Kimber

"Why didn't you buy a Kimber, T-Bolt?  Why a Springfield?  Why were you thinking Colt?"

Well, lots of reasons.  None of them nailed down indisputable one, either.

I heard on the the internet that they were bad at service after the sale at Kimber, and had quality control issues or they did when I was buying...

I heard Kimber I's were better but now that they offer II's, that aren't as good, according to the internet...

And I saw that Kimber was selected by California jurisdictions.  Good for them, but they did that in an environment where CA was tightening it's gun control regime, and Barrett was refusing to sell his wares to State entities in protest...

So, some of those reasons are almost unsupported irrationalities.  All I had to go on was the advice of internet forums (yikes!) and, more credit to me, on the word of a selected few bloggers I've come to trust.

Does that mean that Kimbers are bad 1911s?  Oh, I'm sure not.  I'm sure that most are just fine.  I bet most Kimber owners are ecstatic with theirs.  But it was the scuttlebutt that made me eschew the brand. 

Not just that brand.  I am wary of others, too, often for similar reasons learned from similar sources.  I'm human.  It's the nature of the beast.