I bought a used PT1911 from a pawn shop in mid-November last year while I was stranded in Arizona (long story, don't ask). I couldn't find a shooting range, and a few weeks later went home to Texas for Christmas. At a local range, my front sight seemed to be loose. Having only previously field stripped, cleaned, and dry fired with dummy rounds, I hadn't noticed anything odd. I tweaked the screw a bit to tighten it down, but some 30 minutes later (I'm not exactly sure how much time went by, but one minute there was a complete sight picture, and the next...) the front sight had flown off during recoil!!! It was during normal business hours, so I called Taurus CS in Maryland. I was put on hold, and five minutes later, the line disconnected.
For the next week and a half, it was either call, hold, disconnect, repeat, or I got their voicemail. I left several messages and never got a call back.
A couple of weeks ago I took the pistol into the shop and told them about the sight. The guy looked at it and said in plain English, "Your dovetail is too shallow."
Now as I understand it, this particular pistol is drop forged and then hand fit. And, as I have pointed out in a previous thread, QA can miss a lemon every once in a while, even from the top of the line manufacturers. But somehow this is pushing it. I haven't had a single problem outside the sight flying off: it feeds and digests anything; at 7 yards (perfect for an aggressive-defensive encounter) POA is POI. And I put maybe 200 rounds through it. I don't know how many rounds went through it prior to my purchasing it, but the bore wasn't incredibly dirty or clean (whoever sold it the pawn shop didn't clean the barrel, just wiped down the outside) and the followers in the magazines had the thinnest of lines of bluing scratched off, say, the width of a well trimmed finger nail, i.e., not much.
Any day now, the replacement sight should arrive from Brownell's (they sent a pin-in post instead of a dovetail) and I'll have my pistol back, so I can finally get to a proper break in. I am very disgruntled with the lousy CS at Taurus, and can't understand how such a perfectly functional pistol can be stamped with the name of a company that does nothing to back up their warranty. If I had sent the pistol to them, I would probably have never seen it again...
Sorry for the rant, just had to get that off my chest. Pics will be posted as soon as I get the gun back, I had some custom work done since it was in the shop anyway.