Over the years I have seen many posts wherein someone asks which brand of 1911 they should buy. Very often, they are told by someone that to the effect of "you can't go wrong with a Colt".
Given my experiences with the modest number of Colt 1911's I have owned and my industrial background relative to quality control, I react with incredulousness.
Back in the seventies I bought a Mark IV Government Model and a blued Combat Commander in .38 Super, and A blued Combat Commander in .45 ACP. The Government Model gave me some problems that turned out to be a matter of too little tension (not enough bend) in the extractor which I may have caused myself (being young and stupid) by dropping a round into the chamber and releasing the slide, expecting the extractor to jump over the rim (yeah, I know). However, I am not sure I did that, but after learning how to put more bend in the extractor, the gun shot fine as did the Colt Combat Commander in .45 ACP.
The .38 Super was a different matter. Shooting it resulted in battered recoil lugs. A gunsmith told me after examining it, that the recoil lug recesses in the slide were milled out of spec and I needed to replace the slide and barrel. The problem was that there were no .38 Super Colt Commander slides to be had so I ended up with a Colt Commander slide marked "9mm" instead of .38 Super. The gun has not given me any problems since it became a "FrankenColt".
I added better sights, better trigger, et. al. and it has become a favorite of mine, despite the mismatched parts.
A few years ago, I bought a new XSE Colt Combat Commander in .45 ACP. It was a problem from the beginning. Jammed frequently. Playing with it, I discovered that the recoil spring was very much underpowered. It was so underpowered that I cannot imagine how anyone who presumably assembled many guns each and worked the slide, would not have noticed that the spring was way too weak. After replacing the recoil spring, another problem became apparent...the firing pin spring was so weak that the firing pin stop would drop down and tie-up the gun when firing. After replacing that spring also, the gun become a reliable shooter.
When I bought the gun from my local gun store, I had not paid much attention to the grips. When I got around to giving them a close look, I was astounded at the very poor checkering...many instances of poor spacing. Certainly the person doing the checkering was aware he/she was screwing the checkering job up...begging the question, why were they not scrapped? Likewise, the person at Colt assembling the gun most certainly should have rejected them. In all the quality control in regard to my gun was abdominal.
To sum, just because it is a Colt rather than some other brand of 1911, does not mean you are not going to run into very poor quality control...if you can even call it that.
I won't even get into the fact that they assembled it with a plastic (ugh!) mainspring housing (which I replaced with a stainless steel flat housing).
Given my experiences with the modest number of Colt 1911's I have owned and my industrial background relative to quality control, I react with incredulousness.
Back in the seventies I bought a Mark IV Government Model and a blued Combat Commander in .38 Super, and A blued Combat Commander in .45 ACP. The Government Model gave me some problems that turned out to be a matter of too little tension (not enough bend) in the extractor which I may have caused myself (being young and stupid) by dropping a round into the chamber and releasing the slide, expecting the extractor to jump over the rim (yeah, I know). However, I am not sure I did that, but after learning how to put more bend in the extractor, the gun shot fine as did the Colt Combat Commander in .45 ACP.
The .38 Super was a different matter. Shooting it resulted in battered recoil lugs. A gunsmith told me after examining it, that the recoil lug recesses in the slide were milled out of spec and I needed to replace the slide and barrel. The problem was that there were no .38 Super Colt Commander slides to be had so I ended up with a Colt Commander slide marked "9mm" instead of .38 Super. The gun has not given me any problems since it became a "FrankenColt".
I added better sights, better trigger, et. al. and it has become a favorite of mine, despite the mismatched parts.
A few years ago, I bought a new XSE Colt Combat Commander in .45 ACP. It was a problem from the beginning. Jammed frequently. Playing with it, I discovered that the recoil spring was very much underpowered. It was so underpowered that I cannot imagine how anyone who presumably assembled many guns each and worked the slide, would not have noticed that the spring was way too weak. After replacing the recoil spring, another problem became apparent...the firing pin spring was so weak that the firing pin stop would drop down and tie-up the gun when firing. After replacing that spring also, the gun become a reliable shooter.
When I bought the gun from my local gun store, I had not paid much attention to the grips. When I got around to giving them a close look, I was astounded at the very poor checkering...many instances of poor spacing. Certainly the person doing the checkering was aware he/she was screwing the checkering job up...begging the question, why were they not scrapped? Likewise, the person at Colt assembling the gun most certainly should have rejected them. In all the quality control in regard to my gun was abdominal.
To sum, just because it is a Colt rather than some other brand of 1911, does not mean you are not going to run into very poor quality control...if you can even call it that.
I won't even get into the fact that they assembled it with a plastic (ugh!) mainspring housing (which I replaced with a stainless steel flat housing).
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