I shot a Colt Defender (3" 1911) for a few years. It was dead-on accurate (better in my hands than my Gold Cup!) and fun as heck to shoot. The Defender proved fairly easy to carry, although the weight did sometimes become annoying. I had some problems with it, though.
1. cases dinging my head after ejecting, often drawing blood. I had 2 'smiths look at it, and neither could really figure out what the deal was. This was annoying.
2. FTF on occasion, which seemed to get to be more common as I put more rounds through the gun. Started at about 700 rounds, got too common for my comfort as I approached 1100 rounds.
3. It's not as easy to field strip (or, shall I say, reassemble!) than my 5" 1911s. This was annoying to me as I like to shoot what I carry every time I go to the range... And I found myself not wanting to shoot so I didn't have to clean.
I surmise 1 and 2 were related, but I am not an armorer so I have no real idea. I was told by Colt I needed a new recoil spring, and as I recall it was somewhere around $150 because it came as an entire assembly (no luck getting them to just sell/give me a spring).
Since it was a carry piece, and I wanted reliability as paramount, I sold it.
In retrospect, I really love shooting that weapon, and it's accuracy was phenomenal even compared to high dollar 1911's I have shot. I believe had I found a good smith, it could have been tuned properly and given me a lifetime of fun. But I got annoyed with it and dumped it in a weak moment
Folks have told me, anecdotally, that Defenders should run 3500+ rounds on their recoil springs... And some have had zero problems with theirs. I can say, if I had no problems with it, it would have been one of the finest firearms I've ever had the pleasure of owning. Something about that thing just made it deadly accurate and it was very enjoyable to shoot. So if you can find a good one...
