Who here carries a 1911 appendix?

[SLG]

Do we ever get sick of appendix threads?

As a nod to GJM, this one has a poll in it as well. :-)

How many of you carry 1911's appendix? (I doubt very many)

Of those of you who do, what is your concealed draw time to a 7 yard A zone/down zero type target?

Is that time the same as, or faster or slower than your time with another gun, carried and shot the same way?

Thanks in advance.

[TCinVA]

I do sometimes. Wilson CQB 9mm.

Good question. I'm not entirely sure on that. The last timed draws I did with the CQB were not on an IDPA style target. They were on a photorealistic "Bruce Willis' Crackhead Cousin" style target like this one:



When we did timed draws from concealment I was pulling 1.2 or less with shots in the goodie box of the target at 7 as best I can recall.

I imagine the last question is the point...am I faster with the CQB than with other pistols? I'd say slightly faster on the shooting stuff, slightly slower on reloads. (Single stack syndrome) The difference is likely primarily explained by the trigger on the 1911...or, more accurately, how aggressive I think I can be on that trigger and still make the shot.

Make sense?

[Kyle Reese]

This cat named SLG does. I think.

[DocGKR]

While I stopped using a 1911 at the end of 2009, I carried one AIWB for two decades. Depending on clothing, time for D1 on A-zone at 7 yds (approx 1-1.2 sec) were quicker with the 1911 than I can do now, but that is more a function of practice time, youth, and good eyes than anything to do with the pistol type.

[Matt O]

I started carrying a mostly stock XSE at the beginning of the summer given it conceals a bit better for me among a wider range of seasonally appropriate clothing. Despite the ease of the trigger, my draw to first shot is still slower than with a beretta or glock carried appendix. On a 7 yard A zone target, draws with a beretta 92 are around 1.2 versus around 1.5 with the 1911. This is the very first pistol I've ever owned or practiced with that has a manual safety, so I've found that the grip acquisition part of the draw is where I'm losing most of my time.

In addition, even though all I heard prior to owning a 1911 was how the "all steel frame soaks up the recoil," I think I may just be a weakling because my splits are far far slower with the 1911 than with the 92 . For example, repeatable bill drill times for me would be: 92 (1.2, .20 splits) vs 1911 (1.5, .30-35 splits). Admittedly I have been battling some tendinits on and off for the last couple years so perhaps my grip strength is just not where it needs to be.

[YVK]

SLG,

I carried mine for a little within last 4 years, a 5 inch .45 ACP. At the time when I did my first shot / draw was no different from G19 and P30, although now I am faster with 30 than 19 so there could be a difference from a 1911 too. However, at that time period I only practiced a draw to a 3x5 so I don't have a data for a big target. Within a context of a FAST, the biggest difference (and pain) was a reload; my first shot from IWB was under 3 sec.

I intend to return to carrying a 1911 by October / November, pending an arrival of a very special one. WiIl have more data then.

[GJM]

Not sure what thread it is in, but I recall TLG posting an exhaustive comparison of his FAST component times between his 1911 and Glock 17.

[GJM]

Here it is, post 341 in Todd's training journal.

9-Aug-13
NRA Range, 7hr (split over three separate practice sessions)
~1,400 rounds

GOALS: solidify grip, work on tracking & marksmanship, verify -017 working properly after return from SACS

• I started with 5-shot draws to a 3x5 at 10yd followed by 5-shot draws to the 8" at the same distance. I paused before pressing out on each draw to verify or correct my grip.
• Shot DotTor at 7yd and scored a miserable 44. I identified two specific problems. First, somewhere along the way I started putting a lot more finger through the trigger guard than I used to. It was pulling the gun slightly to the left (probably exacerbating the grip issue I discovered previously). Second, I was having a very difficult time getting clear focus on the front sight dot (which is what I use as an aiming point). The orange paint on my front sight had dulled -- probably just muzzle debris accumulation. On a lark, based on things Gabe has said in the forum and backchannel to me previously, I decided to take another stab at running the front sight black instead of orange. It seemed to work pretty well. While I didn't repeat DotTor, I did a bunch of moderate speed drills on 2" circles at 7yd and got much more consistent hits than my slowfire DotTor attempts.
• A big chunk of the day was spent shooting 2-, 3-, and 5-shot drills with short loaded magazines to verify consistent lockback. In particular I did a lot of three mag drills (2R2R2, for instance) to make sure I was reacquiring my grip properly after the reload as well as on the draw. I burned through a ton of ammo doing this. Every time I'd have a failure to lock back I'd slow down and be more conscious about acquiring my grip, speeding up again gradually.
• Some of the high round count "burst drill" stuff happened after I blacked out my front sight and I didn't see or feel any drop in speed or confidence with my hits at speed.
• As the day came to an end I had 300rd left and thought, naturally, that I should shoot 50 FASTs. Most interesting to me was how the numbers compared to the first time I did 50 FAST with this gun and the last 50 FAST runs I did with other guns:

	Expert	Advanced	Intermediate	Avg	% 3x5 hits	% 8” hits	Draw	3x5 split	R/L	8” splits
SACS/Warren today	34	13	3	5.06	96%	99.50%	1.60	0.42	2.27	0.20
SACS/Warren 09/12	17	28	5	5.61	88%	97.00%	1.54	0.43	2.38	0.21
Glock 17	25	17	8	5.12	83%	96.50%	1.43	0.40	1.81	0.20
HK45	30	12	7	5.54	85%	96.50%	1.57	0.52	2.03	0.23

(the HK45 also had one Beginner score, a 10.07!)

The biggest difference is that my scores today were incredibly consistent. My draw was slower than I'd like because I was being careful about my grip... there's a solid quarter second to be recovered there. My accuracy -- especially to the head box -- was far better than it's ever been. I didn't have any spectacular runs; my best was just a 4.41 clean. But with the exception of a few fumbled reloads nothing really bad happened, either. My only sub-2 reload was immediately after missing the followup head shot and immediately before missing the first body shot... because I was all about getting the reload done quickly and didn't fire either bookend shot well.

Here are the raw numbers from today:

	Head	Body	Draw	Split	Reload	Split	Split	Split
4.77	0	0	1.57	0.39	2.21	0.21	0.21	0.18
4.78	0	0	1.66	0.46	2.10	0.19	0.19	0.18
4.72	0	0	1.61	0.38	2.14	0.18	0.20	0.21
4.89	0	0	1.54	0.36	2.45	0.18	0.19	0.17
7.39	1	0	1.71	0.43	2.68	0.19	0.19	0.19
5.12	0	0	1.61	0.41	2.44	0.21	0.23	0.22
4.60	0	0	1.62	0.37	2.07	0.19	0.18	0.17
4.91	0	0	1.62	0.37	2.36	0.20	0.18	0.18
4.87	0	0	1.63	0.38	2.28	0.19	0.19	0.20
5.46	0	0	1.75	0.47	2.41	0.20	0.19	0.44
5.35	0	0	1.67	0.78	2.29	0.20	0.20	0.21
4.81	0	0	1.68	0.39	2.19	0.19	0.18	0.18
4.90	0	0	1.68	0.47	2.18	0.19	0.19	0.19
5.39	0	0	1.59	0.43	2.83	0.19	0.18	0.17
4.88	0	0	1.64	0.38	2.27	0.20	0.19	0.20
4.85	0	0	1.65	0.43	2.22	0.19	0.18	0.18
4.79	0	0	1.58	0.35	2.33	0.18	0.17	0.18
4.43	0	0	1.49	0.36	2.04	0.19	0.17	0.18
6.76	1	0	1.53	0.42	2.26	0.19	0.18	0.18
4.97	0	0	1.72	0.44	2.24	0.19	0.20	0.18
4.95	0	0	1.47	0.40	2.51	0.20	0.19	0.18
4.83	0	0	1.65	0.42	2.13	0.21	0.21	0.21
4.94	0	0	1.56	0.43	2.40	0.19	0.18	0.18
5.02	0	0	1.65	0.45	2.33	0.19	0.20	0.20
4.96	0	0	1.60	0.43	2.35	0.21	0.19	0.18
4.55	0	0	1.54	0.38	2.06	0.21	0.18	0.18
4.78	0	0	1.51	0.37	2.26	0.22	0.22	0.20
5.06	0	0	1.65	0.46	2.34	0.22	0.19	0.20
5.24	0	0	1.57	0.54	2.59	0.19	0.17	0.18
5.01	0	0	1.64	0.40	2.36	0.21	0.20	0.20
4.81	0	0	1.53	0.41	2.27	0.20	0.20	0.20
4.45	0	0	1.44	0.43	2.04	0.18	0.18	0.18
4.54	0	0	1.54	0.34	2.11	0.19	0.18	0.18
7.30	1	1	1.46	0.35	1.98	0.18	0.17	0.16
4.69	0	0	1.60	0.39	2.10	0.19	0.20	0.21
5.29	0	0	1.85	0.40	2.47	0.20	0.19	0.18
4.73	0	0	1.51	0.42	2.24	0.20	0.18	0.18
4.41	0	0	1.52	0.35	2.01	0.18	0.18	0.17
7.45	1	0	1.59	0.53	2.33	0.48	0.26	0.26
5.37	0	0	1.62	0.43	2.77	0.19	0.19	0.17
4.52	0	0	1.61	0.37	2.01	0.17	0.19	0.17
4.72	0	0	1.61	0.33	2.15	0.22	0.21	0.20
4.97	0	0	1.68	0.37	2.35	0.20	0.18	0.19
4.78	0	0	1.62	0.37	2.18	0.20	0.21	0.20
5.04	0	0	1.62	0.44	2.36	0.21	0.20	0.21
4.83	0	0	1.67	0.39	2.19	0.20	0.19	0.19
4.69	0	0	1.59	0.38	2.16	0.19	0.18	0.19
5.08	0	0	1.65	0.52	2.33	0.19	0.20	0.19
4.55	0	0	1.51	0.37	2.07	0.21	0.20	0.19
4.69	0	0	1.63	0.43	2.10	0.18	0.18	0.17

[JAD]

I carry 1911s -- mostly at 2:45 but occasionally I wear the gun in the appendix position. Last time I made it to the range with that configuration I was around 1.8-2.0 seconds to a 3x5 at 7 (sorry to not have a direct answer); that's comparable to my 2:45 times. I think that was with a JMCK rig; with my SME I'm probably a tad slower. All of my concealed draw times are roughly comparable. For context, I usually shoot a 7-8 second FAST.

[Wondering Beard]

I used to until 2004 or thereabout (1991 gov't model worked over by Ted Yost back when he was the smithy at Gunsite, reworked later by Jim Garthwaite)

I don't remember my exact times but I could easily do the basic Gunsite drill of two to the chest in 1.5 seconds (from the draw concealed) at 7 yards.

Nowadays it's a G19 (sometimes G23) in the same position. Before my medical difficulties, I had no problem with the drill either but I don't remember my exact times. I think the weight of the 1911 compensated for the recoil of the 45 ACP round (230gr ball factory) making the time difference with a G19 (if there was any) irrelevant.

Nowadays it's likely slower because I'm older and slower but I haven't timed myself. I don't think there would be enough of a difference anyway. Size and weight leads to my preference for the G19 not shootability.