Colt 1911 history with Ken Hackathorn

[Robinson]

How well do the new Colts shoot at, say, 25 yards?

thanks,


Okie John

The typical production line Colts are nicely accurate, especially the 45s with National Match barrels. I find that their 9mm guns are okay in the accuracy department but not up to the same standard as the 45s.

The models that have barrels and bushings hand fit by the Custom Shop such as the Special Combat Government, Custom Shop CQBP, and the Custom Competition are very accurate guns.

[okie john]

The typical production line Colts are nicely accurate, especially the 45s with National Match barrels. I find that their 9mm guns are okay in the accuracy department but not up to the same standard as the 45s.

The models that have barrels and bushings hand fit by the Custom Shop such as the Special Combat Government, Custom Shop CQBP, and the Custom Competition are very accurate guns.

So in my world, "nicely accurate" might be 3" at 25 yards and very accurate might be about 1.5" at 25 yards, or about what I'd expect from an HK in excellent condition. Is that realistic?

Just looking for a rough idea...

thanks,


Okie John

[Robinson]

So in my world, "nicely accurate" might be 3" at 25 yards and very accurate might be about 1.5" at 25 yards, or about what I'd expect from an HK in excellent condition. Is that realistic?

Just looking for a rough idea...

thanks,


Okie John

Well first off, I wouldn't compare myself to you when it comes to shooting ability. Your reply means you are talking about things beyond my capability for offhand shooting. However, I would bet the Custom Shop guns that have hand-fitted barrels will shoot with the likes of Baer pistols.

[okie john]

Well first off, I wouldn't compare myself to you when it comes to shooting ability. Your reply means you are talking about things beyond my capability for offhand shooting. However, I would bet the Custom Shop guns that have hand-fitted barrels will shoot with the likes of Baer pistols.

Thanks, but I can’t shoot that well. I was wondering more about mechanical accuracy.


Okie John

[45dotACP]

So in my world, "nicely accurate" might be 3" at 25 yards and very accurate might be about 1.5" at 25 yards, or about what I'd expect from an HK in excellent condition. Is that realistic?

Just looking for a rough idea...

thanks,


Okie John

My Colt 9mm Commander that I got in 2016ish would not do better than 3 inches at 25 yards. I fit a new barrel because the lower lugs on the old one were so badly overcut that the barrel was standing on the link and it had a hitch when going into battery as the link pushed the barrel into battery.

The bushing kind of sucked too.

No experience with the .45s

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

[farscott]

That was more or leas the standard practice though. You looked a gun up in Small Arms of the World and there was your disassembly procedure. No one ever told me not to turn the bushing with the pistol in battery, in fact my gunsmith gave me a plastic bushing wrench when I asked him to fit a solid bushing. As a very doctrinaire Cooperite at the time, I was convinced the collet bushing was crap based on the back page of Guns & Ammo. I’ve now progressed to collet bushing agnosticism.

The manual clearly explained that the barrel needs to be out of battery.

[TCinVA]

In the video Ken makes a big deal about the collet bushing helping accuracy in the 1970's and
not being used again on the 70's retro series. Does any one know if this would help modern
pistol accuracy or if it is not needed because of improvements in barrel manufacturing. I found
this point confusing.

It was used to make up for sloppier lockup resulting from wear in their production tooling.

The collett bushings were well known for being pretty fragile and breaking, either due to the inherent fragility of the design or because of significant user error in disassembly. (I've heard arguments for both) Smiths of the day would ditch those and hand-fit a solid barrel bushing to improve accuracy.

[JAD]

Another point of contention here; small 1911 ejection port size probably doesn't do reliability any favors. Ken spent quite a while in the video outlining that anyone who thinks that is a fool, but in the age of slow-motion video we know the brass dent on older 1911s is from the case hitting the inside of the slide rather hard, then bouncing out of the port upwards.

Surely in practical terms eliminating a random bounce, and allowing the ejection to be more sideways and less vertical, is a net positive in terms of system reliability.

That would be what Cooper called preoccupation with inconsequential increments. One could as easily argue that lowering the port lets more dirt in and makes it less reliable. Or increases slide velocity and changes the ejection dynamic. Ken's point is that the change was made for customer preference (let's say both for reloaders like me who don't like dented cases, and folks like you who think it affects reliability) rather than to improve ejection reliability.

[CCT125US]

Lost count of how many times he flagged his own face.... I can't be the only one who noticed.

[Greg Bell]

Ha! You should take one if his classes with the snake drill. Ken laughs at death, especially yours. Dammit he should be president