I hate 1911s

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Super Sneaky Steve

New member
I've had a few of them in the past and I sold them. There are many reasons why I hate them.

The grip screws always come loose. If you get those tight the grew screw bushings will come loose and spin.

The linked barrel is stupid.

The mainspring housing pokes me in the ribs.

The extractors are a poor design. They need all these small angles to work and unless yours is made of good spring steel it will start to loosen up fast.

The boolit has to make an extreme angle to get into the barrel.

Hollow points may or may not work well.

They are expensive.

But, I'm an ironic hipster at heart so I feel like I need to try them again. Cheap ones let me down. This time I'm thinking of a Colt Lightweight Commander.
 
T

tangolima

New member
You know there are people here who hate people who hate 1911. What a mouthful! :)

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
D

Dfariswheel

New member
The grip screws always come loose. If you get those tight the grew screw bushings will come loose and spin.
Properly staked or Loctited bushings never come loose. They come loose because the makers fail to do it correctly.
You can do it yourself with a staking kit or Loctite.

The linked barrel is stupid.
It was a world changing John Browning invention.
In the late 1890s and early 1900's it revolutionized pistol design.
Almost all locked breech autos designed since use the Browning idea, just simplified to work without the swinging link.

The mainspring housing pokes me in the ribs.
So do many other autos. That's why the curved butt 1911 is popular.

The extractors are a poor design. They need all these small angles to work and unless yours is made of good spring steel it will start to loosen up fast.
Again, properly made they work extremely well. The military 1911 never seemed to have any problems because they were made correctly or the contractor didn't get a contract.

The boolit has to make an extreme angle to get into the barrel.
This is pretty much how all autos worked from the beginning to today.

Hollow points may or may not work well.
Most modern autos are designed to work with modern ammo.
The 1911 was specifically designed for military issue round nose FMJ.
Most modern 1911 type pistols are made to handle hollow point ammo.

They are expensive.
You knew this was a rough game when you got into it. .:)
So is any really top quality gun. Want cheap, you can get cheap, just don't expect reliability and durability.
 
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44caliberkid

New member
I shouldn’t even be responding to such an obvious troll post.
I currently own 6 1911’s.
Never had a grip screw come loose, never locktited them or took any other measures to correct a problem I never had.
I carried one in a hip holster for 3 years as an LEO, never noticed it poked me. Carried a Commander as a CCW, right hip pocket position, never bothered me. Even with my muffin top waistline.
Never had an extraction problem or failure to feed with FMJ. Only had a feed problem with truncated or HP bullets in 38 Super. Never in 45, and I loaded and shot a ship load of Speer flying ash trays.
Not expensive anymore, now that black plastic pistols have gotten into the $800 range.
 
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Nathan

New member
The grip screws are a pain because the proper staking takes skill. Companies try locktite, until someone cross threads the screw, then the bushing comes out. Total pita due to a process cost cutting move. I agree.

Linked barrels because who does not want a positive rear and front lockup! I mean if Glock can get good 7yd accuracy and a 1911 is 50 yd accurate, the Glock is superior, right?

The mainspring housing is poky, but they make rounded ones.

The feed cycle is steep, but so many 45 autos run 100% that not feeding feels like a result of not building them correctly…so another cost saving move.

Extractors are a poor design. I mean c’mon a part that has to be made to match the dwg with all the machining?? How unreasonable!

Sarcasm off now.



The real problems with the 1911 are it is an expensive gun to build. The original dwgs require expensive processes, then the resulting parts must be hand fit. Only Dan Wesson seems to have created in house dwgs that are 100% machine and assembly. I think they have almost zero fitting. This is not unlike the 40 yr struggle that S&W has had to cheapen the cost of manufacturing in their revolvers.

Another problem is nobody is controlling what is called a 1911. It is an expired patent and a publicly owned dwg set. Anybody in the world can crap out something 1911 like with $1000’s of cost cutting in their product. When it doesn’t work, it is another 1911 that doesn’t run. Well, no, actually it is not. It is another attempt to make something that looks like a 1911, but works like the pot metal crap shoot that it is.

Last, the 1911 is now made in sizes from 3” to 6”, but I wonder how much dynamic analysis has been done to mature all the non-5” designs. Most were developed quickly in the 60’s and 70’s. Many gunsmiths won’t touch anything shorter than 4.25” because they are unpredictable, yet their unreliability contributes to the demise of the 1911 name.


I guess what I’m saying is…..show me a product where I can slash manufacturing costs 75% and still produce something you want to buy.
 
S

Super Sneaky Steve

New member
I bought a CSX for $399. I guess no one likes them.
iu


Their pro series is about $1481 on their website.
iu


Both have aluminum frames. Both are in 9mm. Both have a single action design, but the 1911 is the most copied pistol on the planet which means everyone has tooling for it. The CSX is a new pistol.

Why is one 3 times the cost of the other?
 
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jar

New member
It's fine to hate 1911s. I hate beets.

I felt that it was almost un-American to not own and love 1911s. I finally bought a Colt Series 80 in the 1980s after refusing and avoiding the platform for over thirty years. It was as bad as I had expected; even after three trips back to the Mothership it was still unreliable and ammo picky and plagued by intermittent failures.

It got sent to a Forever Home hopefully.

About a decade later I bought a semi-custom Dan Wesson Pointman/Patriot. It was like the Wadsworth poem about the little girl with the little curl.

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very very good
But when she was bad
She was horrid.​

Hopefully it too found a Forever Home.

Again, I wrote off the 1911 platform as simply not worth considering but still had the feeling that it was likely me rather than the 1911 who was at fault.

Decades passed and I kept reading rave reviews about the Tisas 1911s. They were really cheap, under $300.00 at the time so I'd put one in the shopping cart then sober up and back off. This happened probably a dozen times until I decided what the heck, I'd take one more turn on the Merry Go Round.

But the cheap Tisas was everything the Colt and Dan Wesson were not. All the pieces parts fitted and the gun fired right from the first round and it ate anything that I still had laying around including decades old ammo and even super hot +P JHPs and nothing really needed replacing or adjusting and nothing worked loose and it made really nice big holes in the paper and ...

I found I even had some holsters for it in the Boxes of Shame and even some nice old grips and a couple extra magazines.

It's continued working for over a year and over a thousand rounds now and a few more have followed me home with pretty much the same experience; my Tisas 1911s in both full and commander size have just worked. No fuss, no fury, no issues at all related to the handgun itself. It's worked with every brand of magazine I've tried, every brand and type of ammunition I've tried; honestly when it comes to function it has been boringly reliable.

And they are still cheap.
 
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rc

New member
1911s are not for everyone. They can be more tempermental than other guns, but once you get them running they are a fantastic design that just fits the hand so well. Break in and adjustments are not uncommon. They are not glock bloated brass reliable but served our GIs well for 70 years when broken in. I also love CZs. They work right out of the box every time.
 
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Super Sneaky Steve

New member
Well Jar, you convinced me to buy another inexpensive import.

The Tisas Aviator had everything I was looking for.

https://tisasusa.com/tisas-1911-aviator-45/

It's basically an old school Lightweight Commander but with a Novak cut front sight. Replaced with a front night sight and it should be good to go.

I like the regular beavertail, the shorter trigger and the commander hammer. I also don't care for abi safties. I've found that if I want a longer trigger I need slim grips and bushings. This should work out fine, as long as it runs.

Thanks for the suggestion.
 
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44 AMP

Staff
The real problems with the 1911 are it is an expensive gun to build. The original dwgs require expensive processes, then the resulting parts must be hand fit.
Click to expand...

Expensive gun to build? Sure, in the same way that EVERYTHING designed before the era of CNC machining is expensive to build.

Parts must be hand fitted? Total BS, at least in regard to guns made to USGI specs.

The issue is real when dealing with guns and parts NOT made to GI specs. Everybody and their Uncle Max is making a "1911" of some kind now days, and they are NOT being made to the original specs, different makers change the specs on some parts, calling them "improvements" or "proprietary designs" so those parts don't fit with other companies products, but some people think that is a flaw in the original design. Its not, never was, can't be. Its a flaw in the production of guns called 1911, but not made to those specs.

I was an Army Small Arms repairman while the M1911A1 was the primary service pistol. GI parts are all "plug and play" NO FITTING REQUIRED. This was INTENTIONAL. If a part needed to be hand fitted, it was defective, and it was trashed and replaced with a part that would drop in and work without any fitting.

Many different private companies made part for the GI 1911A1s during WWII, but they were required to make them to GI specs AND had govt inspectors checking the parts. Modern private companies don't have to do that, and many simply don't.

This leads people to think that 1911s are supposed to be made that way, and tarnishes the reputation of the design.

Anyone can take a great design, build it poorly and produce crap that doesn't work well for a lower cost. Several 1911 makers seem to have gone that route. That doesn't change the excellence of the original design, or of the guns made to those specs.

some folks have griped about the "stupid" grip screw bushings, and how they aren't needed, etc. Pop quiz: Do you know the reason why the 1911/A1 has grip screw bushings in the first place??

Seems like few people today know the answer...

They have grip screw bushings so people doing things wrong don't strip the gun frame, they damage an easily replaceable part (the bushing).

The real problem with today's "1911s" is something a fictional chief engineer once expounded on. "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain!" Scotty was entirely correct there. :D
 
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Scorpion8

New member
The fun thing to remember about John M. Browning's iconic 1911 is that he made an improved version called the Browning/FN HiPower P-35. Fixed all the flaws of the 1911 and made for real people. I own 3.
 
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RickB

New member
Can you name one of these flaws?
I'd have to dig pretty deep to find a flaw in a gun that can (did) fire 6000 rounds without malfunction or parts breakage.
 
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