Hi - your NYFC loyal reader here.
Soon enough - next 18-24 months - I'll be leaving the land of guns for the Rich and Famous Only, taking my registered-with-the-City long guns and moving to a more reasonable climate for a gun owner.
At that time I'll be making my first handgun purchase, and I intend for it to be a 1911 in .45 ACP. Here's my topic:
What would I get for $2000 that I wouldn't get for $600? I'm coming to the conclusion, from what I read, that a lower end marque will require a substantial amount of after-market add-ons and professional gunsmithing to make it the absolutely reliable weapon it needs to be.
Is this true? What are the mods that a newbie would need to entrust to a pro? Why can't one get a pistol at the low end that does what it's supposed to do (fire reliably and accurately every time you pull the trigger given proper care and maintenance?)
I understand that due to manufacturing variations no ammunition is going to be absolutely 100% (and I have no intention of making myself any poorer and nuttier than I already am by getting into reloading) and that there will be an occasional FTF or FTE, but the literature suggests that out-of-the-box 1911s aren't always what they should be.
Why shouldn't we get what we pay for, even if it's "only" $600?
I read you every day. Keep up the good work!
I am humbled. I might have 3 loyal readers. Let me double check. Be right back, gotta call someone on the teliophone.
Nope, that person doesn't read my stuff anymore. Still only 2 readers.
Anyhoo. I went through a similar selection process, obviously. Came to many conclusions in my research, some educated, some not. Can't remember which is which.
First of all, have you fired a 1911 before and liked it? If so, great. If you haven't tried one, try to go to a range that has rentals and try it.
Now range guns can be iffy. Dozens of people have messed with the pistol, it might not be clean. So don't be put off if it isn't perfect. Don't be put off if the hammer bites the web of your shooting hand, just account for it when picking grip safeties. That sort of thing
You don't have to pay $2000 to get a good 1911. Do you need a fancy pistol that LOOKS great? Do you anticipate getting really good with it really soon so you will be using that pistol to win competitions in the coming year? I'm gonna assume no. If you pay that kind of money it should be perfect and shoot better than I certainly can and you better have lots of hand fitting and such, and features should be what you select when you buy and practically have it made for you I think.
I have fired an RIA, made in the Philippines. It is GI Spec, and has all the features of an issue pistol from the WWII. No bells or whistles. Some guys swear by them, and they work. You can get them for less than $400.
I tried a Llama, even less prevalent than the RIA, and still at about that price range. Worked just fine and the owner never had a problem with it.
Springfield makes a similar GI version, with identical features for less than $600. For about $600 you can get the Springfield Mil-Spec with a few more desirable items. The sort of stuff the Pentagon would ask for after WWII to make the gun a little better. Larger, easier to see, sights, a polished feed ramp, and larger ejection port to help eliminate failure-to-eject issues.
There you go. About $600 for a perfectly fine 1911 that'll do everything you'd want a pistol to do. And with Springfield support mechanism backing it up.
I wanted a few more features for mine. Not least of which was a beavertail grip safety to make hammer-bite nigh impossible, ambidextrous safety, and tritium night sights. You can add a beavertail to the Mil Spec with a gunsmiths services, but night sights are little more complicated, so I went with the Loaded. It had the features I had to have. Still retails for less than $1000, and I got it for less than $800, and it comes with other goodies like a fancy hammer and trigger and such.
If you feel like it, there are lots of drop in parts to customize it that requires no gunsmith skill. New grips is a popular upgrade.
But I don't forsee, even with a gunsmithed new beavertail safety I am contemplating, how cost will ever exceed $1000.
Now $2000 guns are nice, Wilson, Les Baer, other high end brands, but you are right, I think you get into diminishing returns. Especially for a "First Handgun." After I fire 10,000 rounds through the Springfield, and I have a mind to tighten tuna-can size groups (cuz I got really GOOD) at 50 feet to quarter size groups, only then might I consider an upgrade.
So, what do you need feature wise? If you shoot ball ammo round for round out of your $400 RIA, and I shoot out of a custom $2000 version next to each other at a range, and your gun lacks no major functional feature you want, chances are we'll have similar reliability. And who wins then? $1600 buys a lot of ammo for you.
And if the 1911 you buy has the features you want, you should not have to deal with the gunsmith unless it comes out of the box broken, or you wear it out, or mung it up with home gunsmith work. All my modifications were to fine tune features, not function. I took out the full length guide rod and dropped in a standard USGI plane-Jane recoil plug, for instance. Cost? $20.
Trigger is fine out of the box. So is accuracy. On even the cheap ones.
Check out Anarchangels Buyers Guide. I've posted the link before. I read it after I had settled on the make and model for me, but it reinforced all my prejudices. Kim Du Toit and especially former gun-store sales-whiz Tamara helped influence me, too, especially for the Springfield brand, in several of their posts.
Oh, and when you read "This model averages one failure in every 20,500 rounds in military supervised factory testing" as I did with Beretta M9s today... don't be surprised if you get 2 in the first 1000 rounds you shoot. Gun models aren't magic. NONE of them. I've had 2 failures to feed in mine. Probably the shooters fault. Corky had an actual dud round once in a XD, and a couple other failures to feed or eject. Frozen had a BUNCH with his XD, but that was with reloaded ammo before he dialed in the powder charge.
It seems to me that you should first distinguish between the delivery system and the package. In other words, a 1911 model is not the only way to shoot .45 caliber. If you want a 1911, then fine. But there are other alternatives (including .40 caliber or 10 mm) that might give you more bang for the buck.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, but he seems settled on the model. Perhaps I should have recommended trying a few out at the rental range.
ReplyDeleteI was shocked at the prices of .40 cal recently. I thought them closer to 9mm than the .45. Might as well go with .45 if you are buying a full sized gun, ammo-price wise, as the .40 isn't that much cheaper. 10mm is rarer and often more expensive.
Something else to consider. Some 1911s (and other pistols) can also be fitted with .22 LR conversion kits from Advantage Arms or Ciener. It's a good way to practice on the cheap.
ReplyDeleteGood point. I even have one. .22 conversion kits are made for other models of firearms but it seems the 1911 type is nigh ubiquitous.
ReplyDeleteI have fired a couple of 1911s, I'm a big guy and they fit well in my hand and I can fire them accurately - but that's not why it will be my first handgun. If none of the above were true I'd be more flexible about my FIRST handgun (are you getting the impression that I have no intention of this being my LAST handgun?) but the nitty-gritty is that anything that's been around for more than 100 years and STILL WORKS (original pieces) and is STILL BUILT (modern versions) has stood the test of time, and whatever negatives are attached to owning one, they are far outweighed by the intrinsic quality of the design as attested to by its longevity.
ReplyDeleteI'm a musician by training, and that's the only way we have, in the final analysis, to apply anything approaching an objective standard to the worth of a piece of music - how long have people been listening to it? Seems a perfectly reasonable criterion for guns (although it does break down somewhat when you start to take into account modern metallurgical and manufacturing techniques.)
On the other hand, there's Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
Emerson was a drooling idiot.
ReplyDeleteI, personally, would not waste my money on a Filipino slag gun or a Llama pseudo-'11 (not all Llama parts interchange with the real deal).
ReplyDeleteThis is not based on my experience of "I own A RIA/Daly/Llama and I love it", this is based on my experience of seeing hundreds of the guns in question over a decade and a half and noting that an unacceptably high proportion of them are unmitigated crap.
You are going to hear different things from "Brand X" owners and sellers. If a gun has a 3-in-10 defect rate, that means that the guys at "Brand X fan.com" are going to be raving about their guns becuase they had a 70% chance of getting a good one. Sellers and gunsmiths will be blasting them, because they cause a 30% rate of pissed-off customers, which is unacceptable.
If I was buying a 1911 and wanted a stripper "GI style" or a base for a custom, I'd buy a Springer GI or a Colt 1991. If I wanted a factory "custom", I'd plan on spending at least $1000, and I would start by looking at SIG or Dan Wesson...