[ken grant]

Have a chance to buy a DEFENDER from a LEO for a good price.
Anyone have experience with one? Do they work O.K.?
Are they reliable?

[TonyB]

A buddy of mine has one..it would only feed Lawman FMJ reliably...he sent it too colt and they worked on it..he hasn't tried it yet...also for me it recoils too much..like getting punched in the hand..But I do have arthritis...:mad:

[1911Tuner]

They can be persnickety little cusses.

[gggman]

I never had a defender, but I had a Colt Officers ACP which is similar in size, and it was very unreliable. Wouldn't feed hollowpoints at all, and would sometimes jam on FMJ.:barf:

[1911Tuner]

Tunefucious say:

The shorter the slide, the more trouble-prone honorable pistol will be.
Thus, it is written, the farther one strays from original, the more one
must prepare for dishonorable burp.

Uh...c-c-c-coffee anybody???

ZZZZZZOOOOOM!

:what: <--------Tuner after a half-pot of Turbocoffee.

[mini14jac]

Well, I hate to go against the grain, but.....

I got a new Defender in November.
I did a lot of reading here, on 1911.com, pistolsmith.com, and glocktalk.com.

My research showed that, of all the sub-4" 1911 guns, the Defender has fewer problems than guns from S.A., Kimber, and others.
As a matter of fact, the number of first-hand problems that I found could be counted on one hand.
A coworker bought an early one, and did have some sort of problem.
Colt repaired it for free, and it has been running smooth for several years now.

Recoil: Well, I'm bothered by carpal tunnel syndrome, so I'm a little sensitive. I had read that the Defender recoil was close to, or less than, full size guns.
My observations: I owned a Ruger P97 for a little while. Bigger gun, but I found the recoil sharper than the Colt.
I had a all-steel Officer-sized Charles Daly for a while. Quite a bit heavier than the Defender, but still had more recoil.
I also had a S&W 457. Mid sized gun, with a thicker and longer grip than the Colt, also weighs about 6 oz. more. The 457 was a little easier to shoot than the Colt.

This past Saturday, two of my daughters shot the Defender.
The mid-20s daughter shot it once and handed it back.
The high schooler went through several mags, and kept bugging me to let her shoot it again!
If possible, shoot it yourself, before you buy.

Other issues:
Reliability:
Over 300rds through mine so far. With the several brands of brass-cased ammo that I have tried, both fmj, and jhp, I've got a zero failure rate.
Shooting Wolf, I get about 2% failure to extract.
Accuracy:
The gun does have more recoil than a sub-compact 9mm, but from 10 yards, standing, I can easily keep all shots in COM, rapid fire.

You can never ask about small 1911 guns without someone chiming in and saying that if you don't shoot the full size guns, you're going to have problems. The Colt Officer's model does have a bad rep., but I think a lot of that could be solved with spring and ammo selection.
My research has shown that small 1911s don't seem to be any more problematic than full size guns. (If you do enough reading, you'll find a surprising number of full-size, expensive guns that don't work well out of the box.)

To me, the Defender provides the best combination of price, ($650 new), weight, quality, reliability, and stopping power.
With a lifetime warranty.

[1911Tuner]

Mini14jac said:

Well, I hate to go against the grain, but.....

Nada problemo. Civil discussions/agreements/disagreements are
where informed decisions come from. Jump in and hang on!

---------------------------------
You can never ask about small 1911 guns without someone chiming in and saying that if you don't shoot the full size guns, you're going to have problems.

Most of which come from a folks that bought one problem child and made
a judgement call on ALL chopped 1911-based variants....but some of it
comes straight from those of us who have tangled with the little beasties.
-------------------------------


My research has shown that small 1911s don't seem to be any more problematic than full size guns.

Methinks that you need to dig a little deeper. Any pistol...1911-pattern
or not...can come out of the box and hit the ground runnin' or crash and burn. The failure rate goes up in proportion to the number of units sold.
As popular as the Defender/Officer's Model class of pistols is, it still can't
touch the Government Model size for sheer numbers.
----------------------------



(If you do enough reading, you'll find a surprising number of full-size, expensive guns that don't work well out of the box.)

No disagreement there, and that comes from hands-on experience.
It doesn't alter the fact that the chances of getting a truly good one are
smaller with the chopped versions than with the fullsized pistols. They
just don't allow as much wiggle room. On both sizes, if you do get one with issues, the 5-inch gun is much easier to bring into harmony. I
find that I can straighten out most feeding problems on a Governement
Model in an hour or less. Commanders sometimes require 2 hours, but
usually less. Officer's Models...I've been a few of those from sunup to sundown before I could find the sweet spot, and when it comes time for
a simple recoil spring change, half the time I had to start all over.
--------------------------


The Colt Officer's model does have a bad rep., but I think a lot of that could be solved with spring and ammo selection.

You may very well do that, but it would be wise not to count on it too heavily.
----------------------------
I don't mean be the naysayer, (and anybody that buys a problem along with
your Defender, I stand ready and willing to try to offer some help...right down to hands-on if the owner is willing to trust me with it and can ship
to my FFL holder.) ...but I'm just pointing out what I've had experience with
since they hit the market in the mid-80s

To be fair about it, I have noticed that the newer versions are much less prone to common issues that plagued the early Officer's models, but that
doesn't change the dynamics involved in the timing of that light, fast-moving slide. They can be made to run...just be prepared for the possibility of a frustrating journey.


Just my nickel's worth...

Tuner

[mini14jac]

Tuner,
Very good, valid points.

From what I've heard and read, Colt has excellent customer service, if you do have a problem.

And, the Defender uses a "shock absorber" similar to what Seecamp and Kahr use, instead of the normal recoil assembly.
(Actually, I think Kahr licenses the little dohickey from Seecamp. Surely after the Pocket Nine fiasco, Colt is covered on this.)

Apparently, you could take an Officer Model lower and mate it with a Commander upper and create the perfect carry gun. Since the Defender has a shorter frame, and different recoil system, you can't use it this way, or so I'm told.

So, maybe Colt got away from a lot of the Officer problems.

But, I don't spend $600+ lightly. Shoot, I don't spend $100 lightly.
So I did do a bunch of reading, and it would appear that it is very easy to get a small .45 that won't work.
But, as near as I can tell, you stand a better chance of getting a good gun, if you go with the Defender.

Also, it would appear that buying any of the sub-compacts in used condition is a crap shoot. If you go with a new gun, from one of the big names, you have better odds of getting a good gun, and free repairs if needed.

If you get a gun that works, you need to swap out the recoil springs every 2000-3000 rounds.

[cratz2]

I've shot exactly two of them. One would only feed ball ammo about 90 of the time and the other seems to work just fine... matter of fact, that one is the owners carry piece and he carries Hydra Shoks in it which it feeds well enough to inspire confidence in the owner.

For me, it'd have to be a pretty good deal to sway me away from a Commander or Combat Commander. Actually, if I were looking for a 1911-platform for dedicated concealed carry, I'd be mighty tempted by either the Springfield Compact which I don't believe they catalog anymore or the Colt CCO... Both have a Commander-length slide on the shorter Officer model frame... seems the best tradeoff of concealability and velocity.

For me, I'll just stick to my mostly 5" 1911s with a single Combat Commander.

[Lightsped]

I don't have a Defender, not yet at least. I am actively looking to buy one locally (Atlanta) if anyone is selling one.

[Pendragon]

I bought one second hand from a reliable gun store for $599 about 3 yeards ago.

I *REALLY* liked the gun - it was accurate and handled well and recoil was not that bad.

What I really did not like was how it functioned.

VERY unreliable with the Colt mags - one in particular was horrible - 30% stopages, the other was maybe 15% stopages.

I bought Wilson mags and got the gun to 98% reliability, but I could still never trust it.

When I bought my Valtro, I asked John Jardine to just look at my Colt to see if he could fix it (was willing to pay).

He took the slide off and showed me how poorly the slide to frame fit was and the slide to barrel lugs were fit badly as well.

After he showed me, it was very obvious haw badly the gun was made and I just lost all love for it and for Colt in general - right on the spot.

Colt may make decent guns in general, but I doubt I will ever trust one. Shame that a little shoddy workmanship lost what might have been an enthusiastic customer.

I sold the gun with disclosure.

[zeke]

Bought the first Defender seen in a store, first version with Novak rear sight, upswept beavertail and orange plastc followers in the mags. It is fitted rather loose and is the most reliable 45 acp semi owned, even with lead short nose taget rounds, that most others choke on.

Not nearly as accurate as a kimber ultra, and the slide edges were seriously sharp.

Pressed my luck and also got SA micro milspec. This pistol had serious problems with reliable functioning, mostly related to cheap out of spec parts.

[mini14jac]

Gee Zeke, I was starting to think I had the only working Defender on the planet! ;) :p

I have returned one mag to Colt because it started binding. I don't look at that as a gun failure though. And yes, the edges were really sharp.
I borrowed some stones from a friend and spent a couple of hours taking off the edges. If they want this to be seriously considered as a carry piece, they should smooth up the edges before it leaves the factory.

As far as fit, I've heard that Colt quality has improved, but I can't say, since this is my first pony. But, my gun fits together like the stones on those Mayan temples. No tool marks, no sloppiness, or movement, very high quality work.
It is one of the most impressive handguns that I have owned.

A CCO would be a great gun, but Colt doesn't make them anymore.

I paid a little over $600 for my gun new, and it's reliable.
I would be ticked if it wasn't.
I think I'd be more ticked if I paid $800+ for one that had to go back to the shop.

[c_yeager]

Friend of mine had one. The first trip to the range it was jamming quite a bit. We just chalked this up to normal break in and accepted that it would go away. Wether it would have become reliable or not we never found out. It suffered a stoppage that we couldnt clear. The range staff (attached to the shop where he just bought the gun) managed to get it stripped with some coaxing only to have it barf half of its innards onto the floor of the range. he got a refund.