[fxntime]

I have bought a lot of Colt 1911s over the past few years. ALL of them put together have not had as many problems with feeding, ejecting, stovepiping etc. as the "other" big name in 1911s today. Yes, the "other" brand is a hell of a lot tighter fit and that fit sucks worse then "too" loose as far as dependability. I will never bother with that brand again, EVER, because I do not consider it in the least bit reliable. I'm also not impressed with chrome plating over crappy parts, junk is junk, no matter if it has a nice shiny surface. I wish to the good Lord above that people would realize that 1911s were DELIBERATELY made with somewhat loose tolerences between certain parts to promote dependability. That was by JMB, not some marketing "genius".

And I will be the first to admit that Colt has had their dark years, but they are making some very nice stuff right now. too bad the idiot who should inspect them before they go out cannot do his/her job.

 

[fxntime]

Just curious. Is it actually documented anywhere that JMB designed the 1911 with loose tolerances? Its kind of strange that it usually Colt afficianados who seem to quote this.

Parts of the 1911 are designed to fit tightly and some are designed to have a little slop in them to promote reliability. Most military guns are not designed to be made to razor thin specs. They might have to fire hundreds upon hundreds of rounds before cleaning, many civilian guns could never do this without problems. It is not just the 1911 design, BTW, it is most military arms.Reliability is the #1 concern, accuracy takes a second rung in most cases.

That said, I have several older 1911s in nice shape, both GI and Civi, there is SOME clearance and wiggle in all the frame and slides, but not horrible and not much more or less then a new Colt. And, they are still reliable after all these years. Maybe the Govt and the the older makers were on to something. I daresay many of the new 1911s, tho more accurate then the one's of yore, would never make it past round one of a govt military test.

 

[fxntime]

I am a die hard Colt lover. I Have tons (read 19) of them. I worked in a gunshop for many years, and I have touched and unpackaged, thousands upon thousands of 1911's. The shop I worked, and still work for occassionally, is one of top 5 largest idependent stores in Texas. We move in Volume people. I have seen WW1, WW11, Gunsite models XS, XSE's everything. I have also seen SPR and Kimber in almost as much number. Here are some things I have noticed....

[*]Colt's quality has declined. Period.
[*]If you don't agree with me on that point hold a new base model Colt and an old series 70 base model. Case closed.
[*]Colt is not producing as good of a gun as Kimber. Remember, I have and prefer Colt's, but the truth is the truth.
[*]Finally. Colt's QC sucks! You would not believe the things I have seen from right of the box Colts.
Even with all the problems Kimber has been having recently, when they fix it, and they do fix it, they are better then your Colt's.
Finally, Springfield arms is doing what Colt needs to..it's sink or swim and Springfield is really making strides.

Interesting, If that is what you have seen in your area I won't disagree with you. However, [always a however ] I have not seen the same thing. I will say that Kimbers parts seem to be more uniform, but that is because most of the parts are MIM and easily repeatable. Colt machines much of their small stuff from bar stock, there will be tooling marks on them. However that does not mean the parts are inferior, far from it as I do not consider MIM to be as good as tool steel. Good enough? Maybe. Especially when the pistol is shot 1000 times before selling it off. Good enough to last 50, 60, 70 years? I don't know, guess well find that out in about half a century..

Kimbers are pretty nicely finished, I will agree with that, but the finely finished ones are well over 1000 bucks. Most of the sellers are the cheaper models that dont impress me all that much between the paint/finish and the massive sandblasting Kimber seems to do. However that is subjective to what one is looking for, I prefer crisp lines and edges, other prefer mushy rounded edges, if it works, it works.

After many years of shooting 1911s I have come to the conclusion that while Colt needs work on their cosmetics on occasion, they work out of the box a greater percentage of the time them most other brands, and their parts tend to be made of better quality steel. [cept for the MIM extractor fiesco] They last longer, [small parts] and tend to wear out rather then have a catastropic failure. [I mean stress fractures and sheered parts, NOT blow ups].

In the end after owning a bunch of 1911 Colts [from USGI to NM38specials, to Defenders, I have spent the least amount of money on my Colts to keep in good working order then any other make. [sans mags] One make is now on my never going to buy again after multiple problems with their guns [new] that all turned out to be because of cheap garbage parts that either had an extremely short life span, or were junk from new. I wish them luck, but I won't spend any money on them til I see better parts put in them.

As far as pricing goes, In my area Kimber is usually priced above Colt. They have some more doodads but most of the bling is just cast or MIM add on parts. I do like their sights, but SAs are pretty good also. Colt does need to get with it in offering night sights from the factory. They are pretty dumb in that respect. Right now there is a SS Colt defender at the local shop new for 750, they'd probably let it go for 700. A Kimber is about 895 for pretty close to the same thing. 150 bucks more the K is not worth. My defender has been FLAWLESS in reliability since day one. I cannot say that with my other small 1911, it has been a nightmare from day one and everytime I work on it I want to toss it against the wall. I hear more them a few complaints about this gun, but occasionally I do hear of one that runs also. It's nice to see that the company puts out 10 working pistols per 100. NOT what one wants to see in a CCW self defense pistol to say the least. Cheers.