The 1911 fan boy's are hot and heavy in this thread! As has been stated, carry what works, what you like, what fits.
There might be something to carrying an all steel pistol that has not been addressed. A Bud of mine, his Delta Force service type Son had been deployed to deepest, darkest, Africa killing
Kony's. The US has thousands if not tens of thousands of troops all over the globe, in combat situations, and the only time we hear about it, is when a few get killed in spectacular incidents. Why we are the World's Policeman is an entirely different issue, but Son was killing Kony's and was using his Dad's customized 1911. Kony's were not nice people, they had a habit of raping and murdering, and thought it was fun to cut the legs off of infants, to see them crawl away crying. You know, the type of fun loving person Progressives encourage to cross our borders.
The Delta Force guys get to choose anything, Son had used polymer frame pistols, and while they killed Kony's just as well as a steel frame pistol, if you hit a Kony's on the head you ran the risk of the frame breaking. But, a steel frame 1911 held up very well, and would still place a bullet in the head of the Kony as he went spinning down.
John Brownings design is not the only steel frame pistol on the market, and not the only steel frame 1911 on the market. It does have a huge following, but even though I thought of carrying this:
I never did. Wilson did transform a Colt Combat Elite into a great pistol. Something that it should have been from the factory, but it was not. It peened the first frame out in 3000 rounds, Colt replaced it, but the warranty was in terms of five years or so, and I was past the midpoint. Wilson fixed everything, and added more, and now it is an excellent pistol, but it took about two years before Wilson's backlog cleared up enough to send them the pistol Turnaround was quick though.
After having the safety bump to
"ready" a couple of time when carried, and then having a safety bump to
"safe", at the range, when I was shooting, I decided cocked and locked was not for me. I removed extended safeties and the ever popular ambi safeties. They were just too easy to bump to
ready with waistband carry. Modernized 1911's with beavertails do not go well with condition two carry. The beavertail blocks access to the hammer, both cocking and de cocking the hammer. Beavertail 1911's with extended safeties are great guns for quick draw games, and I played those games with the Combat Elite, but if I were to carry a 1911, I want something in the milspec 1911 configuration, or M1911A1 configuration. Like this:
This has an easily thumb cocked hammer, it goes bang, it feeds the next shell, and there is something to be said for low profile snag free sights. The front sight copies the too thin WW1 sight post, I would prefer wider, but you know, most shootings occurr at spitting distances, so point and shoot works well with these sights. This pistol is also cheap. Cheap is fine as long as it is 100% reliable. Accuracy at 25 yards is inferior to the Combat Elite, most bullets will stay within 6 inches, which is just fine for a combat pistol.
The frame on these are probably stronger than a Glock, and there are no flippers, levers, to play with. This SIG carries one more round in the magazine in 1911 and is as complicated to shoot as a double action revolver. Just pull the trigger and it goes bang