The Wiry Irishman
Member
Back in January, I ordered a Les Baer Premier II, with their 1.5" at 50 yard guarantee, bead blasted hard chrome finish, and tritium insert target sights. Last week, after a 28 week wait, it finally arrived.
As all Baers do, it came swimming in a sack of CLP inside an unmarked cardboard box, with a few goodies. Pictured is a Les Baer patch, a certificate signed by everyone who worked on the gun, a certificate signed by Les Baer saying my gun was built to shoot 1.5" or better groups at 50 yards, and a 50 yard test target, which measures 1.505" edge-to-edge.
Also in the box is the manual, which actually has stripping instructions beyond removing the slide, your bushing wrench and mag, and the the fanciest lock I've ever received with a handgun. My friends joke that some guy at Les Baer worked on it for four hours with a bunch of files to hand fit it to my gun.
On to the gun: first impressions while I fondled the gun waiting for my NICS check to go through: (My FFL said he thought about telling me they put me on hold just to see my reaction, but decided against it because it would be mean) When I first picked it up, I was surprised that it felt noticeably heavier than my Kimber. I attributed it to the steel mainspring housing, but later a comparison of the two showed that the Baer's trigger guard and dust cover are also thicker. I like my handguns heavy, so I considered this a plus. It also felt amazing in my hand. The grips are ever so slightly thicker than the ones on my Kimber, and they fill my hand much better. The checkering on the grips was perfect, as well, large and very deep, making for a very solid, no-slide grip. The front strap checkering (something I've been sorely wishing my Kimber had for a while now, especially shooting offhand) was also excellent, not sharp but still very grippy. More on that later. The trigger is also excellent, the best I've felt on a 1911 that's not built for Bullseye shooting. There's absolutely no creep and the break is extraordinarily crisp with an almost unbelievably short reset. The Baer site claims a 4-pound trigger pull. Mine feels close, but I'd guess its a hair under. I'm in the process of locating a trigger pull gauge to find out for sure.
Baers are also notorious for how tight they are. I handled a bunch of brand-new Baers at their booth at the SHOT show, and they're so tight when new that sometimes you can't rack it and need to smack the front of the slide to knock it loose. None of the ones I played with were 1.5" guns, so I was expecting mine to be even tighter. It wasn't. I was surprised. I only had to smack it to get it loose two or three times.
I don't have a picture of the gun new, because I went straight from the gun shop to the range, but here's what it looked like when I got back:
and here's what my arm looked like:
Les Baer recommends a 500 round break-in period in which you do not strip or clean the gun, but let the carbon fouling do a little bit of final lapping. I decided to do the break-in in one range trip, so I brought along half a fifty cal can of my reloads. They're cast lead bullets over Bullseye powder, so I though the ungodly mess the create combined with the ungodly tightness of the gun would give it a good workout in the reliability department. In the first 100 rounds I had several failures to return to battery, the slide was always about a 1/16th of an inch short of locking up. Once I realized that the culprit was my thumbs-forward grip rubbing the slide and slowing it down, I moved my strong side thumb over just a little bit on the thumb safety and the problem stopped. Around 300 rounds when the gun started to loosen up a bit more, I put my thumb back in its normal position and had no problems. I was expecting more issues in the first 500 rounds, I had no failures to feed or eject, and and aside from the failures to return to battery in the first 100 rounds, no other problems at all.
I'd also heard horror stories about Baer's tightness making stripping and cleaning a pain. You definately need a bushing wrench, and you have to use the barrel as a slide hammer to tap the bushing out, but it didn't represent any sort of challenge or problem. It didn't take longer to strip than my Kimber, whose bushing moves freely with finger pressure.
The next morning I hit the range with 100ish 230gr Gold Dots and another 200 of my reloads. The first mag of Gold Dots I loaded was loaded into the Baer mag that came with the gun. After three shots, the fourth round turned itself vertical inside the mag. The remaining hundredish Gold Dots cycled just fine from my Metalform and Shooting Star mags, as did 200 more of my reloads. No failures to extract or feed, no failures to return to battery. The Baer mag is relegated to range-only status and will not be carried. I started becoming more concerned with accuracy and less concerned with breaking the gun in, and managed this group:
84 shots at 25 yards, standing, unsupported. Not my best, and certainly not what the gun is capable of, but still not too shabby.
By this point I had put 700 rounds through the gun in less than 24 hours. I had a blister on my trigger finger from where it rubs a rough patch around the set screw hole, and my soft, girlish hands were tender from the front strap checkering, but the gun is such a sweet shooter that I decided to take it to the range the next day and put another 200 through it. Used my reloads, had no failures of any kind, and managed these two groups:
Both are 50 shots from 50 feet, one before I adjusted my sights, one after.
Here's the can of brass I emptied through the gun, 1000 in less than 48 hours:
And a few of the gun just looking pretty:
The lighting on these pictures isn't the best, but I'll have better ones soon.
Overall I am incredibly happy with the gun. It was definitely worth the 6 month wait. I can't wait to shoot it again, though I'm going to have to slow down a little bit, as I only have 600 rounds left and it will be a couple weeks before I have all the components in to load the 5000 I hope to put through it before Christmas. I'm also looking forward to working up bullseye target load for the gun. I'm excited to see what it will be capable of.
As all Baers do, it came swimming in a sack of CLP inside an unmarked cardboard box, with a few goodies. Pictured is a Les Baer patch, a certificate signed by everyone who worked on the gun, a certificate signed by Les Baer saying my gun was built to shoot 1.5" or better groups at 50 yards, and a 50 yard test target, which measures 1.505" edge-to-edge.
Also in the box is the manual, which actually has stripping instructions beyond removing the slide, your bushing wrench and mag, and the the fanciest lock I've ever received with a handgun. My friends joke that some guy at Les Baer worked on it for four hours with a bunch of files to hand fit it to my gun.
On to the gun: first impressions while I fondled the gun waiting for my NICS check to go through: (My FFL said he thought about telling me they put me on hold just to see my reaction, but decided against it because it would be mean) When I first picked it up, I was surprised that it felt noticeably heavier than my Kimber. I attributed it to the steel mainspring housing, but later a comparison of the two showed that the Baer's trigger guard and dust cover are also thicker. I like my handguns heavy, so I considered this a plus. It also felt amazing in my hand. The grips are ever so slightly thicker than the ones on my Kimber, and they fill my hand much better. The checkering on the grips was perfect, as well, large and very deep, making for a very solid, no-slide grip. The front strap checkering (something I've been sorely wishing my Kimber had for a while now, especially shooting offhand) was also excellent, not sharp but still very grippy. More on that later. The trigger is also excellent, the best I've felt on a 1911 that's not built for Bullseye shooting. There's absolutely no creep and the break is extraordinarily crisp with an almost unbelievably short reset. The Baer site claims a 4-pound trigger pull. Mine feels close, but I'd guess its a hair under. I'm in the process of locating a trigger pull gauge to find out for sure.
Baers are also notorious for how tight they are. I handled a bunch of brand-new Baers at their booth at the SHOT show, and they're so tight when new that sometimes you can't rack it and need to smack the front of the slide to knock it loose. None of the ones I played with were 1.5" guns, so I was expecting mine to be even tighter. It wasn't. I was surprised. I only had to smack it to get it loose two or three times.
I don't have a picture of the gun new, because I went straight from the gun shop to the range, but here's what it looked like when I got back:
and here's what my arm looked like:
Les Baer recommends a 500 round break-in period in which you do not strip or clean the gun, but let the carbon fouling do a little bit of final lapping. I decided to do the break-in in one range trip, so I brought along half a fifty cal can of my reloads. They're cast lead bullets over Bullseye powder, so I though the ungodly mess the create combined with the ungodly tightness of the gun would give it a good workout in the reliability department. In the first 100 rounds I had several failures to return to battery, the slide was always about a 1/16th of an inch short of locking up. Once I realized that the culprit was my thumbs-forward grip rubbing the slide and slowing it down, I moved my strong side thumb over just a little bit on the thumb safety and the problem stopped. Around 300 rounds when the gun started to loosen up a bit more, I put my thumb back in its normal position and had no problems. I was expecting more issues in the first 500 rounds, I had no failures to feed or eject, and and aside from the failures to return to battery in the first 100 rounds, no other problems at all.
I'd also heard horror stories about Baer's tightness making stripping and cleaning a pain. You definately need a bushing wrench, and you have to use the barrel as a slide hammer to tap the bushing out, but it didn't represent any sort of challenge or problem. It didn't take longer to strip than my Kimber, whose bushing moves freely with finger pressure.
The next morning I hit the range with 100ish 230gr Gold Dots and another 200 of my reloads. The first mag of Gold Dots I loaded was loaded into the Baer mag that came with the gun. After three shots, the fourth round turned itself vertical inside the mag. The remaining hundredish Gold Dots cycled just fine from my Metalform and Shooting Star mags, as did 200 more of my reloads. No failures to extract or feed, no failures to return to battery. The Baer mag is relegated to range-only status and will not be carried. I started becoming more concerned with accuracy and less concerned with breaking the gun in, and managed this group:
84 shots at 25 yards, standing, unsupported. Not my best, and certainly not what the gun is capable of, but still not too shabby.
By this point I had put 700 rounds through the gun in less than 24 hours. I had a blister on my trigger finger from where it rubs a rough patch around the set screw hole, and my soft, girlish hands were tender from the front strap checkering, but the gun is such a sweet shooter that I decided to take it to the range the next day and put another 200 through it. Used my reloads, had no failures of any kind, and managed these two groups:
Both are 50 shots from 50 feet, one before I adjusted my sights, one after.
Here's the can of brass I emptied through the gun, 1000 in less than 48 hours:
And a few of the gun just looking pretty:
The lighting on these pictures isn't the best, but I'll have better ones soon.
Overall I am incredibly happy with the gun. It was definitely worth the 6 month wait. I can't wait to shoot it again, though I'm going to have to slow down a little bit, as I only have 600 rounds left and it will be a couple weeks before I have all the components in to load the 5000 I hope to put through it before Christmas. I'm also looking forward to working up bullseye target load for the gun. I'm excited to see what it will be capable of.
