I have owned a couple 1911 pistols over the years but they were not all they were cracked up to be. One was a Springfield I bought back in the early 90’s from a co-worker who had a butcher of a gunsmith work on it. It was a disaster and I got taken to the cleaners on it. The other was a Kimber Custom II that never really worked that well. I could never find a combination of magazines and ammo that worked well for me. Both of these guns left me thinking a little less of the 1911 platform.
Now fast forward to this past weekend. I friend and fellow instructor lent me one of his Les Baer custom 1911’s (I believe it was a Custom Combat). I shot just under 500 rounds out of this pistol with not one failure of any kind. I also shot it very well. It points naturally and the trigger was great. I would say it broke in the 4-5 pound range and very crisp as you would imagine in a $2K 1911 pistol. This pistol is pretty old and I have seen my friend shoot this pistol very well for many years. He is a died in the wool “1911 guy”. He has 10 or more really nice custom 1911 guns and I would say ½ of them are more collector’s items and the rest are hard use guns. He swears by Les Baer and the gun he lent me is his back-up to his back-up… Needless to say he make a lot more money than I do.
My question’s are:
• Do I just need to step up into a $2,000 custom/semi-custom 1911? Life has been pretty good to me. It would not be a hardship for me to spend that much on a 1911. But If I do I need it to be as reliable as any machine can be.
• I looked at a Les Baer Custom 1911 at a local gun shop. The pistol was so tight I could hardly move the slide. My friends Les Baer was very smooth and much looser. Not sloppy but it was not at tight as the new one I held at the shop.
• In the 1911 world are Accuracy and Reliability mutually exclusive? In other words would I give up accuracy for extra reliability, if that makes sense. I do not need a pistol that will shoot 1” groups at 75’. I just need reliability and acceptable combat accuracy.
I have given this a lot of though and I am starting to “get it” finally. I think I can see myself with another 1911 in the future. I would appreciate your feedback and advise on this.
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