The Art and Science of Keeping Your 1911 Running

[JTQ]

The only two things I ever caution folks to think about when picking a 1911 is to make sure you pick the sights and grip safety you want. Choose wrong and you're going to limit your options, unless you spend some money having somebody grind or weld on your gun.

In this era of Glocks, most folks new to 1911's don't realize the great variety of 1911 sight dovetails and not all sight options are available for all sight dovetails.

This Kensight page shows some common 1911 dovetails https://stores.kensight.com/common-1...ght-dovetails/

[awp_101]

Yep, I’ve learned the hard way to ask these things beforehand.

Choose wrong and you're going to limit your options

A man’s got to know his limitations...

[JAD]

The rear sight is durable but sharper than hell. I hate mine, or my spare tire does. I'd encourage you to boost up to a Dan Wesson A2 or the like. It's much more likely to be the pistol you actually want.

[JTQ]

The rear sight is durable but sharper than hell. I hate mine, or my spare tire does. I'd encourage you to boost up to a Dan Wesson A2 or the like. It's much more likely to be the pistol you actually want.

Or just choose the Springfield Loaded, or Ronin, or even something in the Range Officer line-up that has a fixed sight rather than the adjustable sight on the original Range Officer. The Springfields are all basically the same gun, in the same price range, just with different options, some which will tie your hands for future changes.

[Robinson]

The rear sight is durable but sharper than hell. I hate mine, or my spare tire does. I'd encourage you to boost up to a Dan Wesson A2 or the like. It's much more likely to be the pistol you actually want.

Yeah, it's not that they are bad sights but I prefer how Colt rounds the corners on their adjustable rear sights. No problem carrying those and they are quite robust.

[awp_101]

I'd encourage you to boost up to a Dan Wesson A2 or the like. It's much more likely to be the pistol you actually want.

That’s part of the issue, I can’t nail down exactly what I want yet. I’m looking at Vigils and TCPs in addition to the Range Officers and Ronins. I probably need to start a new thread since none of this really has anything to do with the original intent of this one.

[awp_101]

What is the consensus on the S&W external extractor 1911s? A Pro Series 9mm caught my eye today but I don’t know anything about the S&W models.

[Robinson]

What is the consensus on the S&W external extractor 1911s? A Pro Series 9mm caught my eye today but I don’t know anything about the S&W models.

S&W knows how to make an external extractor. I've owned three or so S&W 1911s over the years and they were good guns. They are better now that they've dumped their firing pin safety and started using titanium firing pins instead.

One advantage of the external extractor is that it doesn't require tuning.

[awp_101]

Thanks! I'm headed to GB and GI to start researching pricing but pending some hands on fondling and barring any unseen condition issues, is $1K stupidly out of line?

[Evil_Ed]

What is the consensus on the S&W external extractor 1911s? A Pro Series 9mm caught my eye today but I don’t know anything about the S&W models.

I think it was Hilton Yam who had a page on what he considered duty-ready 1911s...the only external extractor (if I'm remembering it right) that he said worked correctly out of the box was the S&W E-Series guns with their wider external extractor. If the extractor on the S&W is wide like the current crop of Sig extractors, it's good to go. If it's narrow, avoid it. The problem I'm running into is that S&W like taking pictures of their guns from the billboard side...so I can't find a comparison picture to show you The narrow ones are noticeably narrower, but it's one of those things where if you don't see them side by side, it's hard to know which is which..

I think the Pro series has the wider extractor as well, but I don't really know.