One of the very first posts ever here at pistol-training.com was 1911 Dealt Another Blow at IDPA Nationals, which rather proudly trumpeted the waning supremacy of John Moses Browning’s most famous handgun.* For the first few years of Aim Fast Hit Fast, I didn’t have a single person run a 1911 through class without at least one stoppage. And that experience mirrored what I’d seen teaching law enforcement & military folks while I was at Beretta and SIG.
In fact, I’d seen so many 1911s break or otherwise stop running in matches & classes that it was pretty easy to get me going down the road toward a rant not unlike Yeager’s famous “1911s Suck” YouTube video. I literally disliked 1911s and often had unkind thoughts about the people who swore by them.
But over the course of the last few years, a series of events — some specific, some in the aggregate — began to weigh on my opinion.
I began to see reliable 1911 pistols in class. They tended to be higher end guns shot by people who knew how to keep them running, but still they were going 1,000+ rounds in a weekend, often without being cleaned, and humming along like sewing machines. A couple of police officers in Northern California come immediately to mind as does a young couple from the southern part of the state who both had custom 9mm Springfields that obviously left an impression on me.
But more importantly, I began paying closer to attention to all the other guns that were coming through class. Lo and behold, a lot of Glocks and M&Ps weren’t making it through class without a stoppage. Some failed to the point where — like the 1911s I’d criticized — the owner needed to get a spare gun to finish class. And just like the 1911, some of those Glocks, M&Ps, etc. were box stock while others were customized… ranging from kitchen table DIY trigger jobs to expensive professional custom work.
Researchers call it selection bias. I’d been taking notice whenever a 1911 had a problem, but had mentally filtered out all the other stoppages as flukes.
Simultaneous to this realization, of course, were a slew of back to back problems plaguing the two most popular guns I see in classes: Glocks and M&Ps. White Sound extractors for Glocks and APEX extractors for M&Ps, ejectors, barrels, slide stops, trigger/action sets, mag catches, floor plates, stippling … whether they’re changed to get a broken gun running again or changed just for the sake of customization, people were spending an awful lot of money on those “cheap, out of the box” guns.
If someone is going to spend time and money tuning and customizing a gun anyway, all the complaints about needing a tuned & customized 1911 start to ring hollow. A good friend and very well known instructor recently started shooting an STI Duty One (in 9mm no less!) and raves about it. That’s a 9mm 1911 that works, right out of the box, for less than $1,300.
So part of my motivation for looking at 1911s was if I’m going to have to worry about whether it works or not, and I’m going to have to spend the money to get it tuned or replace a bunch of parts to get it working & feeling the way I want it to, how is that any different than buying a 1911?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating the mass ejection of Glocks, M&Ps, and other polymer guns into space. You won’t hear me shouting, “1911 Uber Alles!” anytime soon. I still believe you need to put a lot more thought into choosing and maintaining a 1911 than its popular competitors. You either need to be your own gunsmith or you need at least two guns: one to carry and one to be at the shop getting fixed when necessary. Capacity, weight, size, and other factors all come into play and might make the 1911 the wrong choice for you. And I still believe wholeheartedly that it’s a poor option for LE/military teams.
But facts are facts. Three years ago I scoffed at 1911s and now I carry one every day.
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
* It is worth noting purely for coincidence that the article in question did in fact end by reporting that the match’s High Overall winner was using a 9mm Springfield 1911.
Colt photo courtesy Jason Burton of Heirloom Precision
And in today’s weather news, Accu Weather is reporting that due to an unseasonal artic air mass, Hell has frozen over.
Steve — Like this?
Why do I have a feeling you’re talking about my Springer Pro (long gone replaced by a Jardine Colt) and Dan Huie’s Jardine Kimber?
I’ve said for a long time that the 1911 is a ridiculously reliable gun when built right and run by someone who truly knows the platform. The problems is that ~90% of 1911’s are NOT built right and ~95% of guys trying to run them don’t know the platform. This even includes some $2k+ “custom” and “factory custom” guns.
Bill Go of (whatever-name-Blackwater-calls-themselves-today) likes to compare 1911’s to 50’s Chevy Bel-Airs as “enthusiast” guns which I think is a fairly good analogy. They don’t make a whole lot of sense as a daily driver, but some guys can’t help themselves. I’m one of those guys.
kev — sorry, dude, no. You and Dan weren’t the cute couple I was talking about. If it’s any consolation, though, you are the cops I mentioned.
“If someone is going to spend time and money tuning and customizing a gun anyway, all the complaints about needing a tuned & customized 1911 start to ring hollow.”
So you mention issues with Glock and M&P, but not H&K. Perhaps H&K is the option that’s expensive up front, but actually works consistently without the smithing required by the other popular brands? Or did you choose not to name them because they’re so much less common than the other three and there’s just not enough data about them from your experience?
Curby — A little of both. Personally, I’ve seen very few P30 failures on the line and I continue to consider it the best production pistol on the market today. But I’ve seen many times more Glocks/M&Ps than P30s (and I probably see a higher percentage of P30s than most of my peers). So that gives a lot of room to skew results without trying.
ToddG – is that your heirloom precision? I remember reading on your here site that Heirloom Precision was building one for you…(but I didn’t see anything “red” on it)..
also
What about the XD/XDM line? Iam guessing that they fall in with the Glocks and M&P results……no one ever really mentions this line, except XDtalk.com…whats up with that? an XDM should be your next test, it’s due. Thank you for great info and testing. KT
Todd, thanks for such an objective test. I’ve been a 1911 fan for many years and I really gained valuable insight from your experiences on this one. I was wondering, based on this test would you consider any functional changes to future 1911 builds from the gun used this time?
I have been reading your updates of the last year, feeling somewhat vindicated and bemused at the same time. If you ever adopt one in .45 (won’t say it), then we will know you will be frozen in the lake of ice; reserved for Betrayers of Special Relationships that is Dante’s 9th and lowest level of hell.
They are more fun to shoot, aren’t they? Less mental energy expended to achieve a similar result.
So now that you’ve had some experience carrying and using a single-stack 9mm, will you consider another single-stack 9mm for the next endurance test? I’d really like to see an endurance test of the sort of gun ‘the rest of us’ might carry — those who don’t want to deal with carrying a full-sized pistol (I say this as someone who used to carry a Glock 21). Your Glock 19 was a good step in that direction, but sadly didn’t last long.
I’d really like to see your impressions of living with something like a SIG P239, M&P Shield, or XDS.
This pretty much confirms my 1911 experience. I LOVE 1911’s…..and I have long term expensive relationships with high end 1911 smith’s. At a department qualification a few years ago I was asked by one of the range guys why it is I am the only guy who has 1911’s that run? I told him that its because mine say COLT on the side and have a couple thousand dollars worth of gun-smithing in them by the best guys in the world. This is at a time when most of the officers buying 1911’s were running newer Kimber’s with work done on them by a local guy in his garage after his day job.
As much as I love 1911’s and like to use and carry them, I would be carrying a HK45 if I went back to cop work and wanted to carry a .45 in uniform.
Having just finished building a 1911 from parts, I can personally attest to how difficult it is to get one to run “decently” let alone very well. Having the proper feed ramp geometry, barrel lug shape and extractor tension has a lot to do with it, but it is far more an involved process than getting my Glock 9mm to work. Will it replace my G34 as a competition gun? Will it replace it as a bedside gun? Also no. Will it be a gun I look at with great respect for all the work it took and fondness as a project that kept me occupied during the great 2013 ammo shortage? Yup.
KneeShot — That is not my Heirloom gun. Mine isn’t close to finished yet.
DGP — What would I do if I was going to design a 1911 for myself from scratch? Well, that would be the Heirloom gun that KneeShot mentioned! If you mean how would I change the SACS/Warren gun, the two things I’d definitely want changed would be a better shaped slide stop lever (more of a high shelf than a low slope) and a mag catch like the ones Jason Burton sent me for my test guns. I’d also probably opt for a Custom Shop slide & barrel instead of the standard Operator parts… I’d pay a bit more money to have a bit harder slide and more accuracy.
smithjd — I have a hard time justifying a .45 even now. The only way I’d get & test one was if someone else was footing the bill for the guns & ammo. I think it would make for a good test, but not so good that I’d spend all that extra money just to shoot big bullets. A 9×23, on the other hand…
Redchrome — The next test is going to be the Heirloom gun. Where I go from there is still undecided because it’s probably at least eighteen months away. But the low capacity of the 1911 is already a negative for me, while the size is not a problem for concealed carry. I wouldn’t purposely choose a smaller gun when a larger (even 1911- or G17-sized) one was more shootable, held more bullets, and was still concealable day to day.
I used to swear by 1911’s-in the end i just wanted a reliable, single action .45. So I bought a USP45 (HK45 didn’t exist at the time) V9/10. Now, I have to use dummy’s to deal with malfunctions….. I still have that pistol but I’ve moved onto a P2000 LEM 9mm. But now that the HK45 is out there…in all seriousness, what does any 1911 have over the HK45 V9/10 – which comes with a darn near guarantee the gun is reliable, durable, and deadly accurate. I get the legacy nostalgia historic factor, but that aside?? And Todd, what’s the new test gun and do you have plans to return to teaching?
Did Bill Riehl somehow hack into TLG’s blog software?
Kev and Todd:
I remember, vaguely, that class being the “Class of the Unsinkable 1911” or something similar.
If I remember right, there was a 3rd 1911 shooter at the class, not a cop, who also had no problems–but it’s been almost 4 years and I’m not sure at all.
I do remember my G22C with a light not having issues at the class–though it did, badly, a few months later, until it got a complete overhaul of internals.
Todd, maybe you’re just jumping from perception bias to confirmation bias.
People both overestimate rare events and are really bad at extrapolating events from low to high numbers (one reason for the saying of one death being a tragedy, a million being politics). That explains all those discussions about the reliability of the plentiful duty guns and the rare models.
The only solution to a reliable opinion is actually counting the number of guns of a type used in classes and their failures.
Next up: Todd decries the virtues of the Px4.
🙂
“…they were going 1,000+ rounds in a weekend, often without being cleaned, and humming along like sewing machines.”
The devil you say! 😉
I just saw a pig fly overhead.
While I see this as neither a quiet mea culpa nor an overt epiphany, it certainly does stand on the merits as as a fair-minded and worthwhile reassessment.
The old classic still has a place in the right hands. Yes, there are surely more variables to consider, beginning with gun selection (not all 1911s are created equal). Yes, there is an attendant knowledge-base requirement on the part of the shooter. Yes, there is a need to pay a bit more attention to care and feeding requirements. In the end, though, none of these are truly “limiting” factors, provided the right mindset and a basic level of commitment to the design.
Appreciate the perspective on this one. I think you’ve captured it well, even if it happens to throw a few P-T regulars for a loop. 😉
AC
Andrew E., if you and I are referring to the same class, there were four 1911s, two Springfields, a Pro and a lesser model, a tuned Kimber, and a Sig GSR whose owner claimed to have shot a ton of problem-free rounds from it. That Sig didn’t feed from slide lock worth a damn, while other three had zero issues.
YK, I’m meaning the Sacramento AFHF in March of ’10. Obviously I’m fuzzy on the details.
Yup, that’s the one. In retrospect I regret not bringing my 1911; four running 1911s would’ve been awesomer than three. I semi-vindicated myself by shooting a half of AFHF with 1911 in October ’11.
If my memory serves me well, that 2011 class was notable for a compact or subcompact 1911 running well for a part of a class.
Amusingly, I was debating using my Springfield 1911 for part of the class.
Ironically, I decided that it had shown enough “quirks” that I wasn’t completely sure it would be reliable….and more importantly, since I was issued a Glock, it made more sense to use that. Though I had the Springfield along as a backup plan, in case the Glock failed.
Maybe someday, if I’m ever carrying a 1911 “for real,” I’ll use it in a class and see how she does.
There was a point a few years ago when I developed some sort of reactive defensive posture in regards to 1911. All that talk about 1911 owners having selective memories and emotional attachments led to me taking a 1911 to classes even though I was shooting G19 in practice. As long as I was driving to a class, I took my main 1911. Frogman, EAG, 1/2 AFHF… Then I got bored showing to the world and to myself that mine runs, and now I don’t remember when I shot a 1911 last time.
Andrew- Make sure the gun works 100%, and I mean 100%, before you decide to carry it or do anything serious with it. I’ve carried a 1911 at work now since 2008. I’ve had four separate 1911’s I’ve used and have finally settled on a John Jardine customized Colt that I’ve carried since Dec 2010.
I’ve done the 2000 round challenge two times already with this gun paired with blued CMC Powermags. One of those 2000 round challenges (2450 rounds to be exact) I did in the period of a week during an instructor class in May 2011. Not one single hiccup.
I change my recoil spring and FP spring religiously every 2500 rounds and use grease on the gun.
There is absolutely no reason a 1911 cannot be totally reliable. It just needs to be built right in the first place.
KevH, no worries there. I don’t expect to be carrying a 1911 anytime soon, if ever.
I started on Glocks, and odds are I’ll be sticking with them or something similar.
Which is not to say that I don’t like my 1911, but it’s had enough hiccups–though none that I remember, which probably isn’t saying much, with quality JHP–at the range that I don’t trust it 100%.
I remember your Professional working great with–was it Wolf, Tula? memory fails–at the 3/2010 class, and being impressed as all heck.
And yeah, Jardine builds a heck of a pistol. He’s also a hell of a shot. Had the experience of meeting him at a Pistol 1 class by LMS Defense in 2008. The man can flat shoot, lights-out, and has a very low BS tolerance. He also built most if not all of the 1911s carried at that class, and I don’t think any of them had a problem.
But since I flat don’t have the money to invest in that grade of pistol, I’ll stick to what I know, and so far that’s polymer and mostly striker-fired.
We’re in a transitional period with handguns now and it will pass. Perhaps we’re seeing a renaissance, or Indian Summer of sorts with the 1911, and it’s last stand is being made in our time as shooters. Soon, the cold winter of obsolescence may very well chill old slabsides into extinction, but I expect the old warhorse still has more fight left in him than some may presume.
For a few greatest generations, the hand fit 1911, Colt, and S&W revolver were meticulously crafted of forged steel with simple tools. Labor was cheap, computers and the EPA didn’t exist and simply the demand didn’t warrant a supply that couldn’t be met by these means.
Then we saw the era of Sigs with the welded and machined slides, aluminum frames and internal extractors. In those days the Beretta 92 and S&W autos were all built using the same type of methods and materials.
Next came the Glock with the polymer receiver and cast small parts, along with H&K, HS produkt, S&W and a few others. These pistols were able to be produced at very high volume while quality stayed consistent and cost stayed low.
All of the aforementioned pistols reigned supreme in their day, because they were designed to be manufactured at the height of technology in their time.
The guns of the past themselves did not become obsolete, the means to produce them [at an acceptable quality while meeting a pricepoint] did…
Yes, time marches on, and soon we will see the next big thing in handguns. Will the ‘ol 1911 be around to endure yet another technological revolution? Only time will tell…
I’ve heard several times the path to marksmanship is to keep the sights properly aligned while pressing the trigger – without moving the sights. My 1911s are the second easiest guns to do this with. First place goes to my Mark 23 in single action mode. The 1911 is more practical to carry at this point.
In our local USPSA matches it is the 1911s that most often have failures. You rarely see a M&P or Glock having problems, if you do it is normally due to poor quality reloads which cannot be blamed on the pistol.
I have never had any issues with my Springfield Pro. Then again I paid for it.
My Wilson’s have been very, very good to me.
Todd, good for you for being honest and real about your perceptions about a certain perspective you have. In the handgun world it takes a lot of guts to say that you “re-thought” something. I don’t think that the 1911 is the greatest handgun in the world. But I think it’s funny that my first EDC was a Rock Island compact .45. A very cheap 1911. I put 10,000 rounds through it. I had 3 FTF’s the whole time I owned it. There is so much dramatic whining by people about what handguns are better. It gets very old. Glock, Sig, HK, S&W. I can go on and on about how many really great brands are. Just “STFU” and learn your gun and don’t have a panic attack about what the other guy likes. Todd, thanks for staying above the fray.