Put a reliable 1911 in my hands and it will most likely jam within a few magazines. I call it my 1911 curse.
Ultimately, I like a gun that works 100% of the time. For me, that is not a 1911.
Don't give up on 1911 ... This is coming from 1911 fan converted to Glock fan yet remains 1911 fan.
I was a medic in the Army but got "volunteered" to help out in our unit's armory.
I was introduced to 1911s when new out-of-the-box M1911s for our officers were rough and would not cycle the slide reliably. It was my job to make them reliable. Often it took 20-30 minutes of disassembly and smoothing rough machined surfaces before slide would cycle reliably and feed/chamber rounds.
So started my love for 1911s and after discharge, I started shooting USPSA matches and a seasoned bullseye match shooter coworker took me under his wing and taught me to build my match 1911 based on Norinco heavily fortified with Wilson Combat parts, including 2.5 lb trigger job.
1911s can be reliable and thousands of 1911s/2011s are shot by match shooters every week all around the world. Even my railed Sig 1911 XO with tightest chamber I have seen would reliably feed/chamber Lead SWC reloads for several hundred round range session before fouling build up would slow it down (I retired the Sig 1911 after 12,000 rounds).
I got to shoot new out-of-box RIA 1911 Tactical models when shooting range got them as rentals and was impressed how reliably they ran with accuracy that when Vietnam vet coworker wanted 1911 and SA M1A for retirement memory flash back gifts, I suggested he consider RIA Tactical (So as to have less reliability issues compared to other brands he was looking around similar price point). He ended up buying the Tactical model and wanted me to install fiber optic front sight and I got to examine the RIA 1911 closely. What I noticed was it had generous flared chamber mouth that would reliably feed/chamber even sloppy LSWC reloads (His, not mine). When my Sig 1911 would slow down after 300 rounds, his RIA 1911 would reliably continue feeding/chambering LSWC reloads to where now I call RIA "Glock of 1911s".
I ended up buying Armscor Citadel 1911 model which is tighter tolerance target model of RIA and while tighter chamber shorter leade barrel required more consistent reloading, it actually produced slightly smaller groups than my Sig 1911 (Which usually produced around 2" groups at 25 yards and friend's Tactical model slightly larger groups) -
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/rmrs-own-line-of-thick-plated-bullets.761471/
Comparison groups from new RMR thick plated bullet load development (Yes, those OALs are max OALs allowed by the barrels illustrating how short the leades are)
Railed Sig 1911 XO typical groups at 15/25 yards after 7000 round count using MBC 200 gr LSWC (12 BHN Bullseye #1)
