WHY DO GUYS KNOCK THE 1911 AS BEING UNRELIABLE "OUT OF THE BOX"?

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45automan

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Hey guys just wondering about this one. It seems very ignorant and just plain stupid to me when guys say stuff like this. I hear this BS all the time,and it is not true. I have 4 1911 style guns,all stock except for sights,and cleaning up the trigger.They are a Colt 1991a1,Colt 1918 made US Army gun,Ithaca 1911 made in 1943 i belive and a Springfield Armory 1911 Mil Spec. They all work out of the box never had a feed jam that was the fault of the gun. Old mags and bent feed lips were the cause of theones i have hsd. I use factory 7rd Colt mags FWIW. Also for all of you 1911 haters who may be here at TFL,do you really think the military of the greatest nation on earth would use a gun that needed a gunsmiths help to make it "work right" for 70+ years? Honestly!?

Sorry for this rant any thoughts or opinions are welcome,45automan
 
Hello. I agree that magazines can be the weak link. I've had very few 1911s that didn't run after shooting a bit and those that didn't required but little tweaking. I think the design is not the culprit, but rather some manufacturers. Best.
 
I love 1911s. It was not always so. I would have warmed up to them a lot sooner if the first three that I tried or owned had actually worked. Number one was my uncle's GI 1911 he loaned my as a complete novice to handguns. It did not recock the hammer after firing. Obviously not typical. Number two was a Colt "Combat Elite". It worked but was not anywhere near as accurate as my SIG P220. Number three was a brand new Colt Officers ACP that would not even chamber hardball when hand fed. I'm not counting the Colt Mustang 380 that was a complete lemon. The Mustang is not "really" a 1911. Sorry, but there is considerable truth to the 1911 bashing. Twenty years later the only auto pistols that I own (5 of them) are all high end 1911s. Even one of those had to go back to the factory. I've owned a few more 1911s that were also good to go out of the box. I am now convinced that no other handgun equals a slick 1911. Too bad the first ones that I was exposed to were not good guns. Keep the faith.

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Get your 1911s and AR15s while you still can!

[This message has been edited by Watch-Six (edited August 11, 2000).]
 
Most all 1911 will function flawlessly OOTB with hard ball ammo. However, most of us want to use hollow point ammo. Most 1991s do not feed HP well OOTB unless the feedramp is well polished or the barrel is ramped (and sometimes polished too).

Also, 1911 triggers are notoriously creepy in many models as sold OOTB. I think that this a is simply a case of the companies turning them out faster than their QC can keep on top of the "little" things, due to consumer demand.

This is why I consider a 1911 an unfinished product OOTB. It is not ignorance but personal experiance. However, the 1911 is still one of the best pistols ever made and I bet my life on one I carry every day. (With a little tweaking.)
 
45automan......I love the 19ll design. I have hade 8 different ones. Currently I have two. The best have been the Kimbers I have now. The worst and one I was glad to get rid of was a Colt Defender. It was junk from the word go. I think the 1911 design works better in the longer barrels, 4-5". Also a lot of 1911's suffer from poor gunsmithing. The old Govt. Model was loose and could spit out dirt and still work. When you try to tighten things up is when you have problems. The army did use this design for a lot of years. Relibility was one reason it was kept. The big reason was they did not want to change, was the expense. The side arm in the military is a last ditch tool to try to save your life. They figure the money is better spent on long guns. And "NO" I don't think the 1911 is unrelilable out of the box. Not as long as you leave it alone!Let only the best peoplt touch your gun. Shoot Safe.....CO

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"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I require the same from them." From the movie, " The Shootist"
 
You guys are discussing the 1911's of the 70's and 80's when Colt could throw out any old crap and it would sell. Sloppy fit, old tooling, loose metal chips in the action and no quality control at all. It was a Colt monopoly except for a few foreign manufacturers like Llama who were even worse than Colt.
Thats just not the case any more. CNC machines now allow manufacturers to build the 1911 with the same sort of quality that the early 1911's had but without all the hand-fitting those required.
If you buy a Kimber or Springfield it WILL work right out of the box and WILL be more accurate than any other factory guns you own.




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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
Why anyone would think it's reasonable to expect any machine made product to work perfectly 'out of the box' is a mystery to me. Almost all machines require more or less careful 'breaking in'. Guns are no different.
People who badmouth the 1911 are usually talking about a clone, which may vary in quality from superb to dismal; or Colt products made in the last 15 years, which are generally ALL dismal.
Many clones are built to tighter tolerances than the originals. This means they are more accurate, but at a penalty. They need to wear in, until the parts mate and surfaces lose their machining feathers. In the old days, when factories paid old men a dollar an hour to carefully file-fit every single gun, this wasn't the case. Guns came from the box slick, smooth and perfect. Quality control is no longer as stringent in these latter days.
Most well-built clones will be very dependable, once broken in.
People lucky enough to get a clone that works well out of the box never complain, so you don't hear from anyone but the unlucky guys with the clunkers.
A Colt built in the period before 1970 will give you the best chance at absolute dependability.
Aftermarket magazines have also varied greatly in quality. Luckily I have a good supply of old Colt ones. A good gun with bad magazines is not much good for shooting, no matter how pretty it is.

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If they take our guns, I intend to let my hair grow long and acquire the jawbone of an ass.
 
Deny, deny, deny, deny.

There are good 1911s and bad 1911s. But the good ones still are no more reliable than a Beretta 92 or a P7, or even some models of Glock, and to get a "good" one, you either must spend lots of money, or get lucky. Actually, you just have to get lucky, because too many allegedly "good" custom 1911s don't work either. If John Browning were alive today, he would not be designing 1911s. Actually, he'd probably design something more like a Glock. You do the memory a great innovator a disservice by slavishly worshipping at the altar of 1911. It's a gun, not a religion. You guys are touchier than Glockers or Macintosh users.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>do you really think the military of the greatest nation on earth would use a gun that needed a gunsmiths help to make it "work right" for 70+ years? Honestly!?[/quote]I submit that when the guns were adopted, they were superior to everything else available, but that after 89 years, things change. As far as "greatest nation on earth" goes, we could discuss that in General Discussion Forum. In any event, that's a logical fallacy.
 
>>There are good 1911s and bad 1911s. But the good ones still are no more reliable than a Beretta 92 or a P7, or even some models of Glock, and to get a "good" one, you either must spend lots of money, or get lucky. Actually, you just have to get lucky, because too many allegedly "good" custom 1911s don't work either.<<

Nope, wrong. Sorry, there's no other way to put it, you're dead-on WRONG. I have owned and fired TWO DOZEN different 1911s, and have friends that own and fire 1911s on a regular basis. NONE OF THEM has had reliability problems with their guns. You DO hear more complaints about 1911s than other autos for the simple reason that there have been SO MANY companies that have built them for SO LONG. If Glocks had been built by a few dozen different companies and put together from parts by hundreds of thousands of different people, some of whom were not qualified to do so, you would hear the same reports.

>>If John Browning were alive today, he would not be designing 1911s. Actually, he'd probably design something more like a Glock. You do the memory a great innovator a disservice by slavishly worshipping at the altar of 1911. It's a gun, not a religion. You guys are touchier than Glockers or Macintosh users.<<

Only because we get to read slanderous horsepuckey such as your post over and over from people who think they know something about the 1911.
 
Allow me to point out what should be obvious. The 1911 was designed for a customer who had 24/7 armorer support; do you think Army officers and NCOs would go into battle with an issue sidearm that wasn't running right? Hell no! The company or battalion armorer would be required to fix the darn thing, or else. And he had a big parts bin to mix-n-match in order to get a particular frame/slide combo working. Therefore you have to think about what you are saying when you claim that all those military issue 1911s have perfect reliability. Any given issue 1911 has probably had anywhere between 5 and 20 hours of work done on it over the years.

The 1911 design is a fine gun, but it requires quality manufacture, and many many shooters have found out the hard way that OOTB 1911s don't always run right. There's a whole industry devoted to fixing the things.
 
No, there's whole industry devoted to improving them. Just like there are a growing number of companies that improve Glocks, SIGs, etc...
The part about armory support is bunk. Military 1911s were treated like crap by the armorers, I know, I saw and shot them.
 
Have carried and used quite a few 1911s. Using issue hardball I never had a problem. On one job I was away from friendly armorer for 6 months. No sweat, the issue gun was reliable. The only sorry 1911 I have owned I bought new from Colt in 58, twas supposed to be a serious target gun. Got rid of it in a couple months and used an issue one.

I carry wheelguns for defence cause I can use any ol bullet without feed worry but I think the 1911 .45 ACP with ball ammunition is a good choice for military sidearm.

Sam...my favorite 9mm is the 9X32R
 
I wrote <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>>>If John Browning were alive today, he would not be designing 1911s. Actually, he'd probably design something more like a Glock. You do the memory a great innovator a disservice by slavishly worshipping at the altar of 1911. It's a gun, not a religion. You guys are touchier than Glockers or Macintosh users.<<[/quote]

RikWriter wrote <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Only because we get to read slanderous horsepuckey such as your post over and over from people who think they know something about the 1911.[/quote]

Q.E.D.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Cypselus:
Q.E.D.[/quote]

BFD



[This message has been edited by RikWriter (edited August 12, 2000).]
 
I currently have 4 1911's. One is an "unserviceable" Rem Rand that I bought thru the NRA ad DCM in 1960. It doesn't jam with anything. I admit an armorer worked it over for me. The other three that I own are 2 Kimbers and one Springfield. I also did own another Kimber, but sold it. My son also owns a SA Compact. None of those were reliable OTB. I had to send all for reliability work. Some required more than one try to get them reliable. I just yesterday sent my full size Kimber to Brian Bilby for a reliability job. I read many posts from people who have had no problem, but that hasn't been my experience. I don't know if I am ignorant or not, but I know when a gun doesn't work, and I have owned and shot 1911's longer than some of you have been alive. That doesn't make me an expert either. I don't remember that I ever had an issue .45 jam. I often wonder if some who haven't had a problem shoot very much or shoot anything except factory hardball. I continue to think that 1911's are the most finicky of all the SA designs. I sure like them though. Regards, Jerry

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Ecclesiastes 12:13  ¶Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14  For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
 
My Springfield 1911 I bought in 1990 has been very reliable right out of the box even with the 200gr Speer "Flying Ashtrays". I agree it is ignorance when such things are said.
 
HiCap,
I should have mentioned that one of my best friends bought 2 SA Loaded model full size guns about four months ago. Neither of them would get through two mags of factory ammunition without a malfunction. He sent them to SA and now they run perfectly. Now please explain how this is ignorance. Regards, Jerry

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Ecclesiastes 12:13  ¶Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14  For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
 
Jerry, I have a friend who bought a Beretta 92 a few years back that had nothing but problems with it. I have another friend who had major problems with a SIG 229.
But isolated experiences don't an accurate sampling make.
 
In all competition I compete with, I used stock 1911. I am not much interested in modifying my gun, not unless I want to show and have the money to do it. I have seen several famous brand that were under the category of OPEN and MODIFIED in competition but many went defective during the shooting in the different stages. There were those who really became inoperable and were not able to finish the competition. Whilst those under the standard category (mostly stock)went through all the stages.
 
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