1911 - Tired, Old, Unreliable Pistol Past It's Prime?

I am not a Glock fan, but I am not here to knock them. I have owned two gold cups and a SR1911, and not a malfunction out of any of them. The game changer for me was hand loading the Nosler 185's for the SR1911 at 25 yards. And although I shoot at 7 yards with my CC Ruger Max 9, I find it boring to shoot targets at that close of a range. I also shoot a Sig P320 X5 Legion so I am accustomed to heaver pistols as well as my Model 29 collection. I guess I am lucky I do not live in an area that I have to CC carry everyday.
 
Pistol whipping wasn't developed using plastic frame guns...

Nor is it necessary with hi cap pistols. Ole' JMB was smarter than we give him credit for by designing the 1911 to be a club as backup with so few rounds available in the magazine. :)
 
Nor is it necessary with hi cap pistols. Ole' JMB was smarter than we give him credit for by designing the 1911 to be a club as backup with so few rounds available in the magazine. :)

When he designed the 1911, he was competing with 6 round revolvers that were likely loaded only with 5.

Rosewood
 
I supposed JMB was the first to encourage spray and pray then with that 40% increase in magazine capacity. :)
Depends on how you look at it
In the example above with one empty chamber in the revolver going from 5 to 8 is 3 more rounds and 3/5 = 60% increase
Or if you assume a full load of 6 the revolver it is 2 extra rounds and like you said that is a 40% increase.
HOWEVER if you look at the 1911 as having 8 +1 then those increases are 4/5 = 80% or 3/6 = 50%
Any way you look at it the increase is significant.
Math is fun. :)
 
This I am going to get out one I'd the 1911s and fondle it while watching news this evening.
 
I have three 1911 style Colt 45's. One cost me $125.00 the other two were given to me by the widow of a friend. One is a Colt Officers Model the other is made up of high-quality parts on a Colt frame and slide. It was his target gun, and he won many a match with it. My $125.00 gun is what I carried in Vietnam, and I have shot a coke bottle cap with it at a measured 85 yards. I don't have a Glock and as I have said elsewhere if I wanted to carry a brick, I'd go to a brick yard and buy one. While I do have some hicap 9mm pistols, if I need more than 7rds, I also need to know why I am in that location.
 
I'm down to two 1911's ,a 1972 70 Series and an Argentine . Both I have owned for a lot of years and both are as reliable as any automatic I have ever handled. The Argentine was made in the mid 50's and has had the hound shot out of it , it never jams . I have seen any number of expensive custom built 1911's that do . They are set up too tight , something that's good for target shooting but not so much for a SD pistol. I'll take an average Government model in worn condition as a carry piece over a Glock any day of the week .

Don't know this Larry that you reference but my thoughts on that is , just one mans opinion. You know what they say about opinions ? This is the 70 Series that I carry. If you want 100% reliability buy you a nice Colt SAA in .45 or .44 Special , they don't jam either.:D
 

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I do have a 1911 that holds 11 rds. with 1 in the chamber. Its a Sig 1911 in .22 caliber. Ran across it in gun safe. Forgot I had it. :o
 
I love the 1911 platform and have had zero issues with mine (5). I carry the full size and commander occasionally (winter). As far as Vickers goes his opinion is his opinion but he does attach his name to a 1911 made by Springfield Armory. A .45acp with 2 (8 round) magazines called the Vickers Tactical.
 
I actually have shot the HK45 and it suffers many of the same ergonomic issues all plastic pistols suffer. It is also priced accordingly in HK's Teutonic fashion and thus built itself out of competition. One must remember that in today's military real shooters have very little input in the selection process. Professional administrators and project managers crunch numbers to find the cheapest tool to meet whatever specifications are dreamt up. In the case of the M9, its primary requirement was that a soldier be able to load and unload the piece with the safety engaged. Nothing else.

Yes. The HK45 is reliable. So is any properly built 1911. For all the talk about "x" number of malfunctions in "x" thousands of rounds fired...I would just love for anyone to show me one single documented instance of anyone actually having fired that many rounds without cleaning, lube, etc. while deployed. It took me the better part of two years to get just over 10k rounds through one G19 and it would experience the occasional feedway stoppage and came close to losing the front sight on more than one occasion til I Loc-Tited the thing. Having been forced to carry and shoot the SIG and Glock platforms over the past 20 plus years, I have not been impressed enough to replace my 1911, pre-B CZ-75 or any of my revolvers with them for personal defense. I have found them all easier to hit with and more quickly than the traditional trigger cocking self loaders or the striker fired pieces.
 

I took a look and I'm not feeling the whole moon thing.

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Never heard of Larry Vickers.

Well, the name sounded familiar - but I had to use Gurgle to get the scoop.

He does seem hold himself in high regard.

As for me, I was never in the military, however I did work as a government contractor for several decades. The Department of Energy Nuclear Materials Couriers and Special Response Teams I was associated with generally made any other group of tacticool guys seem to be Girl Scouts.

Oh, yes, The only 1911 nearby has been a reliable tool of mine for about 40 years. It, and others like, it were (and still are) very popular with the folks I hung out with.
 
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I know who Larry Vickers is, but don't consider his word as gospel.

His thinking on the 1911 led a YouTuber to do a 1000 round torture test on a Kimber 1911 (5"). So I watched the video of he, with the help of two others, firing 1000 consecutive problem free rounds through that Kimber.

Personally, once I got wilson combat magazines and a kimber ultra carry II recoil spring in my 1911, I have had no issues - regardless to ammo type.
So put me in the camp that says Vickers is entitled to his opinion...and nothing more.
 
Whatever gun one chooses to carry is a personal decision. Having proficiency and the right training and mindset is most important in my mind. I've started shooting 9mm 1911's and enjoy them. Slightly more capacity than a .45acp 1911. With an aluminum frame Commander style guns can weigh several ounces less than 5 inch steel government model. One of the hottest guns on the market right now is the Staccato 2011 which is in essence a higher capacity 9mm 1911. Every choice is a compromise. And a personal comfort level choice.

And the Staccato is one of the higher end $2K ones Larry talked about. I agree with him, there are a lot better choices for self defense than a 1911. My high end ones (Les Baer and Dan Wesson) have been fine, I had a RIA and two new Colts that weren't/aren't reliable. Both Colts took two trips back to the factory, one still isn't right and I would never trust it for self defense.

But I don't think Glock reliability is all it's cracked up to be either.
 
1911 is heavy, absorbs recoil better, and is less likely to jam from a limp wrist like shooting from a weak position, or when you are wounded.

The single stack frame and grips are a comfortable, excellent fit in the hand. The gun is well balanced, which is something every plastic fantastic lacks. It is a natural, well balanced combat weapon, easy to work with.

If left alone, it is perfectly reliable. Most problems seem to come from kids putting different parts in it, tightening them up, and generally doing things to turn them into target pistols, or just morons who like ruining guns because they can't leave anything they own alone. Cheap magazines and Tim the Toolman has caused most reliability problems with the 1911. Not any inherent flaw.

The endless stories of "the unjammable Glock" have always been proven wrong. You can watch professionals who know what they are doing have failures in videos. Worst of all, you can watch plenty of actual police incidents and shootings where the supposedly reliable gun fails, time after time. Shooting around people with Glocks, you see they have more failures then I do with my cheapo GI 1911. All that tough talk, and propaganda of being tougher and more reliable never seemed to ever match reality.

So, I will use a weapon that is natural to me, works well when shot weak, absorbs recoil easily, and has a beautiful combat trigger with traditional exposed hammer, and has proven itself as reliable as any auto loader to me.

Exchanging my steel weapon for a plastic "shooting platform" makes no sense. At least for me.
 
Sadly many, if not most have not owned or shot older Colt 1911 types. I will not buy or own a newer one, period. Those making statements on unreliability of Colt 1911's need to state age of pistol they are referring to. Unless one has owned, carried and shot 1000 s of rounds through an older Colt 1911 they dont know what they missed.
 

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