Hickok 45 compares $500 1911 vs $3000 1911
- Thread starter Maggot
- Start date
For the record. This is the shock buff I was talking about. In a Wilson gun put in by Wilson at the Wilson factory. I takes no recoil out of the gun.
From the Wilson website:
The SHOK-BUFF® prevents the slide from battering the frame during recoil by sandwiching a 1/10" thick poly fiber buffer between the slide and frame contact areas. When you are shooting high performance loads in your 1911 style pistol, you want the extra protection that the original SHOK-BUFF® provides.
Buy a Rock Island and put 300,000 rounds through it and you end up spending the same money as buying a full house custom.
When you have shot the 300,000 rounds you will have a worn out 500.00 pistol and be one HELL of a pistolero. If you buy the 3,500 dollar full custom you will end up with a mighty pretty pistol and still wont be able to shoot for shit.
I don't have 300K through my 4K custom...yet. In the 100K neighborhood. Some of her older sisters have worked harder. I don't consider myself a "hell of a pistolero." Lot slower these days and the eyes aren't quite as sharp.
I quess we travel in different circles. I know more than a few owners of high dollar guns...They stick 'em in kydex at every match.
You guys raving about 3K-4K handguns, go spend some time with the LR/ELR boys. The last optic I bought was well over 3k ten years ago.
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After reading this thread, it got me thinking of when I wanted a 1911 and thanks to the Mil., I've always liked them and why I still own them.
I traded a couple of old rifles for my first 1911 (2008, I think?), a NIB, Rem. "Enhanced" 5". Got maybe $900.00 in it and have shot, maybe 4000-4500 rounds thru it. Had only 4 or 5 "stovepipes" with it and that was only with Win. WB 230gr. FMJ's. All other ammos (H.P. and other brands of fmj's) have functioned reliably and it really is an accurate gun, love to shoot the damn thing and it serves as my camp/woods gun.
When I first got into the 1911 craze, I was like a lot of people, "got to make it better!", Glad I got over that, or I think I would have been a LOT poorer,Ha! Shoot on everyone! Mac
I traded a couple of old rifles for my first 1911 (2008, I think?), a NIB, Rem. "Enhanced" 5". Got maybe $900.00 in it and have shot, maybe 4000-4500 rounds thru it. Had only 4 or 5 "stovepipes" with it and that was only with Win. WB 230gr. FMJ's. All other ammos (H.P. and other brands of fmj's) have functioned reliably and it really is an accurate gun, love to shoot the damn thing and it serves as my camp/woods gun.
When I first got into the 1911 craze, I was like a lot of people, "got to make it better!", Glad I got over that, or I think I would have been a LOT poorer,
Ha! Shoot on everyone! MacSo I have been doing 3 gun for the past 6 years. I started with a glock moved to a xdm and then joined with a used STI edge all in 9mm. I started building my own 1911 and then progressed to building a 2011.
I usually place in the top 20% of the group I am shooting with but I am no Max Michele or Jerry Miculik.
I used a rock island slide and barrel on my first 1911 build and when I went to mill the sights to a true novak cut (rock island are a proprietary cut and are smaller than true Novaks I also decided to tri-top the slide.
What I found the slides from Rock Island are cast as are caspian and many others. So there was as much as 0.020" of highs and lows. But in the end it came out nice once I flattened it all out with the mill.
As for longevity I personally have put 10,000 rounds a year though my both of my pistols. The slides seem to get sloppy on both the RIA slide and on the STI around the 20,000 round count. I generally replace barrels and 20k and peen the rails to retighten the gun.
Make no mistake a factory RIA gun will get looser than I like over time but as for metal quality it seems to be just fine. An STI is a much nicer gun from the factory. But needs very and i have run both my guns to 750 rounds in 1 sitting without cleaning and had no malfunctions.
In 3 gun I like good capacity and a 2.0 lbs. Trigger which the 2011 offers. I am fine with a 2 inch group a 25 yrds. 3 gun usually offers 14 to 18 in targets you double tap and steel knock overs.
Hope this helps not everyone has the same bank account and remembering those day prior to a college there is a gun for everyone.
I usually place in the top 20% of the group I am shooting with but I am no Max Michele or Jerry Miculik.
I used a rock island slide and barrel on my first 1911 build and when I went to mill the sights to a true novak cut (rock island are a proprietary cut and are smaller than true Novaks I also decided to tri-top the slide.
What I found the slides from Rock Island are cast as are caspian and many others. So there was as much as 0.020" of highs and lows. But in the end it came out nice once I flattened it all out with the mill.
As for longevity I personally have put 10,000 rounds a year though my both of my pistols. The slides seem to get sloppy on both the RIA slide and on the STI around the 20,000 round count. I generally replace barrels and 20k and peen the rails to retighten the gun.
Make no mistake a factory RIA gun will get looser than I like over time but as for metal quality it seems to be just fine. An STI is a much nicer gun from the factory. But needs very and i have run both my guns to 750 rounds in 1 sitting without cleaning and had no malfunctions.
In 3 gun I like good capacity and a 2.0 lbs. Trigger which the 2011 offers. I am fine with a 2 inch group a 25 yrds. 3 gun usually offers 14 to 18 in targets you double tap and steel knock overs.
Hope this helps not everyone has the same bank account and remembering those day prior to a college there is a gun for everyone.
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I have some sort of Rock Island Tactical Wactical 1911 that was $5-600 bucks or some shit and have an expensive Bob Marvel 1911 wadcutter gun that has made half a dozen trips to the Nationals and has a documented 28,750 rounds thru it.
The Rock Island/Armscorp Philippines gun is forged steel frame and slide, these parts are high quality, the fit of the barrel is as good as any match 1911 I've ever owned or shot and it groups 2" at 25 yards with match grade ammo. The tactical grips are whatever the current G-10/micarta derivative is these days and the checkering is razor sharp.
Here is where it saves money. The trigger is plastic garbage made to look like a decent trigger and the trigger pull is a marginally nice 4.5 lbs. The sights are a cheap plastic knock-off of Novac sights, they cost about .50 cents from the look of them. The ambi-safety is not going to be durable and it stiff as crap, no time was wasted fitting it. Oh, labor in the far east is maybe $5 bucks an hour, gunsmiths at Les Baer are about $35-40 an hour. Checkering is machined if anything and not softened at all. The finish is Tactical Brown something, probably spray paint and not Cerokote. I promise no one regulated or test fired and fine tuned the extractor, ejector or feed ramp. But it does work fine.
I bet money that plenty of builders are using these same frames and slides for their custom guns. Since 1983 nearly every custom stainless 1911 has been a Foster/Caspian product.
What did I get for my expensive wad gun? The blue finish was nicer than any mass produced 1911 sold. Match fit Caspian frame and slide, a hand fitted Kart barrel and bushing, a perfect 3.5 lb crisp trigger, three fitted magazines, it had a rail for the dot already fitted and is was tuned for the load I use. It came match ready and groups 1.5" at 25 yds easily with match ammo. The disconnector broke at a major regional, approximately 3,500 rounds. The external ejector wore out at about 12,000 rounds and had to be replaced. Even though I sent two boxed of Federal Gold Medal Match 185gr semi-wad for it to be tested and dialed in and the master gunsmith still tuned it for 200gr loads. So six years later I had another gunsmith tweak it into shape again. It still runs flawlessly, while a part or two has broken or worn out, in 28K rounds it has never jammed, stove-piped or failed to feed, not once.
I kept very good track of this gun to see what breaks and when. I have three variations of wad gun, made by three great gunsmiths and there is no cheap gun that equals them, ever. You can buy a neat cheap gun, shot it til the cheap parts break and then use it as the donor gun for your next project.
The Rock Island/Armscorp Philippines gun is forged steel frame and slide, these parts are high quality, the fit of the barrel is as good as any match 1911 I've ever owned or shot and it groups 2" at 25 yards with match grade ammo. The tactical grips are whatever the current G-10/micarta derivative is these days and the checkering is razor sharp.
Here is where it saves money. The trigger is plastic garbage made to look like a decent trigger and the trigger pull is a marginally nice 4.5 lbs. The sights are a cheap plastic knock-off of Novac sights, they cost about .50 cents from the look of them. The ambi-safety is not going to be durable and it stiff as crap, no time was wasted fitting it. Oh, labor in the far east is maybe $5 bucks an hour, gunsmiths at Les Baer are about $35-40 an hour. Checkering is machined if anything and not softened at all. The finish is Tactical Brown something, probably spray paint and not Cerokote. I promise no one regulated or test fired and fine tuned the extractor, ejector or feed ramp. But it does work fine.
I bet money that plenty of builders are using these same frames and slides for their custom guns. Since 1983 nearly every custom stainless 1911 has been a Foster/Caspian product.
What did I get for my expensive wad gun? The blue finish was nicer than any mass produced 1911 sold. Match fit Caspian frame and slide, a hand fitted Kart barrel and bushing, a perfect 3.5 lb crisp trigger, three fitted magazines, it had a rail for the dot already fitted and is was tuned for the load I use. It came match ready and groups 1.5" at 25 yds easily with match ammo. The disconnector broke at a major regional, approximately 3,500 rounds. The external ejector wore out at about 12,000 rounds and had to be replaced. Even though I sent two boxed of Federal Gold Medal Match 185gr semi-wad for it to be tested and dialed in and the master gunsmith still tuned it for 200gr loads. So six years later I had another gunsmith tweak it into shape again. It still runs flawlessly, while a part or two has broken or worn out, in 28K rounds it has never jammed, stove-piped or failed to feed, not once.
I kept very good track of this gun to see what breaks and when. I have three variations of wad gun, made by three great gunsmiths and there is no cheap gun that equals them, ever. You can buy a neat cheap gun, shot it til the cheap parts break and then use it as the donor gun for your next project.
