Here's a bit of writing from someone who's considered the question:
I wish Mr. Yam had spent five minutes less on contemplating the 1911 and five minutes more contemplating what color font to use with his horribly jumbled background image. Then you could easily read what he wrote.
[/Rant]:
I agree pretty much with Walkalong. I've spent 30+ years shooting them, carrying them sometimes, but not a whole lot. I've had them with bull barrels, solid, and collet. Wide ambi safeties, narrow, tear drop and "GI" shelf-type. Short trigger, long trigger, arch MSH flat, steel aluminum, and also rubber-coated. All types of grip safeties.
After lots of carry, tinkering, and lots of guns, I have decided what I like is basically plain 'ole 1911. Yep, a flat MSH, long-triggered gun like went to France in WWI. The basic changes I do like, in increasing order of importance from not that important to VERY important, are:
1)
FLGR (I can tell a difference in the smoother spring compression/release, but it's a
minor issue, really).
2)
Taller sights, three-dot if possible, but again, not a big deal to me. The "GI" sights work fine - you have to squint a bit at the range, but if you are really using the gun for a real threat - natural pointing and instinctive shooting are going to be what you do anyway. The "GI" sights do have the virtue of going in and out of leather very smoothly and quickly.
3)
Spur hammer or true commander shape with deep checkering. Having recently taken to carrying a 1911 on horseback, I've also learned to really appreciate the original hammer design, which allows you to get to Condition 2 carry with much less risk than some of the bizarre new shapes. The true commander "ring" hammer also works pretty well for this.
4)
Holsters with retention straps. Because that's the only way to guarantee it won't come out under all circumstances.
5)
Quality mags. Colt brand (which means Metalform or Checkmate), or similar from their OEM folks, or Tripp's mags work great for me. If this is a duty gun, you will obviously be taking your magazine choice/choices seriously.
I also really
don't like a few things:
1) railed guns or full-sized dust covers. They add a lot of weight in a place that doesn't help dampen recoil much) and severely restrict your holster choices. Not worth it to me, but then I'm not a cop.
2) Ambi safeties, especially wide ones. They get in the way of holster fit, and on the "off" side also add a point for things to hang-up on. If I were a lefty, I'd probably install a slim ambi safety like I have on one of my guns, but for a right-handed shooter, the existing safety is fine - in the rare case you need to use it left handed, you can swipe it off very easily with your left thumb. Just pivot it around the grip safety and hit it - it's "opposable" after all, remember?
Practice it a few times and you can see it's really easy.
3) Add-on mag wells and bumper-padded magazines. They add unnecessary bulk on the end to hang up on clothes and things and provide marginal utility. I like flat, welded-bottom magazines and a slightly beveled stock mag well. It works fine.
4) Double stacks. They are just too big to me for a proper grip.
5) Deeply checkered front grip straps or MSH's. Can you say "cheese grater"? I made this mistake once. And only once.
Nowadays I am buying WWI style pistols (because they already have the flat MSH and long trigger as it was originally designed), and Series 70 (because I can swap those two parts in a few minutes) and earlier Colt guns. I still have my customized ones, including a pair of Caspians that are just wonderful, but the ones I find myself enjoying the looks and feel of the most are the real Colts in basic form. Everything else really adds just marginal utility to me.
If you gave me a stock WWI reproduction Colt and told me to go carry it and use it, I'd have no problem with that. But if this is a true "duty" gun, then you have some other considerations that I don't have to make.
