I've had a number of lower-end 1911s. I had two Rock Island Armory GIs, two Taurus PT1911s, an older Springfield Mil-Spec, and an old Colt that someone had tinkered with and re-nickeled.
I think that mixture is illustrative of the different issues one can encounter among the low end.
The two Rocks (one .45 ACP, one .38 Super) both shot fine. I actually never really had any issues with either. The problem was that it's hard (for me, at least,) to stay happy with GI spec for long. The sights suck, the trigger sucks, the mag release sucks, and the Parkerized finish is ugly. So far, that's not really an issue. Everything you could dream of to trick out a 1911 is there for the asking. Well, the asking and your credit card number, at least. The problem is, even if you fix all the little quibbles, (and you may have different peeves than I in your guns,) you'll still have a cast frame, cast slide, MIM parts, (if you don't replace them all,) and no real name recognition, except among the THR cognoscenti.
The Tauri were sort of the other end of the scale. For just a little more money than the Rocks, they had decent sights, ambi controls, nice triggers, beavertails, etc, etc. Pretty well already tricked out. They both fed extremely reliably, too. HPs, SWCs, anything. Taurus even uses forged frames and slides, although all the small parts are still MIM. The troubles here (and it's not really fair to compare to the Rocks, since I put a TON more rounds through the Tauri) were a number of little breakages right at first. The locking hammer in one, the sear disconnect in the other, and the grip safeties in both. The one I still have, the ambi safety is kinda floppy. Since I got it pretty much ironed out, however, it's been a solid gun through quite a lot of carrying, shooting, and even IPSC hard driving. (USPSA Single Stack, to be precise.)
The Springer seemed like it was gonna be a sweet spot between fancy parts and traditionalism. Kind of an everything you need, nothing you don't approach. It, however, wouldn't reliably feed hardball, let alone SWCs or HPs, so I sent it on down the road.
The old Colt, she probably started life as a really nice gun. Unfortunately, she'd been abused by someone, then "fixed," by someone else, and finally everything from her classic lines to her scars and flaws had been covered in a nice shiny coat of nickel. In a lot of ways, the nickel was the nail in her coffin for me. All the botching and bastardization could have been fixed, but it would take breaking the nickel. Ten to one, it would have started to flake, and I was too cheap to want to spring for another refinish.
All that said, I still have one of the Tauri, though it's since been Melonited, and is presently wearing an S&A magwell, and will soon be getting Dawson fiber optic sights. My most recent 1911 purchase was a Colt's LW Commander, and my next will likely be an STI Trojan. Learn from that what you will.
