I'm a fan of Guncrafter 1911's. Full disclosure, they are friends and we do some business back and forth but somehow it always happens that among the manufacturers of bottom-end stuff, I don't have friends and don't do business with them

Alex at GI has quietly brought a lot of innovation to the 1911. Some of it by contract to other manufacturers and going back years. Pica rails on 1911 dust covers, Alex's prints are all over that. Two of the few places that did the whole "external extractor " thing right, did it with Alex consulting. They others should have hired him too as several completely failed-- to the point where they withdrew it and for a time were simply replacing those slides with slides having original-format extractors.

Fit a .50 caliber cartridge in a standard-sized 1911? Alex. The 1911 may have a few known weak points; there are others less well known that don't show up until you really run them long and hard. Alex has addressed these.

Owning two, handling many, visiting the shop, I will say their quality is surpassed by none. Not saying "unequaled" because there are some other really good 1911's out there-- most of which come from the same part of the country (AR), But GI's level of innovation is impressive.

Although Alex and I are friends, he tells me friggin' nothing when he has something brewing. I had to happen on this on my own, thought it was cool enough to post and maybe start a thread for GI owners.