I had planned to do a written review on this gun for a while now, it just ended up taking way longer for me to get to 5k rounds than I originally intended as I didn't shoot as much this summer as I had in the winter/spring due to work. Anyhow, on with the review, I'm going to try to touch on five key areas: fit and finish, accuracy, reliability/durability, shootability and final thoughts/observations. This is going to be a review on this particular model of 1911, not the 1911 platform itself, Its going to be a long one so bare with me.
A little back story, I own and have owned several handguns and have consistantly shot approx 1k rounds per month for a year or so. This wasn't my first 1911, but was by far the most expensive at almost 2k, I have or had previously owned a Springfield armory milspec and a Kimber Custom II, so going with the STI was going to be a step up for me. I ordered it in June 2012 from Freedom Ventures and received it on Dec. 28th, I ordered the 9mm version when it was first released and in the Black over Olive drab color, so it took some time to arrive from STI. The wait was definitely worth it though!
Fit and Finish: It surpassed my expectations. The quality of craftsmanship was great and the gun was a fair bit tighter than any other 1911's I had handled. The slide to frame fit was perfect with zero play either vertically or horizontally, and very smooth, felt like it was on ball bearings. The undercut trigger guard and the 30 lpi front strap checkering were also executed well. The trigger out of the box was also surprising, after having a couple of 1911's with trigger jobs by Armco and Rodger Kotanko I was expecting this factory trigger to need work just like my others, but out of the box it was a very clean/crisp 3-4lbs with no creep whatsoever. Never once did I think of getting the trigger done, I didn't even adjust the sear spring, it was perfect out of the box. The finish is KG gun kote, black slide OD green frame and look great with no blemishes as a new gun should come. This gun was going to see quite a bit of work and I didn't want to go blued so I opted for the more durable gunkote finish, had I not already been stretching my budget I may have opted for the hardchrome finish but, at an additional 300 dollars it wasn't feasible at the time. I ordered it with the dawson fiber optic front sight paired with the STI tactical adj. rear and the combo provided a great sight picture. I also ordered it with ambi safety and magwell, both of which were very satisfactory. One word of note on the magwell, if you own an STI I'd recommend their magwell, it comes already matched to the frame very closely so it doesnt really require and further blending. I've added some ed brown maxiwells to other 1911's and the fit wasn't nearly as close at the magwell opening. The gun came with very good quality G10 grips (made by hogue as noted by their name on the back of them lol), which provided a great purchase but had a tapered bottom and I wanted to have my grips match up with the magwell, I also ordered the VZ diamondbacks before the gun arrived anticipating the factory grips to be throw aways as they usually are but they were in fact quite good and wouldn't need replacing unless you wanted something different looking.
Accuracy: I had read a lot about the 9mm Trojan before I bought the Lawman so I expected the accuracy to be very good and it didn't disappoint. I have no pictures of groups but this gun was capable of out shooting me on any occasion, the weight of the 1911 made the 9mm recoil negligible and that definitely contributes to being able to put the rounds where you want them. I'm not really a bullseye shooter and there are undoubtedly several guys who could do better, but I did turn in quite a few sub 1" 5 shot groups from 5-15 yards standing that I actually mic'd. The best I could do from 15-25 from standing was around 2". I never bench rested the gun but it never failed to impress me in the accuracy department, as long as you did your part it would make one hole groups all day long. I know without a pic its just hearsay but the first day I shot the gun I was able to shoot a 5 shot group at 10 yards I could cover with a nickle, not bad for off hand in the middle of winter. I shot a pretty wide variety of ammo out of the gun too, on purpose, and it shot it all well. I turned in the most consistent accuracy with 147 grain ammo though.
Reliability/Durability: This is where I thought things would be interesting. Before I bought the gun I read a tonne about how its near impossible to get a 9mm 1911 to run reliably, however through 5000 rounds I have experienced zero FTF, FTE, stovepipe or any other type of jam. I know 5k rounds isnt many to some, including myself, but to others it is several years worth of shooting. I did have one failure to lock back on empty with a metalform 10rd magazine, and I also had two failures to return to battery shooting strong hand only, I attributed this to my thumb riding the slide to hard with a light recoil spring (11lb) but they were failures none the less so I recorded them. I also tried a shock buff in the gun early on and found it caused the slide to lock back with rounds still in the mag three times. Upon close inspection the shock buff shortened the slide cycle to the exact point of the take down pin slot on the slide and was causing the slide stop to stick in that location.I only tried the shock buff that one day, hadn't had any failures of that sort before or after that so I didn't count those failures against the gun just logged them. As far as durability goes it started a little rough, after 550rds and approx one month of ownership the ejector pin broke. After some reading and research I found it was a common issue when running 10rd mags in 9mm 1911's (Im running a mix of 10rd tripp research and metalform mags). The mags are slightly longer and when you perform slide lock reloads they actually make contact with the ejector, often times snapping the end of it off. My ejector stayed intact but without the pin would obviously just fall out. I contacted Freedom Ventures (Canada's STI distributor/warranty center)with the issue they offered a solution and took it back for warranty right away. The solution was to file away a very small amount of material off the bottom of the ejector to clear the mags. They did this free of charge and I had my gun back within a week. Great service all around. It has been run very hard since the fix and has been trouble free in every way since. I even ran 450 rounds of Winchester ranger hollow points through it without issue, fed and ejected them all fine. The finish has also proven to be very durable. I shoot the gun out of a bladetech dropped and offset kydex holster and the gun does show wear on the leading edges and forward face of the trigger guard but its still intact everywhere else. Not bad considering the gun experienced several hundred/perhaps thousands of holster draws in live fire and dry fire practice. STI does use some MIM parts as many people know, but I had zero issues with any of it, and much to the dismay of many, those MIM parts didn't disintegrate into dust, at least not yet lol. I didn't maintain this gun anymore or less than my others, basic field strip and cleaning every 1000 rounds or so, FP-10 or shooters choice grease on the rails before every range trip and a complete tear down and cleaning three times since owning. Recoil spring was also changed out at the recommended 3k round interval with a wolff 12lb variable spring, though it didnt appear to need to be changed.
Shootability: All of my experience shooting 9mm before this was with the HK P2000, Sig P226 and Glock 17/34. The P2000 and Sig I never warmed up to but I did put a considerable amount of time and rounds though my Glocks, and I was able to turn in some good performances on many popular drills, most of which from pistoltraining.com. The 9mm 1911 took me to a different level in both speed and on demand accuracy going fast, both of which are key components in my training. I turned in my best times on many drills. I also did my black badge course with it and was able to perform well in the course. The only part I changed to enhance performance was the mag release, I added a nowlin extended unit to replace the incredibly short stock piece. I believe the gun is marketed toward carry which may be the reason for the shorter mag release, but none the less I found I had to flip the gun pretty far to hit it consistantly so I rectified that and moved on without much thought. Theres not a whole lot to say here otherwise, triggers great, the sights track very easy, the gun sits very low in the hand, the recoil is non existent and paired with the very aggressive VZ diamonbacks it stick to your hand like glue.
Final Thoughts/Observations: Great gun and well worth the money, to me. Though it wasn't cheap I never felt like I was lacking in any value, I got what I paid for and am happy with the purchase. I was somewhat surprised to have it be so trouble free but Todd Green was also testing a 9mm 1911 this year and had 10 times as many rounds through his with minimal issue so the reputation of 9mm 1911's having very poor reliability is subjective at best imo. Sean at Freedom Ventures also provides great service and based on my experience with them I could say anybody could buy an STI product in confidence they will stand behind it. Im sure some will disagree but after having owned and shot this for some time its left me wondering what more the higher end manufactures could offer over this, not aesthetically speaking, strictly in the performance department? As a shooter and not a safe queen, would a Wilson, Nighthawk or Baer really perform that much better to justify spending 1-2k more and 1-2 year wait? Im not so sure anymore.
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