[1911 guy]

O.k., good refund coming this year so I E-filed as soon as I got my W-2, got my refund a week ago. Gave a little to the wife, took a little for myself, rest goes for vacation later. My little bit goes toward another 1911. Seemed like a target gun would be good since I have a few other "carry" 1911's.

Bought a Para Ordnance on Friday. 3-dot sights, FLGR, blued with stainless controls. Nice looking pistol. Took it out Saturday, put about a hundred rounds downrange between the new one and my carry gun. I'm not certain, but I'm almost sure I saw it "hammer follow" when my uncle unloaded it it to hand back to me.

So, I take it home, strip the frame and find that there appears to be a chip out of the hammer where it engages the sear. Reassamble, definate hammer follow, not it won't cock at all.

Less than 100 rounds from it, and it's already broken, in need of repair.

[R.H. Lee]

Are those MIM parts? It's easy enough to replace the hammer, maybe all the internals while you're at it, with good machined parts. And/or you can do what I just did (please don't take this the wrong way), just bought a Glock 21, which works flawlessly. :)

[palerider1]

I would contact the factory and complain. they will probably have you send the gun in and will repair it. I know how you feel though my safety broke on my new colt xse and i had to send it in. it is my only home defense gun too.:(

[denfoote]

Are those MIM parts? It's easy enough to replace the hammer, maybe all the internals while you're at it, with good machined parts. And/or you can do what I just did (please don't take this the wrong way), just bought a Glock 21, which works flawlessly. :)


The addresses a serious pet peeve of mine: quality control!!

I dunno.
Call me old fashioned (I am pushing 50), but when I buy something, I expect it to work, for at least longer than a few minutes, after taking it out of the packaging!!!

I naively expect "durable goods" to be...well, DURABLE!!!

Am I out of line here or has the "Bic pen syndrome" finally filtered down to all aspects of our society??

[1911 guy]

I can't say for sure if they're MIM parts, as I haven't owned a pistol until now that wasn't all steel. So, these are either this MIM crap or a medium quality plastic. I'm not kidding. The disconnect is so light and fragile seeming, I'm actually not sure. The sear seems a bit rough where the hammer chipped. All in all, I think I'll "fix 'n' ditch." In all honesty, I am right now considering buying nothing anymore that ISN'T made from P.I. beer cans.

Sorry, my first foray into the over $600 range for 1911's and I'm severely disappointed. My carry pistol is a 400 dollar clunker that is all steel and never hiccups. I paid about 650 for this and it gagged in less than 100 rounds. I'll keep the one Springer I've got, screw the rest of the new stuff. I am not amused.

[R.H. Lee]

The addresses a serious pet peeve of mine: quality control!!

I dunno.
Call me old fashioned (I am pushing 50), but when I buy something, I expect it to work, for at least longer than a few minutes, after taking it out of the packaging!!!

I naively expect "durable goods" to be...well, DURABLE!!!

Am I out of line here or has the "Bic pen syndrome" finally filtered down to all aspects of our society??
No, you're not out of line at all. It's the way of the corporate world where there are no other considerations except the 'bottom line'. Integrity, pride of workmanship, customer satisfaction, building a reliable product, etc., et. yada, all are trumped by the 'bottom line', shareholder value, and executive bonuses. Slap it together (with cheap third world labor if possible) and get it out the door. Old Fuff will probably be along shortly to expound on the subject.

Current manufacture production 1911's seem to all have MIM parts that should be replaced. So even if you send this back to the factory for warranty repairs, you'll get the same crap-o parts that you'll just have to replace yourself anyway. Go to Brownell's or Midway or a dozen other places and get good machined replacements for the sear, disconnector, hammer and hammer strut at least and replace them yourself.

[HSMITH]

Stuff happens, even with tool steel parts. Let them fix it, and go on with life. Better now than at a couple thousand rounds......

[1911 guy]

If I'd put a few K through it and had a failure, I might be charitable enough to chalk it up to melted potmetal parts. But right out of the box? Sounds like crap parts and lousy QC to me. I'm a bit calmer than I was two days ago, but I'm still not feeling very warm and fuzzy to spend cash on something that has obviously had corners cut to manufacture. And we keep tolerating and excusing it! Why isn't everyone who had a MIM part go T.U. as cranked as I am? They're charging us more money for cheaper pistols.

[jerkface11]

At least you'll get the joy of paying for shipping to send it back to them so they can fix what should have been right in the first place. Nothing galls me more than buying something finding out it's defective and then having to spend more of my money to ship back to the people who screwed it up in the first place :cuss: . As for buying new parts from another source to fix it he shouldn't have to.

[1911 guy]

Sent this to Para Ordnance by E-mail, I'll comment on the customer service now, since the range report is fairly abysmal.

Dear Sir/Ma'am,
On Friday, Feb. 3, I purchased the handgun mentioned in the heading. On Saturday, Feb. 4, I went shooting and experienced the worst performance of any 1911 I have ever used. Your handgun failed to feed repeatedly in less than 100 rounds. My shooting session stopped when your pistol became unsafe due to hammer follow. I am extremely disapointed in the quality of this firearm. Please advise me in what actions to take in sending this pistol to you for repair or replacement.

[Ric]

I had a problem with a Para once and sent it back to the factory, they fixed it and sent it back, very quickly and nicely done. No problem since.

HOWEVER

I went back to the gun shop/range where I got it and the dealer asked me "Why didn't you bring it back here?" turns out he would have either given me a refund or given me the price toward another gun or sent it back themselves and saved me shipping. :banghead:

Something to think about.

[HSMITH]

Better now since if you had a couple thousand through it you might trust it. I would MUCH rather have a brand new anything fail than one I have been using for a while.

[1911 guy]

I called Para Ordnance today and talked to a gunsmith named Joel. He was very helpful and I may be on the way to making a working pistol out of this. I won't rehash the whole conversation, here are the highlights.

After having several feed failures, I put my carry mags (known quality) in the Para. Feeding got no better, but that's when I started noticing the hammer follow.
Joel said Para disconnectors are "beefy" (read: out of spec) and may protrude into the mag well. Para mags are made to account for this and don't interfere, but "aftermarket" (anything but Para) might.
I put all other mags away and this solved the problem. No hammer fall since. So now I either take a fine pin file to the foreward side of the disconnector or replace the internals with spec parts.

I'll check feed function before I mess with the internals, in case it does have to go back to Para.
My local smith looked at it and what I thought were chips in the hammer and sear are flash from the molds. I'm glad to be wrong on that score.

Feed is slightly better. Joel said 200 rounds is normal break in for these pistols. I still think that's a sign of poor design, but for 650 dollars, I'll have a go at it. Took the firing pin out and watched the news cycling ammo through it by hand interupted by periods of light polishing with fine scotch brite on the feed ramp. Can get through several mags now before it chokes. Hope to get to the range in the next few days to live fire and see what it does.

I'm not nearly as upset as I was, but I still maintain that a firearm should come out of the box ready to be lubed and shot, not requiring this kind of monkey business to get up and running.

[HSMITH]

WOW. That is all I will say about that.

Make sure the Para made mags don't release the round early, the round has to travel to at least halfway out of the feed lips before the bullet end is free to move up and down any amount more than a tiny wiggle. 95% of feed problems in new Paras using Para mags are due to the round releasing early. Odds are very high that using good mags (read: Para mags) with in spec lips will solve all the feed problems, and everything else 'wrong' from the sounds of it.

[kahr404life]

Blame Canada!:neener: