COLT 1991A1 NRM Long review.
Colt 1991A1 New Roll Mark Blue Finish
The Buy:
I went to the annual Reeds Sporting Goods sale in San Jose CA. I was going to by a Smith and Wesson 945 pistol they had on sale for just under 1300 dollars, I stopped in front of this Colt and asked to see it. It was the last one in stock (They had three of them when the store opened 30 mins ago). The store was starting to fill up. Reeds sold one third of all pistols sold in California that weekend.
I picked it up not expecting to buy. I was instantly impressed with the finish. Brush polished sides nicely matted rounds. The double diamond grips had nice looking grain and a good fit. Sights were standard old school three dot types. They had a clean strong simple look to them and provided an excellent sight picture.
The trigger pull had a clean break at what felt like about 4.5 lbs maybe a bit more, but since it broke cleanly it was very manageable. It has a long metal trigger with no stupid looking holes and the unneeded over travel screw was not installed.
This gun was just plain appealing! Clean lines line of the classic 1911A1 profile were not lost due to melting of edges. The smooth front of the slide looked really nice to the eye after years of looking at those front serrations.
The barrel fit was good. Just a little front and back play in the bushing. The barrel hood fit nicely into the slide. The slide to frame fit was not super tight but the action felt so smooth it was like it was hand lapped.
Feed ramp was very highly polished, and the interesting barrel throat Colt is using now looked nicely done as well. I decided to buy this pistol and put off the S&W 945 for a while longer. I paid 569 plus tax and CA license fees.
Range report:
I am a re-loader not a hand loader. So I had lots of ammo on hand to shoot the gun. I took the pistol home detail stripped it and gave it a very good cleaning. I lubed the gun with FP10 and a mixture of FP10 and Proshot grease on the rails, barrel lugs and bushing area of the barrel.
I have 60 magazines. I know that sounds crazy it’s just my habit to buy 5 new mags every time I buy a 1911. I don’t fight with bad mags if it doesn’t feed well I get rid of it. So over the years I have built up this pile of great feeding mags of many different brands. ( Wilson, Kimber, Colt, Metalform, Mec-gar, Les Baer, Springfield ) I loaded them all up with some 230 grain round nose ball duplicate loads and also brought 300 rounds of 230gr flat points and another 200 155 gr semiwad cutters.
This new Colt is possibly the most reliable Pistol I have ever purchased. Almost 1000 rounds fired in about a four hour period and not one problem. No failures to feed. No failures of fire. No failures to extract. No failures to eject. No failures to lock the slide back on an empty mag. No failures at all period… ..zip….nada… None!
Accuracy is good. Not as good as some 1911’s I own but still very good. My Les Baer and Valtro will out shoot it, but not by much. Off the bench you can keep all the rounds touching at 15 yards. Eight rounds in a group the size of a quarter is about how it shoots.
The old school grip safety eats a small hole in my hand while shooting. After the first few hundred rounds it stopped hurting for some reason so I just kept shooting. I would be lying of I said that a high cut front strap, a beaver tail and checkering did not enhance shooting but the gun was fun to shoot with out all of that! It was a nice change and I enjoyed taking this trip down memory lane shooting a more classically configured 1911A1 pistol. Some times less is more.
I think this pistol represents the best dollar value in 1911A1 pistols today. It is enough nicer than the Springfield Mil-specs, RIAs and Chuck Daleys that it competes directly against that it is a no brainer. I have looked over a number of new Colts and I got to tell you Colt is back!!
Took the gun home and gave it a good cleaning looking for any unusual wear or problem developing after this extended shooting session. I am happy to say no problems were noted. I expected to use 1911Tuners hand lapping trick with JB bore paste on this gun like I do with most other 1911s but I just did not need it. Why mess with perfection.?
Colt 1991A1 New Roll Mark Blue Finish
The Buy:
I went to the annual Reeds Sporting Goods sale in San Jose CA. I was going to by a Smith and Wesson 945 pistol they had on sale for just under 1300 dollars, I stopped in front of this Colt and asked to see it. It was the last one in stock (They had three of them when the store opened 30 mins ago). The store was starting to fill up. Reeds sold one third of all pistols sold in California that weekend.
I picked it up not expecting to buy. I was instantly impressed with the finish. Brush polished sides nicely matted rounds. The double diamond grips had nice looking grain and a good fit. Sights were standard old school three dot types. They had a clean strong simple look to them and provided an excellent sight picture.
The trigger pull had a clean break at what felt like about 4.5 lbs maybe a bit more, but since it broke cleanly it was very manageable. It has a long metal trigger with no stupid looking holes and the unneeded over travel screw was not installed.
This gun was just plain appealing! Clean lines line of the classic 1911A1 profile were not lost due to melting of edges. The smooth front of the slide looked really nice to the eye after years of looking at those front serrations.
The barrel fit was good. Just a little front and back play in the bushing. The barrel hood fit nicely into the slide. The slide to frame fit was not super tight but the action felt so smooth it was like it was hand lapped.
Feed ramp was very highly polished, and the interesting barrel throat Colt is using now looked nicely done as well. I decided to buy this pistol and put off the S&W 945 for a while longer. I paid 569 plus tax and CA license fees.
Range report:
I am a re-loader not a hand loader. So I had lots of ammo on hand to shoot the gun. I took the pistol home detail stripped it and gave it a very good cleaning. I lubed the gun with FP10 and a mixture of FP10 and Proshot grease on the rails, barrel lugs and bushing area of the barrel.
I have 60 magazines. I know that sounds crazy it’s just my habit to buy 5 new mags every time I buy a 1911. I don’t fight with bad mags if it doesn’t feed well I get rid of it. So over the years I have built up this pile of great feeding mags of many different brands. ( Wilson, Kimber, Colt, Metalform, Mec-gar, Les Baer, Springfield ) I loaded them all up with some 230 grain round nose ball duplicate loads and also brought 300 rounds of 230gr flat points and another 200 155 gr semiwad cutters.
This new Colt is possibly the most reliable Pistol I have ever purchased. Almost 1000 rounds fired in about a four hour period and not one problem. No failures to feed. No failures of fire. No failures to extract. No failures to eject. No failures to lock the slide back on an empty mag. No failures at all period… ..zip….nada… None!
Accuracy is good. Not as good as some 1911’s I own but still very good. My Les Baer and Valtro will out shoot it, but not by much. Off the bench you can keep all the rounds touching at 15 yards. Eight rounds in a group the size of a quarter is about how it shoots.
The old school grip safety eats a small hole in my hand while shooting. After the first few hundred rounds it stopped hurting for some reason so I just kept shooting. I would be lying of I said that a high cut front strap, a beaver tail and checkering did not enhance shooting but the gun was fun to shoot with out all of that! It was a nice change and I enjoyed taking this trip down memory lane shooting a more classically configured 1911A1 pistol. Some times less is more.
I think this pistol represents the best dollar value in 1911A1 pistols today. It is enough nicer than the Springfield Mil-specs, RIAs and Chuck Daleys that it competes directly against that it is a no brainer. I have looked over a number of new Colts and I got to tell you Colt is back!!
Took the gun home and gave it a good cleaning looking for any unusual wear or problem developing after this extended shooting session. I am happy to say no problems were noted. I expected to use 1911Tuners hand lapping trick with JB bore paste on this gun like I do with most other 1911s but I just did not need it. Why mess with perfection.?
