There are definitely some tips and tricks to getting a 2011 to run perfectly, which I would be willing to share if someone asked. But the suggestion that STIs aren't just as reliable as basically everything else on the market has not been my experience, at all. </div></div>

My apologies if my last post came off a little hot, but hear me out.

A few years ago I stepped up and bought my first 2011 along with a half dozen spare (untuned) mags. My first range trip proved a disappointing jam fest with 4 of the 6 mags functioning intermittently. Long story short I got the mags tuned up and running and lived happily after. Nearly 5 years later most of the mags are still running perfectly. I am just now getting ready to replace the works.

I got more serious about shooting and bought a second Edge and new mags to go with it. I more or less experienced the same thing and ended up tuning all the of the new mags..I was pretty ticked off after doing some research and finding I was not alone.

Yes, top couple of rounds.
Yes, me pulling the trigger.

Other than that I love my STIs.
Compared to the high end custom 1911s the STIs seem like a hell of a bargain.
I believe my original has gone somewhere around 8000 rounds without a single misfeed...Impressive I think....In fact any malfunction I have experience has been directly related to a reload issue.

I am happy your mileage varied, but I would never pretend this didn't happen.

If you have advise about long term life with STI I am all ears.

peace
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

I'm leaning towards High Points' new 1911 inspired combat sidearm..Although BigJoe is right about kel-tec.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

Wow, pretty in interesting that their is some decent backlash against the sidearm of the US military for 80+ years.

Productions guns will have problems - no matter what they are, glock, colt, kimber, beretta, sig.....whatever. You may luck out and get one of the guns off the line that is a shooter straight out of the box brand new and never have a single problem of any kind. If you get one of these consider yourself lucky.

In my opinion, people who depend on their sidearm for their lives have modifcations done to them. They may send them off to the factory for the "reliability" package, or change out the springs, change mags or put higher lb springs in the mags to help feeding.

I have owned most of these guns - you cannot compare a custom 1911 to a Glock or a Beretta that is straight from the factory. They were designed totally differently. One is hand built and custom fitted and the other is milled from a CNC machine and assembled in 10 minutes with MIM parts that are more prone to failure.

So, to summarize my late night rant. I love my custom 1911 and would be my life on it any day of the week and twice of Sunday. Even my Sig p226 (.357sig) I carried for years never had any failures and I NEVER replaced a single part. However, when it comes to accuracy the 1911 blows away the Sig and all the other handguns I own. This has to be attributed to the way the gun was built and the tight tolerances of the weapon....I don't think its the shooter since I can compare my own accuracy after thousands of rounds through each gun.

I will take any of these bc they will all go bang when you pull the trigger 99.9% of the time....but when things really go downhill I am going to die with my 1911 and several empty mags.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

I am actually surprised that most associate the 1911 with mechanical accuracy because, I think, if anything, the bushing design and link lockup has a possibility for more slop and less accuracy unless carefully fit. Other, more modern "modified Browning" style actions don't suffer from this, although they are generally looser anyway because of the desire for "drop in" fit.

Most of the "accuracy" I associate with the 1911 is my ability to deliver rounds accurately. And, for me, that is more of a function of ergonomics than anything to do with the particular gun or the ammo.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

xemkgj.jpg
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Colt West</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I'm leaning towards High Points' new 1911 inspired combat sidearm..Although BigJoe is right about kel-tec. </div></div>

Surely you jest? Anything High Point is detestable; even the utterance of the name defiles the sanctity of the hide, let alone the inferring that High Point tread sacred ground and produce something 1911 "inspired". You should be banned.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Downzero</div><div class="ubbcode-body">....People hate the 1911 because it's over 100 years old and once you pick one up and shoot it, you'll probably realize that not much, if any, substantial innovation in handguns has occurred in all of that time.....
</div></div>

You don't know how many times I have told people this. There is different, and there may be better for application "X" or situation "Y" but all in all it is a design that has not seen <span style="text-decoration: underline">significant</span> improvement in 100 yrs.

One of the many testaments to the genius of John Moses Browning.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

I love the 1911 they are the most fun to shoot very customizable and with proper care very reliable
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: XTR</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Downzero</div><div class="ubbcode-body">....People hate the 1911 because it's over 100 years old and once you pick one up and shoot it, you'll probably realize that not much, if any, substantial innovation in handguns has occurred in all of that time.....
</div></div>

You don't know how many times I have told people this. There is different, and there may be better for application "X" or situation "Y" but all in all it is a design that has not seen <span style="text-decoration: underline">significant</span> improvement in 100 yrs.

One of the many testaments to the genius of John Moses Browning. </div></div>

The design is timeless, no doubt.

I can't think of anything in all of engineering so enduring.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: SheepsClothes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">. It stood for justice and big American corn Fed breasts and all that nostalgia craps with it.

</div></div>

big American corn fed breasts? thats a first for me in a shooting forum -
shocked.gif
shocked.gif


Are we talking about women , or about the new grilled chicken club from Arby's ? Either sounds acceptable to me
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

I have an illogical love for the 1911. Yes, a combat-worthy 1911 is expensive. Yes, they require more maintenance and hands-on from the owners. But nothing beats that "snik" of a properly fit barrel and the feel of that steel single stack.

I completely agree with Vickers when he said they are an enthusiast's gun. But for combat and general recommendations, I do not point people in the direction of the 1911
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: eternal24k</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> But for combat and general recommendations, I do not point people in the direction of the 1911 </div></div>
Good man.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Saito</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Colt West</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I'm leaning towards High Points' new 1911 inspired combat sidearm..Although BigJoe is right about kel-tec. </div></div>

Surely you jest? Anything High Point is detestable; even the utterance of the name defiles the sanctity of the hide, let alone the inferring that High Point tread sacred ground and produce something 1911 "inspired". You should be banned. </div></div>


Hahaha! Awesome!
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

Hate them because they're single action. LOVE them because they're a classic and they just feel great to shoot. Here's my carry gun
DSCN0672.jpg
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

I can't abide double actions; I hate them almost as much as the Glock trigger, but I tried all of those after pumping 10s of thousands of rounds though my 1911 back in my days of shooting USPSA/IPSC in the late 80s.

Once you've gotten accustomed to the break of a well tuned 1911 trigger the rest just feel wrong.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

I am one of those people who Glocks just don't work for. I have a big hand muscle from years of powerlifting and it gets in the way of the slide operating. Putting an aftermarket beaver tail on helps somewhat, but I still can't get it to run 100%. Never mind gloves, which are a must up here in Maine this time of year.

Now the 1911 is heavy and has low capacity, but I hit great with it and they fit me perfect. So it is the gun that works for me
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

Well I love my 1911's Yep I have 2 of them on was built by a Marine and I remember him asking how do you want it? I told him that it was my carry gun and MUST GO BANG when I pull the trigger. he said OK. It will feed Empty sized cases. It saved my life sometime ago. (Don't Ask) It will be with me until... My other is a Rock River Service pistol it is a work of art to me. It shoots like nothing I have ever had. I thnk after this deployment I am going to get me another 1911 or two.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

I love them, why? Ergonomics outstanding, options outstanding, trigger outstanding, accuracy outstanding, repeatability outstanding ease of operation outstanding. I do like the Glock 10mm and the FN Tactical but I Love my 1911. I hate I do not have the money to buy a few more of the 1911's that are out there.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

Whatever gun you carry, run it with the mags and ammo you will use and then stick with those and you should be ok
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: snipe10</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Whatever gun you carry, run it with the mags and ammo you will use and then stick with those and you should be ok</div></div>
Umm...where did this come from?

I see no one's taken me up on that list yet either...
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

sorry, to the point, I love my 1911's. I just make sure to shoot with the mags and ammo that I carry so I know they'll work. When doing that, i've had no issues.

I should have been more specific in my post.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

I carry a gun for a living. Have for some time now. It's a tool, like any other tool.

I have a 1911. I will probably have another at some point. I have other semi-autos as well.

It's not love/hate. It's just choosing the tool that best suits the task at hand.

The whole wrist angle/grips size/yadda-yadda is an excuse. If you understand the mechanics of shooting a handgun then you quickly realize that you can shoot just about anything to a level of combat efficiency. Now if you are making a run for the top end of IDPA/IPSC then you will favor what you have the most practice with and you will be able to shoot it a little faster. That doesn't mean you will miss if someone gives you something different.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

I made my first pistol purchase a 1911, and made the mistake of buying a Springfield Armory. It was a piece of shit and made me hate 1911s for a while but when I finally started trying some quality pistols/magazines you can put me back into the "love" category.
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

It was my first pistol & love it so much. Since then I also own others like revolver & Glock, but to me the 1911 is my favorite, shoot nice and love the look...an American Classic!
 
Re: 1911's Love/Hate

Before owning my 1911s, I owned and shot glocks, sigs, H&Ks, M&Ps, etc...a lot of polymer guns. I liked polymer guns more at frist. I really did not want to like 1911s, but as I shot them more, I grew to love them. There is a reason why they are so popular even after so many years.

- 1911 triggers are consistent every time, no DA/SA to mess with muscle memory trigger pull.
- crisp single staged trigger
- Thumb safety allows indexing and the same grip everytime for consistency.
- Single stack 45s are easy and comfortable to conceal carry

I have to admit that I had some malfunctions with my Kimber, the extractor tension was too tight, but I sent it back and it works great now without problems. But then any gun could have a problem, it is a matter of whether it can be fixed, or is there something inherently unrealiable about that gun of platform.

All my other 1911s, I never even had problems in the "break-in" period. Most of the problems that I've seen others experience were the result of bad magazines and/or improper gunsmithing, rather than a really problem with the 1911. Great platform if done right with quality parts.

I just shot 1911s the most accurately, there is something or should I say several things about it, as stated above.
 
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