Well, this nay not be what you want to hear. Most 1911’s IME are not Glock or M&P reliable, but a few are…..IME, those are made by Dan Wesson and Colt. I have 2 DW’s and a Colt. My DW Specialist custom(from CZ) is the finest 1911 45 I’ve ever shot. Which includes some rental Wilsons and Ed Browns.
I have never bought or shot a Turkish 1911, but understand the reason guns are made in turkey is not state of the art engineering and machining. Nor is craftsmanship following a long line of gun builders like London. Guns are made there because the labor is cheap. With cheap labor you can put stuff together with cheap parts and try to fit it to work as a gun. I have looked at 100’s of those Turkish o/u shotguns. Most don’t even open and close at the action right. Trigger pulls are inconsistent gun to gun. The mechanisms feel harsh. I cried and bought a used Browning. It runs like a champ. I do think the higher end stuff like Weatherby, CZ, Yildiz may be ok. I would guess they filter out the imports somehow so you are less likely to get a bad one. Do the 1911’s exceed that mark. I doubt it, but I don’t have enough experience. The few I’ve handled did not.
Kimber is an odd brand. They make basically one gun. The bulk of their price variation is in colors, grips, frame and slide decorative machining. At $800, you get a pile of MIM parts thrown together that generally runs ok. At $3000, you get that same pile of MIM recolored with plastic grips. The ones that run are ok. The ones that don’t, ….God help you.
Springfield Armory makes a decent gun if you accept it as is or pay them to fix/customize it. I think they have ended the full custom shop and maybe do packages now. I had one. It is a pile of parts now. It started out unreliable, poor trigger, scary dangerously short sear engagement, hard to put back together, poi about 6” low, ….. I sent it back. They made the sear spring stiffer to allow the scary little sear engagement to not hammer follow without fixing that. It was much more reliable after it came back. So I started a project which remains incomplete….I’m demoralized. My buddy’s sits in about the same shape. I had another older 90’s 3.5” Compact that worked quite well, but it came to me in good shape except it needed a recoil spring and mags.
I had a Rock Island GI from the 2013 time range. It was a solid pistol. It was good, but never great. It would have some kind of failure about 1 in 200 rounds. Fun to shoot. Trigger was horrible. They have improved that.
So, my money stays with Colt and CZ. I can see buying a higher end custom like Alchemy. …..or maybe an Ed Baer someday, but not now. Other than great bluing, I can’t see much to improve over my duty treat DW’s.
I have never bought or shot a Turkish 1911, but understand the reason guns are made in turkey is not state of the art engineering and machining. Nor is craftsmanship following a long line of gun builders like London. Guns are made there because the labor is cheap. With cheap labor you can put stuff together with cheap parts and try to fit it to work as a gun. I have looked at 100’s of those Turkish o/u shotguns. Most don’t even open and close at the action right. Trigger pulls are inconsistent gun to gun. The mechanisms feel harsh. I cried and bought a used Browning. It runs like a champ. I do think the higher end stuff like Weatherby, CZ, Yildiz may be ok. I would guess they filter out the imports somehow so you are less likely to get a bad one. Do the 1911’s exceed that mark. I doubt it, but I don’t have enough experience. The few I’ve handled did not.
Kimber is an odd brand. They make basically one gun. The bulk of their price variation is in colors, grips, frame and slide decorative machining. At $800, you get a pile of MIM parts thrown together that generally runs ok. At $3000, you get that same pile of MIM recolored with plastic grips. The ones that run are ok. The ones that don’t, ….God help you.
Springfield Armory makes a decent gun if you accept it as is or pay them to fix/customize it. I think they have ended the full custom shop and maybe do packages now. I had one. It is a pile of parts now. It started out unreliable, poor trigger, scary dangerously short sear engagement, hard to put back together, poi about 6” low, ….. I sent it back. They made the sear spring stiffer to allow the scary little sear engagement to not hammer follow without fixing that. It was much more reliable after it came back. So I started a project which remains incomplete….I’m demoralized. My buddy’s sits in about the same shape. I had another older 90’s 3.5” Compact that worked quite well, but it came to me in good shape except it needed a recoil spring and mags.
I had a Rock Island GI from the 2013 time range. It was a solid pistol. It was good, but never great. It would have some kind of failure about 1 in 200 rounds. Fun to shoot. Trigger was horrible. They have improved that.
So, my money stays with Colt and CZ. I can see buying a higher end custom like Alchemy. …..or maybe an Ed Baer someday, but not now. Other than great bluing, I can’t see much to improve over my duty treat DW’s.
