Are expensive 1911's range toys or serious CCW guns?

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I agree completely.

My post wasn't about having to spend a certain amount of money to properly defend yourself. I was referring to the argument of not carrying an expensive handgun (that you presumably already own) in favor of a less expensive one because you would be upset for having do without it after it saved your life. IMHO any money spent on a gun that saved your life is money well spent, even if you never see that gun again.
Fair enough. I quoted the wrong guy then.
 
I purchased a number of fine firearms from descendants. Don't waste money thinking your descendants or inheritors will appreciate the quality, workmanship, and features of your firearms. You don't understand their motivations and you won't be able to control what they will do. I will tell you what they really, really, want: they want CASH. They want cash quickly convertible to cases of Jack Daniels and cartons of cigarettes.

Buy and use the gun for yourself.
Best post of the thread. Period.
 
I don't carry because in my Country (Italy) a carry license is very very hard to obtain. I'd carry (round in the chamber) a DA/SA pistol with a decocker-only feature like my Walther P99 AS or a revolver. In short I like having a gun ready to fire without previous actions like cocking the hammer or disengage the safety. And I'd like to have at least a firing pin safety in my carry gun.
I don't even like the idea to use a cocked-and-locked pistol as home-defense gun. That's why my 9mm Pardini is restricted as a range-only pistol (it's also too big of a pistol). If I only had it, then I'll use it but I have a couple better options for that role.
In many cases top end 1911s have very tight tolerances and need a break-in period to can trust them 100% as reliable carry pistols and this is even more true when going to Commander or Officer size of 1911 pistols. Not all people are willing to accept this.
I belive it's a "to each his own" situation.

I carried and used a 1911 for over 40 years. Dropping the safety on the draw is ingrained muscle memory. The 1911 I'm carrying now has a titanium firing pin. It's drop safe.

You're talking about experience that you lack and will probably never have.
 
I carried and used a 1911 for over 40 years. Dropping the safety on the draw is ingrained muscle memory. The 1911 I'm carrying now has a titanium firing pin. It's drop safe.

You're talking about experience that you lack and will probably never have.

Right, achieving a proper firing grip prohibits the safety being on for me. If the gun is on target the safety is down and my thumb is on it by grip and reflex, zero thinking or extra motion required
 
I carried and used a 1911 for over 40 years. Dropping the safety on the draw is ingrained muscle memory. The 1911 I'm carrying now has a titanium firing pin. It's drop safe.

You're talking about experience that you lack and will probably never have.

Criticism of the 1911 safety can get some prickly responses from 1911 owners. I have seen at least one Delta Force type character bump the safety to "ON" in one of those TV shooting shows. It really screwed up his competition time, it might have been worse had someone been shooting at him while he puzzled out why his pistol was not going bang.

The early models of the 1911 did not have a safety, the safety was only put on because the horse cavalry needed a way to make the pistol safe with one hand, while their mount went bonkers. You can imagine compulsively grabbing your pistol as your horse jumped and rolled. Even with the safety, the pistol was designed to be carried, round in the chamber, hammer down.

How do you think John Browning carried this pistol? Empty chamber?

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It was only because of a number of accidental discharges by owners lowering the hammer, that the military SOP became round in chamber, safety on, pistol in flap holster. The military still had accidental discharges and continued to alter the carry SOP. I have read accounts of veterans that by the time you get to Vietnam, you were not allowed to put a magazine in the pistol till you were on the Huey, and you were not allowed to chamber a round till you were on the ground in the drop zone.

I did go through a Texas Ranger museum and the pictures of Rangers on horses showed Rangers were carrying 1911's with the hammer down, in open top holsters. The holsters had retention straps. I assume they went condition 2 and were confident they could thumb cock the thing in time for whatever problem they encountered.

But cocked and locked became the standard configuration for the quick draw types and the quick draw games that evolved post WW2. Just watch the Cowboy shows of the time, the fastest man to clear leather always wins. Maybe it will, if life is a Cowboy show. Cocked and locked has developed its own narrative, its own origin story, and it is dogma to some. I feel free to be an apostate, and for those who don't feel comfortable carrying a pistol cocked and unlocked, as those safeties do bump off, well, there is more than one of you.
 
I carried and used a 1911 for over 40 years. Dropping the safety on the draw is ingrained muscle memory. The 1911 I'm carrying now has a titanium firing pin. It's drop safe.

You're talking about experience that you lack and will probably never have.

Your self-proclaimed forty-year experience means nothing to me, but as far as I'm concerned you can continue to carry your titanium-firing-pin-drop-safe-cocked-and-locked 1911 for another forty years and beyond.
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I love my 1911s, I have two at the moment, but I don't train with them for CCW; therefore, I don't carry them. For me, they are range toys and home defense guns only, they are just too big and bulky. I have far smaller, lighter and higher round count guns that I carry.
 
...It was only because of a number of accidental discharges by owners lowering the hammer, that the military SOP became round in chamber, safety on, pistol in flap holster. The military still had accidental discharges and continued to alter the carry SOP. I have read accounts of veterans that by the time you get to Vietnam, you were not allowed to put a magazine in the pistol till you were on the Huey, and you were not allowed to chamber a round till you were on the ground in the drop zone....

I think this has something to do with why US police forces stuck with double-action revolvers for so long. Now I will admit that I'm a "revolver guy" but I don't pine for the days and I actually think police would have been better off switching to automatics much earlier than they did in the US. I don't think of police as gun experts (although there are some among them), and instead I think of the majority of US police over the course of the 20th century to be marginally competent and often inept in firearms handling. We have countless historical and modern-day examples testifying to this fact. This isn't to ridicule police, but the fact is that firearms handling and shooting are a martial art that takes extensive training, intense practice, and rigorous discipline to perform dependably well under stress. There are few people that can do it and the intersection of this group with the group of people who can do excellent police work is even smaller. We can almost certainly say the same thing about civilians who carry. Now, none of this is to say that they shouldn't carry, but that scarcely would anyone want to assume the liability for someone else who carries. But that's just what police agencies must expect to do. This is no doubt why they favored the double-action revolver and the double-action automatic. I believe that most of the early adopters of striker-fired guns like the Glock did so because they understood it to function like a double-action only.

Going back to the early part of the 20th century, police in the US could have adopted the 1911. They could have seen the advantages of the single-action trigger that more officers would have been successful with. They could have seen the advantages of magazine reloads, an advantage that nobody today would argue is anything less than absolutely vital. Going back to the days of dump pouches would simply be scandalous, and yet the technology that replaces them today is more than 100 years old. So really, the problem was they couldn't justify arming officers with the 1911 because they would be forced to dictate condition 1, 2 or 3 carry, and all of these choices would put officers at risk of a shooter-induced malfunction or an unintentional discharge. Indeed, the adoption of automatics by US police was effectively delayed until the double-action automatics and the striker-actions which were initially perceived as double-action came on the market. For a while, we even saw the striker guns offered with heavy double-action only and then lighter "LEM" triggers until most recently we have the widespread acceptance of triggers with a little bit of take-up and then no more weight than a SA 1911 trigger to break.
 
I go back to the summer of 1964 at Paris Island SC-MCRD familiarization firing of the 1911A1 followed by the following year in Viet-Nam with the age old lesson learned by previous generations the 1911A1 is a supplement to the primary rifle.

With that said, I've probably fired enough 45ACP at the 25 & 50 yard lines to fill a 55Gal drum with the empty cases. (Yes that's a lot of empties but it makes for a good story).

The high dollar 1911 series pistols are what they are and part of that to a degree is status symbol's for individuals with a certain amount of brag thus a certain amount of Walter Mitty factored in also.

Tom Givens author of Fighting Smarter A Practical Guide For Surviving Violent Confrontations Chapter 13 Training Priorities provides informative information engagement distances of shooting distances which are close extremely close.

With that said reasonable accuracy not extreme accuracy seems to be reasonable thus your moderately priced 1911 series pistols would appear to be more than adequate for the purposes of self-defense.

As for myself I have examples of 1911 series pistols but my EDC is a S&W Shield 9X19mm.
 
I love my 1911s, I have two at the moment, but I don't train with them for CCW; therefore, I don't carry them. For me, they are range toys and home defense guns only, they are just too big and bulky. I have far smaller, lighter and higher round count guns that I carry.

Interesting, and not training with them for CCW leaves you feeling OK with them for HD? I would think you'd still want to train them for HD as well?

I like to keep my HD and CCW guns consistent for consistencies sake.
 
I carried and used a 1911 for over 40 years. Dropping the safety on the draw is ingrained muscle memory. The 1911 I'm carrying now has a titanium firing pin. It's drop safe.

You're talking about experience that you lack and will probably never have.


Are you saying that you drop the safety on the draw? And at that point, your gun is still drop safe?

Help me out here sir, because I don’t see how that’s possible.
 
Are you saying that you drop the safety on the draw? And at that point, your gun is still drop safe?

Help me out here sir, because I don’t see how that’s possible.

I can try.

Many folk with 1911 disengage the safety on the draw when getting their proper grip, some on the 45 degree angle, I do right as the sights hit the target. It's just a reflex as part of coming up on target, not a separate thought or action.

The second part with drop safe is, the greatest chance of a dropped 1911 going off is a solid nose down hit on the barrel pushing the firing pin forward through inertia. Even with the thumb safety off, the grip safety will keep the hammer back on a drop. A titanium firing pin combined with a stronger spring will aleviate the chance of inertia driving the pin forward on a drop because the lighter titanium pin cannot overcome the spring strength with inertia and gravity alone.

It is the standard drop safe method without a firing pin block (like the series 80 Colt, or Kimbers)
 
Even with the thumb safety off, the grip safety will keep the hammer back on a drop.

I guess this is the part that I question. The grip safety keeps the trigger from being pressed, not the sear from bouncing out from under the hammer hooks if the gun hits the ground.

In the end it’s up to the individual what they do, and how they feel about what they do. Me, with a 1911, its on target safety off. Off target safety on. Please do as you wish.
 
Gunsight's training doctrine for 1911s is to disengage the safety on the "rotate" phase of the drawstroke (count three).

Likewise, the safety is re-engaged during the reholster as the muzzle direction rotates from forward to down.

Those who only disengage the safety when the gun is extended and sights are on target may have some problems engaging a target at contact distance from a retention position.

 
The high dollar 1911 series pistols are what they are and part of that to a degree is status symbol's for individuals with a certain amount of brag thus a certain amount of Walter Mitty factored in also.

What exactly are owners day dreamers about?
 
Just a bit of slight … a belief that those of us that own higher-end 1911s have them only for the snob appeal and an apparent desire to be like Sergeant York or the Bruce Willis character in the flick "Last Man Standing." As always on the internet, there are many who don't know what they don't know.
 
I guess this is the part that I question. The grip safety keeps the trigger from being pressed, not the sear from bouncing out from under the hammer hooks if the gun hits the ground.

In the end it’s up to the individual what they do, and how they feel about what they do. Me, with a 1911, its on target safety off. Off target safety on. Please do as you wish.

Take a look at the holster in post 108. The strap is across the grip safety. If the safety bumps to the ready position and anything presses on the grip safety (such as a fat roll) then all you have between a pending hole in your butt is that trigger.

I have heard there are more accidental discharges with the Glock type trigger than any other, shooters hook the finger into the trigger guard and manage to bump the trigger withdrawing the pistol from the holster, or, where ever the pistol resides. I have seen Utube videos of guys shooting themselves playing quick draw with their 1911's.

I can tell you that I have had lots of accidental discharges with my smallbore prone rifles. Really makes me leery of trusting triggers alone. Just had a couple in a Regional with this rifle. The wind changed, needed to adjust the windage knob, the rifle has an 8 ounce trigger, and the fourth finger somehow got in the trigger guard and bumped the trigger. The round went downrange into the dirt.

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This Anschutz has a wonderful set trigger. You set the thing and final release, I can't measure the final release as my trigger gauge releases the trigger. The pull weight is just at the level of sensitivity. And there have been times when I am putting my finger in the trigger guard, moving towards the trigger, and I touch it and it goes off. I have to be careful to approach the trigger with the sights off the target. Shot at least one eight and a five. And, I have loaded the gun, moved the hand down, and a finger snagged in the trigger guard, touching the trigger.

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For a self defense gun, something I have to live with and carry, I want more protection than a single action, or even, a Glock type trigger. A nice heavy double action pull is OK.
 
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Hello All,

There are really only two pistol designs that I have consistently carried.

For the last decade, I've carried a gun that is light, easy to conceal, easy to carry, easy to clean, and always goes bang. It carries 15+1, has low tolerances, and is cheap to run. Parts for it are ubiquitous. LEOs and special forces love it. Some people have called it the perfect pistol. I don't necessarily agree, but I can see its merits. If you haven't guessed by now, I'm referring to Gaston Glock's G19.

In order to maintain what I consider a high level of proficiency on the G19, I have to work hard. I've taken classes, taken private lessons, and spent hours on the range. Shooting is a perishable skill. If I miss even a few weeks of range time, I can tell immediately. There are a lot of things going for the G19, but I've never been able to shoot it as accurately as I wish I could. Some of this has to do with the design, the sloppy trigger, and of course, my ability to shoot.

Then, there is my indulgence. It's big, heavy, difficult to take down, hard to conceal, expensive to own and operate, and only carries 8+1. But, it's ready to go to war, and, let's not forget, it's been several times. I'm referring to my government size 1911. I'm lucky enough to have a Wilson Combat, and it's so sexy. In every way, it is a superior product to my Glock, and it's G10 grips are practically daring me to take it into battle. I take it out of the safe and shoot it at the range every few months. Every time I do, I feel like a rockstar. I have an emotional connection to this gun in a way that I could never feel about a Glock. It's ridiculously accurate, has a near perfect trigger pull, and is well balanced. It's tolerances are extremely tight, which I'm reminded of every time I clean it. It outshoots my G19 over and over again. When I pick it up, I shoot bulls eyes. When I put it down, I'm always convinced that I should throw my striker fired plastic POS away and carry the Wilson.

Reality eventually sets in. It's a pain in the butt to carry a full sized metal gun when you can carry a smaller, lighter plastic pistol that will more or less do the same job. In a real gun fight, accuracy loses to capacity most of the time (so I've been told), and the G19 shines in capacity and reliability. In accuracy, it is good enough. And, so the story goes, the best carry gun is the one you will actually carry all day long.

I ask the reader, is the Wilson 1911 simply a range or comp gun, or is this the gun I should be carrying? I don't think carrying a G19 is in any way bad choice, but is it the best choice I have available to me? Maybe I should throw them both in the trash and buy a FN Five-Seven. Life is confusing sometimes, and I can never come to any meaningful conclusion. So, I grab the G19, put it in my kydex holster, and long for the Wilson.

If you've convinced your self, thats all that matters.
 
For a self defense gun, something I have to live with and carry, I want more protection than a single action, or even, a Glock type trigger. A nice heavy double action pull is OK.

What ever works for you tickles me to death. And if you like a heavy double action trigger, all the best. For myself, double action triggers don’t work as well. And heavy double action triggers don’t work at all.

Side note:
Nice rifles.
In your mind, is there a real difference in accuracy between a rifle with an 8 oz trigger and say a 2 lb. trigger, all else being equal?
 
Are you saying that you drop the safety on the draw? And at that point, your gun is still drop safe?

Help me out here sir, because I don’t see how that’s possible.
The thumb safety has nearly nothing to do with "drop-safetyness".

Drop safety with the 1911 has to do with the inertial firing pin. A low mass titanium firing pin with an extra power firing pin spring can help in a muzzle drop, or you can just get a 1911 with a firing pin safety. Whether the thumb safety is engaged or not, has no bearing on a non-firing pin safety equipped 1911 firing if dropped on the muzzle.
 
Side note:
Nice rifles.
In your mind, is there a real difference in accuracy between a rifle with an 8 oz trigger and say a 2 lb. trigger, all else being equal?

Not in the inherent accuracy of the rifle, but my scores are always higher with the set trigger. As a prone shooter I have to contend with heart beat and heat stress. As I get hot, the heart beat goes up, and that pulse is reflected in rifle movement. I can only slow the heart beat down for very short periods, sometimes due to heat stress, not at all. In the dwell period of a slowed heart beat, all I have to do with the set trigger is touch it. I don't have to build up pressure, which takes time. I can see the crosshairs in or on the X ring and touch off the set trigger without delay or much of any movement of the rifle. My X counts are higher and I shoot more tens.

These targets are in 60 to 70 F weather, and firing in the shade.

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This is two 100 yard F Class 22lr targets, the shooter's rifle is on a rest and sandbags. He does not have to contend with a pulse, and you would expect a much tighter group just from that alone. I have not played with his trigger, but it is light. A light trigger means there is less movement of the rifle to control when the trigger breaks.

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LOL. that's a joke correct?
Well I guess they could dream that Mr BG will be so impressed with the beauty of their CCW piece that the BG will just give up, or that their $3500 1911 is actually more reliable than the many $500 duty weapons avaliable. Of course IMHO those dreams ar more fitting to One flew over the cockoo's nest than Walter Mitty.
 
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