I got mine today, only 8 working days after I placed my order. Hat's off to Wolverine and whomever processed the registration at the Gestapo. Very efficient, indeed!
Like some one else already said in here, this must be the nicest 1911 you can get at this price. The flat black finish is very pleasing to the eye, although there's no way to tell yet how tough it is.
The barrel is not ramped, however once you chamber a round it shows almost no case head. It certainly shows a hell of a lot less case head than the ramped barrel on my Para P14/45. Everything on it has a better fit and finish than my Norinco NP-29. It certainly doesn't make you feel like you're holding a knife by the blade, like my NP-29 sometimes does.
Trigger action is much better and smooth than on the NP-29, however it is just as horrendously heavy, much too heavy at 7lb 9oz. The trigger on my Norco is now down to 5lb, after I cleaned it up a bit, but still has more take up and feels a little scratchier than on this SAM. The SAM's trigger has very little take-up, no creep and a clean, albeit very heavy release.
The wood grips are not very good looking. After a first, quick look I thought they were made of some weird wood/glue mix like the wood on a CZ 858, but they're just plain/stained wood. Maybe even some exotic, tropical wood but just with a pedestrian finish on them. Unfortunately for me, they don't feel very good in my hand. The are too thin for me and make the grip feel longer than it really is. The grip feels longer (front to back) to me than the grip on my P14, which is actually a little longer. Even the cheapo-flat tip diamonds-checkered Chinese wood grips that CanAmmo sold a while back make the grip feel much better to me. The feeling I get with these grips is similar to that of the thin, wrap around Packmayr grips on the Colt Delta Elite. I never liked that feeling.
The recoil spring feels kind of light for a .40 Cal semi. It is lighter than the spring in the 9mm NP-29 and way lighter than the 18.5lb replacement spring in my P14. It feels, if I remember correctly, just as light as the spring in the Colt 1991 from the late 90's (I can't remember its weight). So I am getting my back-pack and boots ready for the long distance expedition to try to locate all my brass on the ground, after I've finished shooting it.
The one and only mag that came with the gun feels and looks much better than the Norinco NP-29 mags, which have worked pretty fine for me. It is marked 9mm/40 and it does feed both calibers (slide operated by hand) very well, unlike my NP-29 mags which only work well with 9mm ammo, because the spacer in the mag leaves a front to back opening in the mag too short for the .40S&W.
Now, I hope I get to shoot it this weekend, and I definitely need to start working on getting that un-ramped 10mm barrel I need. I have got to chamber this baby in a real manly round, now.
