Why are you asking me what 1911 to get? I am New Jovian Thunderbolt. Emphasis on New. What do I know?
It's been goin around.
I can only pass on received knowledge. You shoulda asked Tam a while back. Though I don't think she'd have taken the bait. Because what if things change? People today using her 'list' from 2012 or 2008 (just as a fer instance) might be buying a pistol in a totally different environment.
I have a bit more under my belt now. A coupla armorers class. A few thousand rounds. But you want to ask the pistol smith that knows what he or she is doing and has tens of thousands of rounds under his belt.
I can pass along what the gunsmith said, and what my current mindset is.
Springfields are halfway decent. Not perfect, by any means.
Get a Howa or an RIA. Then soup up from there. With a few armors classes.
I avoid the high dollar high option semi-custom 1911s now. Why? I can add my own after market stuff now, and I've seen too many high end guns with more problems than my GI Springfield. I avoid Series 80 guns because fewer fiddly bits.
One thing I do sorta regret with the GI type gun? The sights aren't dovetailed in front, and not dovetailed enough in back. And I don't have the mill or ability to correct that.
And before you Glock/Sig/M&P people say "just get one like mine, and it works right out of the box." Well, all the 1911s I've seen and held and shot and what not have 'worked well right out of the box.' In that they worked as well as your gun does. And I've seen the stuff that can go wrong inside YOUR gun, now, too. It comes from the factory with flaws, too. One thing is those flaws can be easy to fix and stay on top of. (the safety plunger on the Glock... yeah you Glock people should take a good Glock armorer class...)
So... what 1911 to get... Well, I can tell you what I'd get if I was shopping for a 1911:
A Howa
An RIA
A lower end Springfield (but not, I'd intend to do a lot of work to any of these three)
I'd look at STI.
S&W and Remington I might keep in the back of my mind.
But I know even MORE stuff to look at before plunking down the credit card. If I was really lucky I'd find a store that let me field strip a pistol.
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My first 1911 was a Colt. Bought it in 1974 through the USS Forrestal Gun Club. The pistol was not reliable and when I transferred to the USS William R. Rush in 1976 I asked the Chief Gunners Mate for help. He removed the extractor, put it in a vise, bent it ever so slightly and the pistol has worked flawlessly since then. The only other change I have done is to replace the spring collet barrel bushing with a solid bushing. That was last year, and parts of those bushings are razor sharp.
The second 1911 was a Combat Commander in Satin Nickel. I bought it for my father, (OMG, straw man purchase!) in 9MM as he was beginning to have severe bursitis in his right elbow.
When I was on shore duty in NJ, my wife and I were struck by some awful stomach virus thing. The Naval Hospital in Philly advised a heating pad on our stomachs. I did not own one, so we stopped at around 0300 at my parent's house to borrow one. I unlocked the door, stepped inside and announced myself loudly and repeated the announcement. A few seconds later I heard a soft click. My asked what that was about and I said, "I am pretty sure that soft click was the safety of a Combat Commander being put on."
One of our few marital discords was the spirited discussion on who got to use the heating pad first.
But for EDC, I carry a modern poly and stainless smallish frame double action only.
John in Philly
Good to see you're an old salt now. :)
FWIW, If I'm going to be junking all the small parts anyway, I'm not going to be doing it on a Filipino slag gun. If I'm not going to go semi-custom or a frame up build, I'm at least going to buy my frame/slide/(barrel?) kit from Colt/Kimber/SA.
If your 1911 cost less than $1500, you're wrong.
:p
$1500? Why are you buying bargain bin bottom of the barrel boomsticks?
Actually, I bed I could get a decent 1911 from this gunsmith for a mere $1500. I'd have to save his child from drowning first.
Since when did Howa start making handguns for the US market? I remember when the Japanese government freaked out a few decades ago when Weatherby introduced a bolt-action pistol for the IHMSA competition. Why? Because the pistol was using a Howa receiver.
Dunno when. Just seen a bunch.
Sounds like either Legacy Sports has been misusing the Howa name, or folks are making unwarranted assumptions. Legacy Sports' Citadel line of M1911 is made by ARMSCOR.
The smith loves them for a project gun. Rough cosmetic finishing, with nothing abjectly wrong internally, and cheap.
I have one of those Filipino "slag guns" and I'll shoot it next to a Colt all day long. Of course I'm fond Of Llama's too.
Some Yugos still run, too, but it's not the way to bet.
What about these Kahr/Auto-Ordinance pistols? Been leaning towards one but can't just print dollars for every copy I see. Price seems right...
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