I have
very limited experience with a Sig 1911. The experience was not good. Sorry to bring some bad juju in to a happy moment, but it's always occurred to me that keeping an eye out for possible negatives can put you in a better position to look for them or deal with them on the off chance that you find similar issues.
Here we go.
Got a Sig 1911 Two Tone Match Elite, $ 1,056 plus shipping.
Sorry that I have no hosting space for images, it was this same gun that can be found here, and pictures are here also:
https://ghostfirearms.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1609
Pistol came NIB from a very large, successful Gunbroker dealer.
On the bad side:
The pistol had vertical marks (damage?) near the muzzle, UNDER the finish. Yes, pictures would help, sorry. Basically, these were manufacturing flaws somewhere in the build process. There was also a rubbing of that matte finish along the top of the slide that almost wanted to look like holster wear... but this was a NIB pistol. Suffice to say, neither of these (obvious!) marks affected function in any way, but was a bitter pill on a new pistol. This is part of the risk of ordering a gun rather than picking one up in a gun store.
The other genuine issue was that the very nice, large adjustable rear sight simply came loose in it's dovetail... this happened after 150 or so rounds of shooting. The sight wouldn't come all the way out, it just rattled left/right in the dovetail. This was fixed by a friend and it stood up to another three boxes of hardball before I sold the pistol.
Those were the two problems. One third bit that annoyed me with the pistol but I can't call a genuine "issue" was that it had an extremely short leade and gave me a few fits with my handloads before I got a handle on it. This is not the first time I've come across a pistol that throws me such a curve, and I never did run factory ammo through it, and I was certainly able to figure it out, so again, it's not something I could blame on Sig... but it was still annoying. When you've built many
thousands of the exact same handload using the same slug and you've run it with irrational success across (easily) more than a dozen different .45's and then you meet a new one that says "NO!", well, it's annoying.
The same exact rounds have done single hole groups out of a Brown and two Baers, a Ruger, a S&W E-Series, and a number of other .45cal pistols. Shame on me for building ammo that two Baer's and a Brown loved... that wasn't up to the diet the Sig wanted.
On the good side, I found the pistol to be extremely good looking, it was a very accurate handgun and I think they did a fine job with the front strap checkering and I wish more of my guns had the same checkering. The trigger was decent, but at the price point, I've seen, used and had better. I liked the sights... more if it hadn't gotten loose. The pistol locked up very nicely and reminded me of a Baer in that way. (if you have handled a new Baer, you'll know what I'm trying to describe) The slide to frame fit and the lines that many judge a 1911 on were decent, in my opinion.
I lost a couple hundred on it and sold it to a very active dealer at my favorite gun show. We went over it's issues together before he took the pistol and my information.
Very sour taste left behind. And in some light poking around later, I found that other folks have gotten similar marks under the finish on NIB Sig pistols and nobody seems to have any luck with Sig when they contact them to correct it. I never did contact Sig.
