Auto Ordnance 1911 45 ACP

Junk!!! Cast frames and slide, low quality control and poor workmanship. Very unreliable I owned one, never again. Pure garbage, I wouldn't take one for free, if I had to carry it.

7th

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by smokey 1:
What are the opinions on the Auto Ordnance Pistols?[/quote]

I read the other responses...but the one I had was (for the price) a very nice gun.
The fit wasn't up to Colt, but you ain't paying a Colt price either.
Kahr owns Auto Ordinance now, so the quality may improve.
I did sell mine for a Colt 1911...not sorry I did, but I don't think the Colt is twice the quality.
Bottomline, nice gun for the money.
 
My first 1911 was and still is an Auto-Ordnance. It's a pretty good piece for the $230 I paid for it. The frame and slide are steel- not metal. It is accurate, dependable, and I could play w/ it doing different modifications w/out having a lot invested in it.
My main 1911 is a Kimber now, but I still have and like my Auto-Ordnance. It's not the quality of the older Colts, but neither are the newer Colts. It's not a bad buy to play with but for serious protection it might need a little work.

Dave

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"It is surely time to stand for truth and our rights, or sit down in subjection"-me
 
Heard that some are good and some are bad due to that they are made at more than one location. Sounds like a crap shoot to me.
 
What also interests me is whether the quality of AO 1911s will improve now that they're going to be made by Kahr. I'm not sure that the Kahr AO pistols are even on the market yet, But if anybody sees one or has seen one I'd sure like to hear what it's like.

BTW, I understand that the old AO frames (and maybe slides) were made in Spain. Will the Kahr AO components all be U.S.-made? This would also be interesting to know.
 
I have one that I really like. I currently have about a half dozen other pistols so its not like it is the only gun I have or could afford. A buddy and I have a makeshift range at his farm, and we often put a bunch of blue rocks out on the hillside and shoot them at 25 + yds, then shoot any of the bigger pieces that are left. Any of my friends that I have let shoot it were impressed with it. I let one guy that had never shot a pistol before shoot it, and he kept all of them in less than 8" at 25yds. It did have a few times it wouldn't properly chamber the first round out of a full mag when I first bought it (boy that spring was tight), that shortly disappeared, since then ZERO problems, until I had one batch of reloads that were just a tad long to work smoothly in the mag, my fault - not the pistols. Everything that I have either works or it is history, I still have my AO.
This question has been asked here a couple of times before, and some people like them, some don't. The people that don't usually have a pistol that cost substantially more than an AO. I guess people that pay 2-3 times as much for a pistol, and then give a smith another couple hundred just to (hopefully) make it work right can't deal with the fact that you CAN buy a decent, accurate, reliable pistol that doesn't have some "designer" name on it. What really cracks me up, is that you will hear some of these same people say that cheap chinese sh!t pistols are good, (at least good enough to dump another $500 or more into and replace every part to make them work right) that is what some big name told them, so they follow the herd and shell out the bucks. Most of the people that put down AO pistols have never owned one, and are probably just repeating what the salesman for the designer name on their pistol told them just before bending them over. I bet they never even got a kiss. It's a good thing they just read the advertisements in gun rags rather than the Inquirer.

bergie
 
An Auto Ordnance was also my first 1911. I still have it and it is my bedside gun after over 9,000 rounds and many parts replaced. I too will find it interesting whether quality will improve with the Kahr takeover.

Saying they are junk isn't far wrong. Everytime a soft part needed to be replaced on mine a Colt or quality aftermarket part was fitted. At the time of purchase, 1982, fifty bucks extra for a real Colt was a lot of money. Parts have cost me more than that in the interim and gunsmithing much more than that. Buy quality the first time if you plan to actually use a gun.

Having said all that, it is a sentimental favorite and is now completely reliable and accurate, thanks to a pistolsmith, not Auto Ordnance.
 
I had an Auto Ordnance 1911A1 once. I bought it new at a pawnshop. It wouldn't chamber a round from the magazine if more than four (4) rounds were loaded. I sent it back to Auto Ordnance for repair of the frame (a gunsmith confirmed the frame was the problem). About four weeks later it came back with a note from the factory that the problem had been solved with a new frame stamped with the same serial number. I knew the frame was a replacement because an identification mark I had the gunsmith make was not on the new frame. I took the pistol home, loaded a few magazines and tried to load the pistol. The new frame had the old problem. I went back to the gunsmith. He confirmed it was the same problem with the frame. It was evident that some corrective surgery would not help this gun, so I took it back to the pawnshop I bought it from and sold it back for what I had paid for it. I forgot to mention the problem it had until after I got my money back. (This guy hadn't done me a favor once, so I returned the same.)

The moral of the story? Don't buy an Auto Ordnance without a clean bill of health from your gunsmith.

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