Did I mention I finally bought my M1911?

[Visiting Stewardess]

*Wipes away a little tear*

[The Birdman]

Nice firearm! Is this type of handgun comparable to a glock in terms of aim, power, and weight?

I am looking to purchase a handgun soon and this has intrigued me.

Also, I always cringed when I saw Magnum put this thing in the back of his jeans. I do not think I could ever have the kahunas to stick a loaded gun down my crack.

You're in CHICAGO! I don't think you can (LEGALLY) buy a handgun there.
Basically the gun world has 2 majour players, the 1911 guys and the Glock guys. There are people who shoot other guns, but none are as hardcore as those 2 groups. I own both. I started carrying a 1911 maybe 15 years ago, then I got a Glock maybe 4 years ago. I'm back to carrying a 1911 again. I just can't get over the lack of a safety on the Glock. I will admit that the Glock is practically un-jambable! I ran 1,000rnds through my Glock without cleaning it as soon as I bought it, no jambs at all. My 1911 has had a few hicups along the way. Mine was a Springfield. I replaced the recoil spring guide rod with a GI style because it kept unscrewing and I've had several magazine base plates blow off. I carry my 1911 on a Clip-Draw, a belt clip that gos under the grip so you don't need a holster. The 1911 is a very thin gun and it just feels "right" in my waist band under a shirt. Glocks are fatter. It just comes down to what you feal better with.

[Coops]

Interesing there, Birdman. A friend of mine whom I've been teaching how to shoot recently bought a Glock-17. After going through the basics again with him he loaded his first clip and took his first shot...which was a jam. After I looked at it it seemed to me he had not seated the final round all the way back. I cleared it, reloaded, did a final check, and he fired another 15 clips that day without issue. Nice shooting gun btw, but I prefer my 1911.

[MaximRecoil]

Magnum, P.I. was the reason I wanted a 1911, or a "Colt .45" as it was most commonly known as back then.

I started watching the show when I was 9 years old in '84, and I was fascinated by Magnum's gun. I didn't know the first thing about guns at the time, but I knew that Magnum's gun was the most awesome looking pistol I'd ever seen. It was far more impressive looking than the typical snub-nose .38 revolver that most "detectives" carried on TV.

My father told me it was a "Colt .45", and my uncle told me it would "knock a man off his feet" (not true obviously, but it was a popular urban legend). Trying to find out information on Magnum's pistol is what sparked my interest in guns in the first place. I would go to the library and look through the big "Gun Digest" books and gun magazines.

I remember being shocked to find out that it was designed in 1911, because I thought it was so modern looking; futuristic even. I also remember trying to make sense out of how it worked; not an easy job for a 9-year-old with no access to the actual gun. I knew it was semi-automatic, but why did it have a hammer? You have to cock a hammer with your thumb, right? How can it be semi-automatic if you have to do that? I remember looking at schematics and cutaway drawings that showed the internals, and reading about how it operated, but I still couldn't quite make sense of it all.

Dad of course, refused to buy me one, even though I pointed out that there was a .22 LR version called the Colt Ace (which I discovered in Gun Digest), and I'd be perfectly happy with that (lol). I made up my mind that I'd have one though ... eventually.

So about 7 years later (1991, I was 16) I had a part time job making $64 a week. I had Dad take me to the gun shop and I spotted a brand new Colt Government Model .45 ACP ($479) sitting on the shelf. By this time, I was practically a "gun expert", and had already owned a few guns including a Taurus .357 Magnum revolver and a Ruger Mark II, and I thoroughly understood how they operated. I put the Colt on layaway, and payed every last cent of my $64 each week on it. After about 2 months, it was finally mine (Dad signed for it of course).

I was expecting some jams from time to time, because my Ruger Mark II jammed about once every 50 rounds, and despite all I'd read and heard about how reliable the 1911 is, I figured an automatic will inevitably jam.

Well, it's been 20 years now, and I've put a few thousand rounds through it, with every bullet type imaginable, from 200 grain CCI "flying ashtray" JHPs to handloaded 250 grain SWCs (normally used in .45 Colt revolver loads), and it has never jammed or otherwise malfunctioned in any way. I've even done things to try to make it jam, like intentionally "limp wristing" it through several magazines of ammo, and letting it try to feed an empty case placed after a live round in the magazine. Neither of those things made it jam.

Of course, the 1911 famously fired 6000 rounds without a single malfunction at the U.S. Army trials which led to its adoption as the standard sidearm of the U.S. military, compared to 37 malfunctions from the competing pistol made by Savage.

The 1911 design is sound, and if you have one that jams, it wasn't built right. In that respect, you can't compare a "1911" to e.g. a Glock in terms of reliability without qualification, because only Glock makes Glocks, with a single standard of quality control. The 1911 is legally a Colt design, though the patents have long since expired, and now some forty-eleven different companies make them, along with forty-eleven different QC standards, along with a lot of tinkering with the original design (particularly in the area of "tightening" for better accuracy, which can affect reliability; there are no free rides).

I've posted it before, but this is the Colt Government Model that I bought new in 1991:



I replaced the cheap rubber grips with checkered walnut M1911A1-style grips from Herrett's Stocks (excellent quality and fit by the way). I also replaced the plastic trigger (Colt annoyingly started using plastic triggers on Government Models in the late '80s or early '90s) with an original Colt-manufactured Series 70 nickel-plated serrated steel trigger. This makes it look like the Colt Government Model that Magnum used in the pilot episode (as well as some other episodes).

[The Birdman]

MaximumRecoil: You're spot on about how only Glock makes Glocks (use anything but Glock magazines in one and it is a jam-o-matic) while 1911s are built by dozens of other companies. Actually my number 1 problem with my Springfield was one of the few things they chose to do differantly than the original design, the guide rod. It was an embarrasment! It would unscrew while shooting in competitions! I finally installed a "GI" guide rog and plug.
Here's some gun porn.

[Coops]

I smell more 1911's...that's a good thing!

Nice posts guys.

[Buck]

What is the best brand of 1911 .45? Since many companies make it, the quality control must be different.

[Braddah Kimo]

That is one sweet gun. I had a Taurus 9mm.





"I do not think I could ever have the kahunas to stick a loaded gun down"
You don't think you have the Hawaiian priest or master of a sacred craft to stick a loaded gun...? wot da....

[The Birdman]

What is the best brand of 1911 .45? Since many companies make it, the quality control must be different.

Really depends on a lot of things. More $ doesn't always meen better either. What is your price range? 2 names that come to mind are Springfield (prices range from mid to high, depending on how many bells and whistles) and Rock Island Armory (RIA) RIA is probably the cheapest 1911 you can buy, but if you read up on 1911 forums you'll find that the RIA is thought higher of than guns like Kimber that cost at least twice as much. Right now RIAs are apparently backordered out several months. I ordered one of the shiney chrome ones a while back, still waiting...

Also I wanted to add that in general the 5" "Government Model" size guns are more likely to be reliable. I think the shortest barrel is 3" and as you get shorter you start getting more likelyhood of malfunctions and less reliable. I almost bought a Para-Ord "Warthawg" (or is it warthog?) a few months age, it is I think the smallest 1911, after I read reviews there were a ton of people saying they simply weren't funtioning and guys were trying to put aftermarket recoil springs in their brand new warthawgs to get them to function. I passed on that gun.

[The Birdman]

Snapped a few pics today.

[MaximRecoil]

Snapped a few pics today.

What is that gun in the first and second pictures? I can't see the rollmark on the slide clearly, but it looks a lot like a Colt M1911 rollmark, complete with the Rampant Colt logo. However, the lines of that gun don't look like Colt's lines to me. Additionally it has a mixture of M1911, M1911A1, and commercial Colt Government Model style parts.

M1911 style parts:

- Frame
- Trigger
- Mainspring housing
- Grips
- Sights

M1911A1 style parts:

- Hammer
- Grip safety
- Matte finish

Colt Government Model style parts:

- Thumb safety (1950 and later style)
- Lowered ejection port (Series 80)
- In-the-white chamber hood

The slide serrations are positioned further forward than usual.

I like the checkered slide stop, which is something you don't see much of anymore.

[The Birdman]

Snapped a few pics today.

What is that gun in the first and second pictures? I can't see the rollmark on the slide clearly, but it looks a lot like a Colt M1911 rollmark, complete with the Rampant Colt logo. However, the lines of that gun don't look like Colt's lines to me. Additionally it has a mixture of M1911, M1911A1, and commercial Colt Government Model style parts.

M1911 style parts:

- Frame
- Trigger
- Mainspring housing
- Grips
- Sights

M1911A1 style parts:

- Hammer
- Grip safety
- Matte finish

Colt Government Model style parts:

- Thumb safety (1950 and later style)
- Lowered ejection port (Series 80)
- In-the-white chamber hood

The slide serrations are positioned further forward than usual.

I like the checkered slide stop, which is something you don't see much of anymore.

Good eye. It is a Cimmaron. It is meant to be a very close copy of a 1911 not A1. http://www.cimarron-firearms.com/1911-s ... 1-cim.html

[MaximRecoil]

Good eye. It is a Cimmaron. It is meant to be a very close copy of a 1911 not A1. http://www.cimarron-firearms.com/1911-s ... 1-cim.html

Interesting. I had no idea that Cimarron made a 1911, nor that they even had plans to do so. They are among the last companies I would have expected to make a 1911, considering they have always made firearms associated with the American "Old West" period, most notably, a Colt Single Action Army clone.

It seems strange to me that they would go so far as to replicate the "correct historical markings" as they say on their site, yet use an A1 style grip-safety and hammer (pre-A1s had a grip-safety with a much shorter tang and a wide-spur hammer), and use a lowered ejection port which neither the M1911 nor the M1911A1 had (those first appeared on Series 70 Colt Government Models chambered for 9mm in 1971, and on .45 versions in 1983 with the introduction of the Series 80).

Maybe after some customer feedback they will make it more true to an M1911, but either way, if the quality is good (as it usually is with Cimarron), for under $400 it looks like a great deal. Colt's somewhat recent reissue of the M1911 (model numbers O1911 and O1918) were very true to the originals, right down to the type of finish, but they sold for about $1,000 or more:



Original on top, reissue on bottom. The only difference is that the original M1911 in the picture happens to have the early ball radius cut slide (recoil spring tunnel area), but later original M1911s had the standard cut slide like the reissue. I think the standard cut looks better.

Cylinder & Slide made a beautiful 100th Anniversary M1911 reproduction as well - link. I don't know what it costs, but I'll bet it is very expensive.

[Stelth]

I'll play: Here's mine: