[EuroMan]

A few years back I bought a couple 7rd magazines marked Crown City Arms. They are stainless w/removable base plates for cleaning and a boxed, roundtop, metal follower. These mags function flawlessly. I recently read mention that Crown City built 1911's. Were the guns as high quality as these mags. Anyone have any info on the company and or guns?

 

[LenB]

Originally posted by EuroMan:
A few years back I bought a couple 7rd magazines marked Crown City Arms. They are stainless w/removable base plates for cleaning and a boxed, roundtop, metal follower. These mags function flawlessly. I recently read mention that Crown City built 1911's. Were the guns as high quality as these mags. Anyone have any info on the company and or guns?

This is from "Hallock's .45 Auto Handbook":
Crown City Arms began production in 1978 with a virtual
copy of the M1991A1 with an aluminum match type trigger.
In 1979 they revamped and expanded their line, naming
each model after a bird. A larger name and and logo format
appears on the left side of the slide of the newer versions,
with the model name on the right. Models are as follows:

• Eagle: M1911A1 copy with a long blue trigger and a
  flat serrated mainspring housing.
• Hawk: Shortened version of the Eagle with using a modified
  recoil spring system.
• Eagle/Hawk Combo: Eagle with extra Hawk top end.
• Condor: Stainless steel Eagle with fixed sights similar in
  size to adjustable Gold Cup sights.
• Falcon: Shortened version of Condor.
• Condor/Falcon Combo: Condor with extra Falcon top end.
• Swift: Hawk in 9mm or .38 Super.
• Swift Combo: 9mm Swift with extra .38 Super barrel and magazine.
• Hummingbird: Crown City lower with Kart .22 conversion assembled to it.

Hallock's book isn't mentioned much as a 1911 reference, but it
does have some good info on history and production, and variants. It also has
info on fitting parts and mods which is helpful in clarifying some of the stuff in
other manuals like Kuhnhausen. Available from Brownell's.




[This message has been edited by LenB (edited 08-05-2001).]

 

[GeoSho]

The Crown City Arms pistols indeed had models named after birds, such as the Condor, But all should have been called Turkeys. They are the worst in quality of any 1911s ever made, in my opinion. I had one in 1981 and could never get it to function through one magazine non-stop, even with various brands of hardball! The machining work was terrible, showing not only rough tool marks, but edges you could literally cut yourself on without even trying. Sloppy fitting of barrel to slide, slide to frame et. al. was the norm for this pistol. Mine was no aberration as the dealer who sold mine had nothing but similar problems with all he sold. The company folded in just a few years because they developed such a short lived but bad reputation. Their only saving grace was that they were cheap, but if it does not work, it is worthless to me!