1911 Reliability Surprise!

COLT Gold CUP TROPHY SS

Just bet another $1300 at the 1911 Casino on a new COLT Gold Cup Trophy in Stainless Steel.

My new COLT SCG worked perfectly out of the box, so I'm hoping this one will too.

I'll know in a few days.

Frankly, I think the smart guys are the ones buying the Norcs, paying 25% of the price for guns that seem to work just fine. :)
 
The 1911 is the last of the truly 'personal' weapons, kind of like the Samurai sword, which was made for one specific person, very few remain in out-of-the-box order for long. The pistol will reflect the personality of it's owner and his/her priorities and tastes. There are very few things in our society anymore of which that can be said.

Incidently, the extractor issue is like sharpening the sword, if you can't do it, choose another weapon.
 
The 1911 is the last of the truly 'personal' weapons, kind of like the Samurai sword, which was made for one specific person, very few remain in out-of-the-box order for long. The pistol will reflect the personality of it's owner and his/her priorities and tastes. There are very few things in our society anymore of which that can be said.

Incidently, the extractor issue is like sharpening the sword, if you can't do it, choose another weapon.

Interesting analogy, however I have to differ with you on the idea that only gunsmiths should own a 1911 and 1911's are some sort of work of art rather than simply a handgun.
That type of logic only empowers the gun companies to produce faulty products and makes us rationalize their failure at quality control.

I also doubt a sword maker in ancient Japan would last long if his swords had the quality problems of the modern 1911. Ritual suicide would probably be demanded.

Time to stop making excuses for the gun companies and to demand the quality we are paying big bucks for!!
 
I really enjoy to read this post, part of the reason is this topic shows how workmanship or manufacturing process can affect the design. Anyhow I visit several gun site daily and interesting to found Sig guy, Glock guy, Ruger guy and CZ guy will complain about the later qualities were no longer as good as before. I shoot as a hobby and enjoy almost every design, 1911 indeed is some of the best design out there but the maker can screw this design big time. A high end costy gun should perform excellent right out of the box, if not, either the gun haven't been test fired or only able to tolerate certain kind of ammo, this gun is no longer a weapon but a propell instructment. A good gun has to combine design, workmanship and quality control to make it a weapon that can perform anytime you want. I will soon get one in .45, it may be a STI ranger II but haven't sell enough guns to fund it yet, hopefully I didn't get a lemon

Trigun
 
A good gun has to combine design, workmanship and quality control to make it a weapon that can perform anytime you want. I will soon get one in .45, it may be a STI ranger II but haven't sell enough guns to fund it yet, hopefully I didn't get a lemon

Trigun

The advantage of the 1911 is that for the most part if you do get a "lemon" parts are cheap and most things can be easily fixed....

The issue here seems to be buying something High end and it not performing out of the box... I've yet to buy a car that didn't have teething problems... Again fairly easily fixed.. (well except maybe for the $1900 rear end the truck) but it wasn't my fault.. and they fixed it..



Browning did a great design job on these.. they take a beating they break you fix them and they go back at it... as long as you don't cut holes in them, weld things onto them or blow them up they should outlive you...
 
Interesting analogy, however I have to differ with you on the idea that only gunsmiths should own a 1911 and 1911's are some sort of work of art rather than simply a handgun.
That type of logic only empowers the gun companies to produce faulty products and makes us rationalize their failure at quality control.

I also doubt a sword maker in ancient Japan would last long if his swords had the quality problems of the modern 1911. Ritual suicide would probably be demanded.

Time to stop making excuses for the gun companies and to demand the quality we are paying big bucks for!!

I agree with you on the high end 1911's, they should work since they are really just production line versions of gunsmith guns - and the guns they emulate would be 100% functional, or be returned. I actually don't get the fascination with this subspecies of the 1911, if I wanted a 1911 that was highly accurate, specialized in purpose, and adapted to me, frankly I'd order one from a good 'smith, and probably be in the same ballpark, cost wise. I don't personally own a high end 1911, my Norc is over 4500 rounds, functioning perfectly and hitting the target as well as I can make it. Although I might get someone to cook me up a 1911 for distinguished semi auto, but that won't be a boutique maker, it'll be a craftsman.
 
The Holy Gospel of John (Moses Browning)

As translated from the original ancient manuscripts by Fr. Frog.
© copyright 2002 by John C. Schaefer

1 In the beginning was the 1911, and the 1911 was THE pistol, and it was good. And behold the Lord said, "Thou shalt not muck with my disciple John's design for it is good and it workith. For John made the 1911, and lo all of his weapons, from the designs which I, the Lord, gave him upon the mountain."

2 "And shouldst thou muck with it, and hang all manner of foul implements upon it, and profane its internal parts, thou shalt surely have malfunctions, and in the midst of battle thou shalt surely come to harm."

3 And as the ages passed men in their ignorance and arrogance didst forget the word of the Lord and began to profane the 1911. The tribe of the gamesman did place recoil spring guides and extended slide releases upon the 1911 and their metal smiths didst tighten the tolerances and alter parts to their liking, their clearness of mind being clouded by lust.

4 Their artisans did hang all manner of foul implements upon the 1911 and did so alter it that it became impractical to purchase. For lo, the artisans didst charge a great tax upon the purchasers of the 1911 so that the lowly field worker could not afford one. And the profaning of the internal parts didst render it unworkable when the dust of the land fell upon it.

5 And lo, they didst install adjustable sights, which are an abomination unto the Lord. For they doth break and lose their zero when thou dost need true aim. And those who have done so will be slain in great numbers by their enemies in the great battle. a

6 And it came to pass that the Lord didst see the abomination wrought by man and didst cause, as he had warned, fearful malfunctions to come upon the abominations and upon the artisans who thought they could do no wrong.

7 Seeing the malfunctions and the confusion of men, the lord of the underworld did see an opportunity to further ensnare man and didst bring forth pistols made of plastic, whose form was such that they looked and felt like a brick, yet the eyes of man being clouded, they were consumed by the plastic pistol and did buy vast quantities of them.

8 And being a deceitful spirit the lord of the underworld did make these plastic pistols unamenable to the artisans of earth and they were unable to muck much with the design, and lo these pistols did appear to function.

9 And the evil one also brought forth pistols in which the trigger didst both #### and fire them and which require a "dingus" to make them appear safe.

10 But man being stupid did not understand these new pistols and didst proceed to shoot themselves with the plastic pistol and with the trigger cocking pistols for lo their manual of arms required great intelligence which man had long since forsaken. Yet man continue to gloat over these new pistols blaming evil forces for the negligent discharges which they themselves had committed.

11 And when man had been totally ensnared with the plastic pistol, the lord of the underworld didst cause a plague of the terrible Ka-Boom to descend upon man and the plastic pistols delivered their retribution upon men. And there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth in the land.

12 Then seeing that the eyes of man were slowly being opened and that man was truly sorrowful for his sinful misdeeds, the Lord did send his messengers in the form of artisans who did hear and obey the teachings of the prophet and who didst restore the profaned 1911s to their proper configuration, and lo, to the amazement of men they didst begin to work as the prophet had intended.

13 And the men of the land didst drive out the charlatans and profaners from the land, and there was joy and peace in the land, except for the evil sprits which tried occasionally to prey on the men and women of the land and who were sent to the place of eternal damnation b by the followers of John.

a Several old manuscripts add the following text. "And they [also rendered as "these men"] didst chamber it for cartridges who's calibers startith with numbers less than the Holy Number 4. And lo the Lord did cause great grief amongst these men when their enemies who were struck in battle with these lesser numbers didst not fall but did continue to cause great harm."

b or Hell

© copyright 2002 by John C. Schaefer

For the faithful, the "feast day" of St. John Moses Browning is January 23.

now this is funny..browning rules
 
Most of the more expensive 1911's that I have been able to fire have functioned flawlessly. But every gun maker produces a "lemon", less often with expensive or custom 1911's.
Except in the case of Kimber, it's the other way around. Every now and then, they produce a pistol that runs flawlessly out of the box :D
 
I have no idea how long the norinco will last... But I doubt it will be a 6th of the high end guns... I've owned several new springfields, colts, and an STI...

The STI feels better then anything I've owned.... The Norinco is on par with the colt... The Springfields felt better but loosing 2 sights on 2 of them within 500 rounds certainly puts a bitter taste in your mouth... lost one just a comptetition so that just added to the complaint.. and customer service really sucked....

I've done nothing to the rinco yet... I have a couple.. But I have a pin kit and a drop in hammer and sear for it if they need it... I've yet to take it down to the pins.. It's only got a couple hundred rounds on it...

I've got a Gunnar-tuned Norc; bought it in March. Have some nice mahogany grips on it. Got nearly 1K rounds through it so far. Only problems were due to my first couple batches of handloads (the Lee data for W231 for .45 ACP is way light). Works fine, has a gorgeous trigger, shoots better than I can. Only thing I'm not perfectly satisfied with is that the sights don't work in complete darkness and so I might have Gunnar replace them with tritium jobbies so that I'll be ready when the zombies rise.

Basically, it does exactly what the 1911 was meant to do; chuck big bullets downrange reliably and accurately at whatever you want to punch nice big holes in. And it does so affordably. While I recognize the fact that 1911's have become a folk art form and admire many examples of that art, I don't feel the need to own a gun that's also a work of art. I've invested the money I'd have spent on the name brand premium on ammo and reloading gear instead.

I'll be sure to post if I ever have any problems with it.


Thank you gentleman for responding. My point was that nearly everyone I've ever come across who runs a 1911 has done some work to it to get it to function. This goes back to the previous post regarding the purchase of broken gear. I'll say it again, if it doesn't work out of the box, its a lemon.

Bear,

You lost two sets of sights in less than 500 rounds?! That definitely leaves a bad taste. Same brand of sights both times??

TDC
 
Bear,

You lost two sets of sights in less than 500 rounds?! That definitely leaves a bad taste. Same brand of sights both times??

TDC

Both brand new special order springfields... a 1911 loaded stainless and a V16 longslide (that I shoulda never sold)
 
My first 1911 (Colt 70 series), I just bought, took it to the range, ran a couple hundred rounds through it, took it home and cleaned it. Repeat as required. Eventually I was bit by the accessory bug, and then started buying more 1911's, so ran into issues, but that first Colt was a hummer. - dan
 
I just got a Springfield Armoury 1911A1 that is made in the IMBEL factory in Brazil. Only put about 400rds through it but not a single jam at all. VIVA IMBEL BRAZIL!!
 
These days there's only a handful of gun makers that actually hires real gun smith ie Wilson, LesBaer etc. They use to manually checker front strap now everything is done by a machine.. Production line. I don"t know about Kimber but for the price that you pay it should run like a Formula 1. I've seen a lot of STI 2011 that runs like sh*t out of the box,Most of them needs to get it fine tuned by a Gunsmith or if not the mags. I still like my Colt ser70, they just keep shooting:D:shotgun:
 
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