Probably sells the ammo and keeps the 1911s!
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Very hit and miss.
I have two Combat Commanders that are basically the same from two different years.
One of them -- the one I mentioned in the previous post -- looks like it was made by untrained monkeys who broke in after hours to operate the machines and make bootleg guns.
The other one is totally the opposite; a beautiful gun that certainly is in line with the classic Colt reputation.
You can guess which one is my beater, although I frequently look at the Heirloom Precision guns that get posted her every so often and think that the monkey-made Colt would be a good base from which to make a masterpiece.
The steel is generally quite good and the geometry is usually decent in my experience.
Also less time on the machine means cheaper to produce, so the Chinese typically leave metal on rather than take too much off.
That tends to make problems fixable, at least.
I've built some good guns on Norinco frames and slides, I'll say that.
Flawless, sub-moa fit and finish...all day long.
Wilson used to accept them for custom work back when they were still imported. I handled a Wilson built Norinco at a USPSA match back in the early 90's. I almost bought one based on this, but my addiction to Colt deterred me.
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I regret not buying a few Norincos.
This is what I totally don't understand. I've been looking at Colt 1911s from 1911 through about mid 2010 and their quality have always been hit or miss, with it seems like a lot more cosmetic misses than hits.
I pretty much expect any Colt to be fugly, and am surprised if it's a nice one.
Lots of good discussion around here lately.
I'm not sure that we aren't selling Colt a bit short here, even in assessing the 1970s guns. It is true that, like virtually everything else built in America during that time frame, there are some curiously-flawed examples to be found, but as a rule, you can still find plenty of very solid Colts from this era. Far more good than bad. Even a "bad" one generally represents a solid build prospect these days.
Not discounting the larger point, but a lot of this does trend toward the anecdotal, and if you talk to the guys who do a lot of custom work on the older Colts, most will tell you that the hard part isn't finding one that is built to spec, but rather, finding one that hasn't been tinkered-with over the years.
AC
That's pretty much exactly why I buy new Norincos for bases for builds rather than used Springfields and Colts (well, used Colts aren't that cheap up here, anyway).
You get a series 70 with no particular collector value and figure you can do something great with it, and then you open it up...BAM. It's been ABCD'd.
Not sure if that particular crime is on the books in the US or not but it should be:
ABCD.
Assault with Brownell's Catalogue & Dremel.