glockky
Member
I am looking to get a compact 1911 and have heard so many good things and bad things about the 3 in models, and was wandering if someone could give me some insite on the colt defender.
I remember those posts...Those of us that carried any slide length below a Commander size; you'd bring it up...I feel much better....Time was...and not too long ago...that I didn't recommend any of the chopped-slide 1911 variants for anything except range duty. I hadn't seen very many that were reliable enough to trust my life to, and passed that along. The recent popularity of the Defender has forced me to admit that the engineers have made strides in that area, and based on the ones that I've handled, fired, and heard from the people who own the little beasties...they appear to have ferreted out all the bugs and squashed them in proper fashion.
One mistake in practicing with handguns, especially short-barreled CCW guns, is practicing at long distance.
There's no need to practice at 25 yards with a 3" gun. For one, the odds are strongly against you ever needing to defend yourself at that range, and if you did need to defend yourself at that range, you'd probably already be hosed.
You should practice at a distance that you can get good groups at, and gradually increase the distance until you're shooting at the range you want to be shooting at.
So if you can group at 15 yards, but want to shoot at 25, try shooting at 18 or 20, then 22, then 25. Don't just jump 10 yards.
I have new shooters start shooting at 10 feet.
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