Saturday, February 9, 2008

1911s for Duty. Eeek!

I happened to come upon this article on the 10-8 Performance website: 'Choosing a 1911 for Duty Use'

My experience with 1911 type pistols is pretty limited. I owned an STI 2011, a double-stack pistol, for a few months. It ran okay for a while, and then I started to have feed failures. I didn't like the way the grip felt anyway, so I sold it off (at a substantial loss).

Dad's Colt Defender ran okay for a little while, and then started to choke about once per magazine. Several different recoil springs and magazines were tried, but it still continued to puke. It was traded for a Kimber, which I can't vouch for one way or the other.

After reading this article, I think I am now completely scared of trying to keep a 1911-pattern pistol running, and I'll probably just stick to more modern designs.

Be sure to check it out. I had no idea that there was so much involved in keeping a 1911 running properly.

1 comment:

Suburban said...

See also, "Ranging Shots," by Clint Smith in the April 2008 issue of Guns Magazine.

When Smith orders a 1911 from Les Baer, he gets six extractors and slide locks fitted. He says that sometimes bushings break, and the pins that hold the swinging link to the barrel shears off.

The most common part to break on a Glock is probably a trigger or locking block pin, and this usually isn't discovered until the pistol gets cleaned. Some report trigger springs breaking, which still doesn't leave the pistol completely unshootable. On rare occasions, the locking block will crack, which is another failure that usually isn't discovered until the pistol is stripped for cleaning.