1911's - are they THAT finicky?

I find my full size Kimber functions quite well with anything I feed it. But then I only feed it 200 LSWC and 230 gr LRN boolits ranging from 700 to 900 fps. My particular pistol seems to favor 825 fps the best.
I love the way it feels when it cycles, kinda like an old cornshucker!

RetiredUSNChief said:

I'm thinking a short barreled version of some kind. I wouldn't mind something nice I could conceal a bit more easily whenever I have to "dress up" on occasion.

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Yeah, the officer frames still let me have a full grip, so my Dan Wesson Valkyrie CCO in 9mm is a fantastic shooter, a few oz heavier than a Glock 19, loaded with a 9 round ETM mag but conceals better because of the thinner profile, at least for me.

https://danwessonfirearms.com/product/valkyrie/

Though, if I could do it again, I would get the ECP. Full grip with bobtail conceals just as easily (for me) pretty much the same weight but with a 4" barrel which is easier for my eyes to pick up the front site (sad fact that .25" makes a world of difference to me), 10 round mags and better balance (in my opinion) over a CCO or Commander.

https://danwessonfirearms.com/product/ecp/

@Walkalong
I'll see your CDP Ultra and raise you a CDP Pro (I once owned the comparable Pistol to the Ultra in an SA Micro-Compact two-tone loaded, which was superb, but I foolishly started believing 3"barreled 1911s couldn't possibly be that reliable so I preemptively and stupidly traded it off)

I haven't owned a 1911 since 2009...but I owned it for years and shot many rounds through it. Functionality was never an issue. My father had many different 1911's throughout my childhood and he experienced varying results.

I might have to dawn my flame suit for this next part...we'll see.

I think it has to do with tolerances. I've found the same with AR's where guys will have one so tight, that they don't function properly or are super ammo picky. My actual Army issue AR was so loose, you could have fed your DD214 between the upper and lower, it never caused me any issues and god only knows how many rounds had gone down the barrel of that thing.

Older 1911's aren't bank vault tight...and most will cycle quality ammo just fine, just like mine did. Get a boutique 1911, one that is fit tight like a Swiss watch, and you may find it is rather picky with ammo.

Typetwelve said:

I haven't owned a 1911 since 2009...but I owned it for years and shot many rounds through it. Functionality was never an issue. My father had many different 1911's throughout my childhood and he experienced varying results.

I might have to dawn my flame suit for this next part...we'll see.

I think it has to do with tolerances. I've found the same with AR's where guys will have one so tight, that they don't function properly or are super ammo picky. My actual Army issue AR was so loose, you could have fed your DD214 between the upper and lower, it never caused me any issues and god only knows how many rounds had gone down the barrel of that thing.

Older 1911's aren't bank vault tight...and most will cycle quality ammo just fine, just like mine did. Get a boutique 1911, one that is fit tight like a Swiss watch, and you may find it is rather picky with ammo.

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Yep, that's pretty much the case. You want to find that balance for tight tolerance and reliability.

My dad's Wilson CQB has a tighter throat than my DW Valkyrie and is therefore more picky about wide meplat bullets, especially 147 grain (much like my Gen 5 Glocks, in fact) while my Valkyrie eats anything.

The Wilson is more mechanically accurate though, as a result.

Typetwelve said:

Get a boutique 1911, one that is fit tight like a Swiss watch, and you may find it is rather picky with ammo.

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Your personal experience with tight AR's and 1911's is???

tarosean said:

Your personal experience with tight AR's and 1911's is???

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Believe me, don't...doesn't matter.

Typetwelve said:

...My actual Army issue AR was so loose, you could have fed your DD214 between the upper and lower, it never caused me any issues and god only knows how many rounds had gone down the barrel of that thing....

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I swear I could field strip my Basic Training M16 by holding onto the barrel and shaking vigorously. It was that loose.

bdickens said:

I swear I could field strip my Basic Training M16 by holding onto the barrel and shaking vigorously. It was that loose.

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No kidding...I'll be honest that when I was in the Army in the 90's, I hadn't really had much experience with an AR before going into the service (AKs and SKSs were far more common where I lived back then). When I decided to buy one in 2010, I was shocked at how much better civilian models were made fit/finish wise...minus the select fire, of course.

Typetwelve said:

Believe me, don't...doesn't matter.

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Since I actually own multiple examples of both high-end AR's and 1911's along with "regular" production guns. I do have an opinion formed by first hand experiences. So was curious about your experience with both. If its anecdotal so be it.

I treat all my guns the same, doesn't matter if its a run of the mill Glock or multi thousand dollar 1911 a 500 dollar AR or multi thousand dollar one.. They work or they are gone in my house. The name stamped into it doesn't matter.

Num-nuts doing their own custom mods with "drop-in" parts and no knowledge about the mechanical working of the platform (other than watching bubba on Youboob) are probably responsible for the lions share of this bad PR.

Anything to do with the ignition system (sear, hammer, disconnecter, safty, grip safety) is not a drop in part.... regardless of how it is marketed.

By a quality 1911 and rock on....

SSN Vet said:

Num-nuts doing their own custom mods with "drop-in" parts and no knowledge about the mechanical working of the platform (other than watching bubba on Youboob) are probably responsible for the lions share of this bad PR.

Anything to do with the ignition system (sear, hammer, disconnecter, safty, grip safety) is not a drop in part.... regardless of how it is marketed.

By a quality 1911 and rock on....

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Really? Can you prove that? Because nearly every issue with a 1911 I've seen on gun forums over the past 20 years has been with stock 1911s. Quite a few have been magazine issues, but a lot have just been bad factory parts or fitting.

"Buy a quality 1911 and rock on..."

Would you consider a Dan Wesson 1911 to be a quality 1911?

I can literally take 5 minutes worth of internet searching to find at least a dozen threads with Dan Wesson and other "high-quality" 1911s having issues.

https://www.danwessonforum.com/forum/1911-pistols/valkyrie-45-issues/

https://www.glocktalk.com/threads/dan-wesson-cbob-1911-problems-help.1174670/

https://www.danwessonforum.com/forum/1911-pistols/problems-with-pointman-9/

https://www.1911addicts.com/threads/guardian-issues-questions.42778/

https://www.1911addicts.com/threads/les-baer-problem.19630/

My point is that I think you are sorely mistaken if you think most issues with 1911s are due to amateur gunsmithing and buying a $3000 1911 will guarantee you will have no issues.

The 1911 is a finicky platform and it is really easy to get one out of the box that doesn't work. I don't own any because I don't need a heavy, unreliable, low-capacity pistol and can't afford to gamble on a problem child at any price point.

Trey Veston said:

every issue with a 1911 I've seen on gun forums

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Well, just like any forum, the problems are always posted for any brand/type of pistol. Just take a look at the S&W, Glock, Ruger, Sig, and SA forums. Plenty of problems all around. There's no definitive listing (as mentioned before) concerning reliability. Good thing we all get to make our own choices!

Can I prove it... what r u... some kind of arm chair lawyer? I'll prove my statements just as soon as you prove your a human being and not a neanderthal or a Russian bot.

Custom shop but plug tight 1911s have to be broken in and are not for everyone.

Your analysis if flawed.... people don't do bitch and whine forum posts when everything is smiles and daisy's .... they post when they have a problem... so thinking a search of 1911 problems on the forums and getting a bunch of hits is a very biased samplin.

Solid quality 1911s can be had in the $500 - $800 range every day. Colt has been rock solid for a decade or more.... Springfield Armory even longer... Ruger is also rock solid, and the cast frame guns of Filipino manufacture have their growing pains worked out and are also putting out great product.

Just cause your a 1911 hater or your underpants don't fit is no reason to attack me. And the interpretation that a "quality built 1911" means a $3,000 custom piece came out of your demented head, not mine.

Bubba'd 1911s abound... ask any gunsmith. The design requires fitting... period.. CNC or no CNC.... sear, hammer, safety engagement must be fit by someone who knows what their doing.

Trey Veston said:

I can literally take 5 minutes worth of internet searching to find at least a dozen threads with Dan Wesson and other "high-quality" 1911s having issues.

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Lol. Geesh. Come on. Apply basic logic here.

Seriously, you were able to google up a dozen threads spanning from 2006 to 2020 of guns with issues with them? Whooptie freakin do! That's a standard that could be met for virtually any gun in existence. It's particularly meaningless as it could be satisfied just with production errors.

The 1911 got a bad reputation, particularly among people incapable of critical thought and pattern recognition for three main reasons:

1) The US Army continued using beat to hell WWII production 1911s long after they should have been replaced and were literally falling apart
2) Colt got full of themselves and started coasting on their name. As a result QA went to **** until competitors forced them to try to recover.
3) 18 billion companies make their own variety of 1911. Some of which have no business making guns

Particularly to point 3, if applied to another popular brand, is where most people get hung up. Let's apply that standard to Glocks. Let's call every Glock clone on the market a Glock in the same way that all 1911s are judged under one name. Smith & Wesson Sigmas are particularly vile and heinous guns that will eat their own disconnectors, and since they are Glock clones, Glocks suck. There are whole forums dedicated to people who can't get their Polymer 80 builds to run right and since they are Glock clones, Glocks suck. There are also whole forums dedicated to people that thought ZEV Tech and Lone Wolf parts would make them the best USPSA shooter ever, but now have guns that won't run... so, Glocks Suck.

I'm pretty sure that five minutes with Google will produce an order of magnitude more than a dozen posts of people who have problems with their "Glocks"

Of course, in the ultimate Irony, Glock followed the 1911 more closely than anyone could have ever predicted. Oh sure, you can drop two grand on one... but the sub $500 model will do 99% of shooters just as well and work just as good...

Trey Veston said:

Really? Can you prove that? Because nearly every issue with a 1911 I've seen on gun forums over the past 20 years has been with stock 1911s. Quite a few have been magazine issues, but a lot have just been bad factory parts or fitting.

"Buy a quality 1911 and rock on..."

Would you consider a Dan Wesson 1911 to be a quality 1911?

I can literally take 5 minutes worth of internet searching to find at least a dozen threads with Dan Wesson and other "high-quality" 1911s having issues.

https://www.danwessonforum.com/forum/1911-pistols/valkyrie-45-issues/

https://www.glocktalk.com/threads/dan-wesson-cbob-1911-problems-help.1174670/

https://www.danwessonforum.com/forum/1911-pistols/problems-with-pointman-9/

https://www.1911addicts.com/threads/guardian-issues-questions.42778/

https://www.1911addicts.com/threads/les-baer-problem.19630/

My point is that I think you are sorely mistaken if you think most issues with 1911s are due to amateur gunsmithing and buying a $3000 1911 will guarantee you will have no issues.

The 1911 is a finicky platform and it is really easy to get one out of the box that doesn't work. I don't own any because I don't need a heavy, unreliable, low-capacity pistol and can't afford to gamble on a problem child at any price point.

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I've bought a dozen 4-5" 1911"s.in the last 35 years. One bought 30+ years ago needed an extractor tune and throating to feed flying ashtrays (Fed other jhp fine) and one had one bad magazine. The others worked out of the box. I have several friends who have had a worse reliability percentage with new Glocks. I've had one break an extractor in only 1600 rounds. I've had friends Glocks do the the same. Any pistol can break. A 1911 is however a higher maintenance platform. If you don't want to maintain it I suggest a Glock.

94045 said:

I've bought a dozen 4-5" 1911"s.in the last 35 years. One bought 30+ years ago needed an extractor tune and throating to feed flying ashtrays (Fed other jhp fine) and one had one bad magazine. The others worked out of the box. I have several friends who have had a worse reliability percentage with new Glocks. I've had one break an extractor in only 1600 rounds. I've had friends Glocks do the the same. Any pistol can break. A 1911 is however a higher maintenance platform. If you don't want to maintain it I suggest a Glock.

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You had a quite a different experience that I have over the decades. The new guns of the 70's, early 80's (basically your Colts, not much else was around then) all needed a T&P if you wanted to feed something other than ball. At least none of the ones I bought would without it.

Things that came later were a crap shoot as to what they needed, and most all of them did not work 100% out of the box. Many actually had the balls to tell you, YOU had to put a couple of hundred rounds through them, on your dollar yet, to "break them in". *** is that? (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. I see now even abbreviations are "bad" )

Between the SIG and Glocks Ive owned now, which is now more than the number of 1911's Ive owned, all (except that one SIG P238, yet another poorly done 1911 copy) have been 100% right out of the box. Id trust them enough to open the box, load the mag, and put them in a holster.

Would you trust picking a random 1911 out of a pile of new boxes and doing the same?

Our annual "1911s: God's gift to gunners or as obsolete as the Model A?" thread proves only one thing -- you're either a 1911 guy, or … you're not.

Us 1911 aficionados understand that some of you don't get it, but that's okay. More for us. Some people love eating vegemite while most despise it. No worries.

What I find truly ironic is when guys with a history of posting their affection for old S&W revolvers then come around a make comments indicating they think 1911s to be unreliable, heavy, low-capacity, etc.

Another funny thing is (for those of us who've been shooting for 50 years or more), it wasn't until the advent of the internet when we all became aware that 1911s were unreliable. (Up 'til then, we just shot the snot out of our 1911s, figured out how to get 'em running if there were any issues, and rolled on …)

Old Dog said:

Our annual "1911s: God's gift to gunners or as obsolete as the Model A?" thread proves only one thing -- you're either a 1911 guy, or … you're not.

Us 1911 aficionados understand that some of you don't get it, but that's okay. More for us. Some people love eating vegemite while most despise it. No worries.

What I find truly ironic is when guys with a history of posting their affection for old S&W revolvers then come around a make comments indicating they think 1911s to be unreliable, heavy, low-capacity, etc.

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I think some of you boys who think the 1911's are god gift to man (as long as it sorta looks like one), miss the point that some of us are fans, but not fans of the 1911's that are crap. Big difference there.

I actually have more older S&W's these days, than I do 1911's. A lot more.

And the number of those plastic fantastic Glocks, the ones I at one time swore Id never own, and now have, are about to surpass both.

Well, I don't think 1911s are God's gift to man (maybe as a young acolyte of Col. Cooper, I did for a while), but as I noted previously, I've owned more than 30 1911s over the years (mostly stock Colt's and Springfield Armory pistols, but have dabbled in Les Baer, Wilson and Ed Brown) -- and my experiences have been close to 100% positive.

While I might not personally pay for a Rock Island Armory, ARMSCOR, ATI, Metro Arms, Girsan, Ruger, Taurus or Remington 1911, I will not fault someone on a budget for trying out a 1911. I have no experience with the lower end 1911s, but there's enough proof out there that one doesn't need to spend more'n a grand to get a fully functioning and reliable autopistol. So I'm not gonna label any 1911s as crap, simply because I haven't personally experienced that and I take everything I read on the internet with a grain of salt anyways.

Anyway, I mostly carry SIG pistols these days, but when it gets down to it, I'd be totally comfortable going into battle again with Ol' Slabsides.

AK103K said:

Would you trust picking a random 1911 out of a pile of new boxes and doing the same?

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Would you trust picking a random "Glock" (as defined in my post two above yours)?

There are many brands of 1911 that I would trust sight unseen, a late '70s colt not among them (see my point #2)

ClickClickD'oh said:

Would you trust picking a random "Glock" (as defined in my post two above yours)?

There are many brands of 1911 that I would trust sight unseen, a late '70s colt not among them (see my point #2)

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I don't even trust a firearm that's been field stripped for cleaning. Until it's been test fired it's not considered functional.

ClickClickD'oh said:

Would you trust picking a random "Glock" (as defined in my post two above yours)?

There are many brands of 1911 that I would trust sight unseen, a late '70s colt not among them (see my point #2)

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Glocks are Glocks, just like SIG's are SIG's. Others may look like them to some respect, but they still arent claiming to be "Glocks" or "SIGs".

"1911's on the other hand, are "1911's". The makers dont state or differentiate otherwise. Most are riding on that wave, and have been for a long time now. Just look at Springfield and Kimber.

And I agree 110%, thats the biggest problem the 1911's have.

Just out of curiosity, what are the "many" brands of 1911s do you trust? Are they in the real world realm? Or are they the semi custom/custom guns that are in the $1500-2000 plus range?

94045 said:

I don't even trust a firearm that's been field stripped for cleaning. Until it's been test fired it's not considered functional.

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Generally, Id agree.

Historically for me though, the SIG's and Glocks Ive owned have been, right out of the box.

Do I test fire them? Of course. But based on what Ive seen with them, Id still take that risk without hesitation, if I had to.

Not that I havent had enough practice dealing with malfunctions with the 1911's over the years, to deal with them should they prove to be historically accurate, if I were to do the same.

AK103K said:

You had a quite a different experience that I have over the decades. The new guns of the 70's, early 80's (basically your Colts, not much else was around then) all needed a T&P if you wanted to feed something other than ball. At least none of the ones I bought would without it.

Things that came later were a crap shoot as to what they needed, and most all of them did not work 100% out of the box. Many actually had the balls to tell you, YOU had to put a couple of hundred rounds through them, on your dollar yet, to "break them in". *** is that? (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. I see now even abbreviations are "bad" )

Between the SIG and Glocks Ive owned now, which is now more than the number of 1911's Ive owned, all (except that one SIG P238, yet another poorly done 1911 copy) have been 100% right out of the box. Id trust them enough to open the box, load the mag, and put them in a holster.

Would you trust picking a random 1911 out of a pile of new boxes and doing the same?

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I bought two S70 in that era (NIB).
The .38 Super LW Commander was 100%.
The .45 ACP Combat Commander needed extractor tuned and as stated it wouldn't feed Flying Ashtrays without some minor throat work. Took the Smith (Same guy that owned the LGS I bought it from) a few minutes at no charge.

None of the 1911's I have bought since then have failed to feed FMJ or JHP (I don't shoot LSWC much) but I did have one bad magazIne.

I've already stated my policy. No pistol is operational before test firing. That includes any gun I've had apart to clean and inspect. So no I wouldn't trust a Glock, Sig or 1911 as shipped.