Seriously considering going back to the 1911 for carry. Anyone else?

I carry 1911’s in full size steel, and lightweight commanders. A DeSantis Mad Max IWB leather holster makes carrying concealed very comfortable. In cooler weather, I’ll use an OWB leather holster. I use .45 acp, and carry a spare mag, giving me 17 rounds.

I've been practicing, training, competing, and carrying a full size 1911 for the better part of the last 20 months with the occasionally switch off to a p30 LEM. I feel confident in the 1911 with accuracy and reliability and I feel like it gives me an edge in performance-whether it is actual or just my perception. My last competition was a hose fest and let me tell ya, 25 rounds goes FAST. And those mag changes come up FAST. That's my only gripe. No red dot on mine... when the time comes, a Glock will get that treatment.

In other news, since running the 1911 for that long, my beard has never looked better.

Do it.

http://i.imgur.com/uLmdIhy.jpg

This makes sense. You have two vetted pistols that you shoot well and trust. Capacity in my opinion is not an issue. An extra mag compensates for single stack capacity.

Hunter Rose,

If you’re looking for permission to commit to, train with, and carry tasty 1911s, I’ve got your back.

You have my permission. You’re welcome. ;)

Seriously, your reasoning is sound, and you have the background, resources, and interest to make it work. Follow your heart and don’t look back.

(I went through the same thing with wheelies last year, for a variety of specialized reasons. I’m never going to be one arguing that revolvers are the functional equal of poly service autos (they’re not) but for me, at this point, they make a ton of sense, and I like them, so screw it and drive on. JMO.)

I've been shooting and carrying 1911s for years now and probably always will. At this point my carry gun is a 9mm Lightweight Commander. It conceals well and is more pleasant to carry that an all steel Government model. I still shoot my 45s to stay in practice, but most of my shooting now is with 9mm.

If you have or plan to acquire a 1911 that is proven reliable and you have sufficient familiarity with the gun, then there is no big reason not to carry one if that's what you want to do. I will admit it's a more expensive route to take than with Glocks and most other types, especially when multiple guns are involved.

Not too long ago I told an old friend, who carries a 1911 religiously, something to effect of 'There's no good reason to carry a 1911 anymore'.
His reply was 'There's no bad reason to carry a 1911'.

I'm pretty sure we left it at that, and moved the discussion on to something more worthwhile like pretty girls or something. Obviously I'd been spoiling for a discussion of Beretta 92's or Glocks or HK's or something, but that retort did all the talking needed.

So if the 1911 is what you like, and you practice with it, and you trust it - I say rock on.

More than once I have also seriously considered going back to the 1911-pattern gun for carry. I have more than a few customs, including a Harrison-upgraded SA Professional, a gun John built me from scratch with a Caspian frame and slide, and two full-house Harrison customs built on Colt frames and slides. Two of the four guns were carried, and two were training/backup guns. I carried 1911-pattern guns until I transitioned to polymer guns, with the last seven years or so mostly P30. I know how to maintain the 1911-pattern guns and can detail strip them as easily as I can a Glock. I shoot them pretty well and pretty fast. A few decades of Bullseye has allowed me to make hits at distance under time pressure.

But I have not made the switch back to the 1911. Instead I have moved a bit away from the HK P30 to the Glock and to a lesser extent the Beretta 92-series. And my reasons are not entirely rational nor are they irrational. To me, the biggest advantage of the Glock over any other platform is the ease of maintenance. I need four tools: the punch, a pair of fine pliers to deal with the magazine spring, a sight pusher for the rear sight, and a driver for the front sight. Break an extractor hook on a 1911-pattern gun, and there is some fitting time as well as finish work with a custom. Days of downtime and I need to outsource some of it, especially on a gun with a serrated extractor. With a Glock, it is matter of popping the slide cover plate, removing the internals, and dropping a new extractor into the gun. No fitting, no finishing. I can do it in less than thirty minutes. The parts are inexpensive. 1911-pattern parts are not expensive, but they are not as inexpensive as the Glock. And all require fitting. Sight swaps on the 1911 almost always require filing the dovetail base of both the front and rear sights. Glock sight swaps require more range time than shop time. I have swapped Glock sights on the range.

Another part of my decision to not switch is the magazine, specifically the single-stack design. Reloads are easier and faster with double-stack magazines. I can also carry thirty-five rounds in the gun and a single spare magazine opposed to twenty-one at most for a 9x19 1911-pattern with the same single spare magazine. I likely will never need fifteen rounds let alone thirty-five rounds but I lack the fact that if I do need them I have them. The Glock magazines are less expensive and take less effort to source. Just buy factory Glock magazines other than restricted ten-round ones and all is well. HK and Beretta magazines are similarly purchased. Beretta magazines are common in shops; HK magazines less so and are purchased online. Glock magazines are in just about any gun shop. 1911-pattern magazines are a bit more of an issue, especially in 9x19. For the most part, .45 ACP magazines are good-to-go although I still put Tripp Super 7 follower kits in Colt Metalform bodies.

Another part is the timer says I am actually getting faster with the 92-series as I continue to learn to shoot systems other than the 1911-pattern. The other guns provide more of a safety margin in the sense that I can actually stop myself from taking a shot once I start the trigger squeeze. That sweet 1911 trigger offers much less margin. It does make rapid fifty-yard shots easier, but I am surprised at how easy the Glock and 92-series are easy to shoot at distance with good sights and practice.

But all of that is me. And it applies only to me. And I recognize at the end of the day, it is not so much about which pistol I carry as it is about the fact that I am carrying a pistol in whose use I am proficient. If the custom 1911 works for you, I say use it.

There are so many reasons for not carrying a 1911 when compared to polymer hi-cap pistols. But the 1911 always pulls me back in.....I am debating about purchasing a DW 1911 A2 parkerized. Its been on my mind for the last couple of weeks. So far I have resisted....but to quote the Borg (Star Trek Next Gen)...."resistance is futile".

Multi-perp pistols? The best way to deal with multiple perps is to line them up, and shoot two or more of them with each bullet. ;)

Actually, that is not just kidding. One way I let bad guys know I was serious, if none of us had any cover, was to move so that they were lined-up, downrange. Know how to “dance.” ;)

While policing a big city, on night shift, and still driving a Tahoe as a patrol vehicle, my duty pistol was a full-sized, single-column mag, all-steel 1911. Les Baer TRS. Lots of perps in Houston.

I did down-size to a G19, in the duty rig, in those final few months, before retirement, when I had to start patrolling in a smaller Ford “Police Interceptor” MBUV. (Make-Believe Utility Vehicle.) A full-sized duty pistol’s longer grip frame tended to foul a smooth, fast exit, from the passenger side. I was the police, who was being intercepted, as I tried to bail out. (I hated those compact Ford SUV patrol vehicles; I might have worked another year, or so, if I could have kept using a Tahoe.)

I can relate to being able to shoot a 1911 well, after a long period of shooting other pistols. I went to “modern” pistols in 2002, due to my then-mandated duty holster interfering with my ability to attain a proper firing grip at the beginning of the draw. By late 2011, however, when I was age fifty, the combination of the SIG high bore axis, and a the snappy recoil of .40 S&W, was making training painful. By 2012, I decided to pull the TRS from the safe, and found its muzzle flip to be nicely tame, and, amazingly, no loss of accuracy, after a decade of using other trigger systems. Soon, I was again carrying a 1911, during personal time. By 2016, due to a change in duty pistol rules, and being able to use a Safariland 6360 duty holster, which allowed a proper grip at the outset of the draw, I was again carrying a 1911 as a primary duty pistol, and had resumed carrying the same pistol on and off the clock.

Having said that, I do not always tote a 1911, now, in retirement, due to shoulder mobility issues, a short waist, and long arms, combining to make it difficult to draw a long-barreled weapon from an inside-the-trousers holster, or any high-ride rig. It takes a quite long cover garment to hide a full-length 1911 that is carried in a lower rig, outside the trousers, so my 1911 carry has become seasonal.

My accuracy potential is highest with a 1911, or a well-set-up revolver. The only auto pistol I could shoot as well as a 1911 was a SIG P229, and I got away from them due to the painful muzzle flip.

So, today, my serious fighting pistols are 5” 1911, Glocks 17 and 19x, and several revolvers. None are perfect for every scenario.