How to get a Reliable Hard Use 1911?

[wvincent]

Here's the gun sitting on the nightstand right now. It's a <600 buck used Kimber TLE/RL II. I have no idea the round count on it when I bought it, it's an LE trade-in. I replaced all the springs in it, because...you know like buying a used car, change the oil and inspect it. I've shot ~1200'ish rounds through it without cleaning. I cleaned it when I bought it. I've lubed it two or three times in the past 2.5 years. I don't really know, I just kind of look at it and if it seems dry I shoot some silicone spray on it.

Like @45dotACP's Kimber, mine has the lower-lugs not perfectly fit. I don't really get barrel bump, but the gun is riding the link a bit, as evidenced by the wear pattern on the slide stop. The contact of the lower lugs is uneven on the slide-stop. I also am a bit undersized in the upper lugs, combined this gives me a bit of barrel hood play at lock-up. Whatever, this gun shoots ~2" groups with 230-grain ball and <2" groups with HST (1.79" currently being the best group) at 25-yards. So it's clearly not a problem. If the lower lugs crack, I'll just fit a Kart and drive on.

It has had zero malfunctions of any type with this gun, including an initial 150 on whatever springs the gun originally had in it when I bought it, with the suspect 7-round Kimber magazine the gun came with. It passed the 10-8 extractor test out of the gate, I've never even had the extractor out of the gun. In fact, I've never had the mainspring housing off of this gun. I just replaced the full length guide rod with a GI-style plug and guide rod setup and replaced all the stupid allen-head screws with proper flat ones. And I replaced the plunger tube spring and plungers, firing pin spring, and mag catch spring (when I replaced the allen-head mag catch lock with a slotted one), because maintenance.

This gun rides frequently on my hip in addition to on the nightstand. I trust it. If it breaks though, I know how to fix it. I don't need a $6k 1911 to have one that works...but if I'm spending the kind of coinage that buys a vacation for the wife and I on a gun, it damn sure better work. Which is to say, I kind of expect lower-end guns (<$1500 guns) to potentially need remedial work, but I expect >$3k guns to work right the fuck out of the gate and stay working as long as I maintain them.

Attachment 56715

You need to time those screw heads on the grip panels

[RevolverRob]

You need to time those screw heads on the grip panels

Man, I knew someone was gonna say something about that.

Like the Honey Badger - The 575 Dollar 1911 don't care.

This is like the rusty beater Honda I drove in college...It ain't much to look at, but it runs if I just keep putting oil and gas in it.

One of these days, I'll cut my check to Alchemy and then I'll care.

[TheNewbie]

What about the Colt CCU?

[Bucky]

I shouldn't have referred to my requirement as being "meet the 2k rounds challenge", because that requires no cleaning or maintenance. What I desire is a 1911 that can routinely and easily go at least 2k rounds between stoppages, but with normal cleaning/lubing at reasonable intervals. Yes I would like it to be able to go 2k rounds without cleaning/lube, but far more important to me is just being able to go 2k rounds without a stoppage assuming normal cleaning/lubrication.

With normal maintenance, that shouldn’t be too hard to find in a .45 ACP 1911. Heck, when I shoot them in competition I frequently exceed 2,000 rounds without cleaning and without issue, BUT. I do lube them every time before each match or practice session.

[Tamara]

Yep, but we've been exposed to the OP's anxiety about 9mm in his Doubts about 9mm thread.

Not to mention, Glocks and Limpwristing Concerns and Glock 21 Gen 4 Lack of Reliability/Durability.

My, this place has certainly gotten very...gun forum-y...in my absence.

[JAD]

My, this place has certainly gotten very...gun forum-y...in my absence.

So I hear you saying you feel responsible and you’re going to help make it better.

[gato naranja]

I want to pull this sentence out of a bunch of excellent context. The Rock River and the Springfields I’ve had have all been like this, and very reliable.

I‘m always reluctant to chime in on 1911 threads, because #1, I’m no expert compared to many here, and #2, I know that what I’ll say next will have some folks looking at me like I have all the dicks growing out of my forehead. That said, I’m currently toting a Springer Mil-Spec that is literally box-stock, save for wolff springs, a Wilson bulletproof extractor, and a Wilson firing pin stop.

I am less of an expert on 1911s than you, but what the hell... this whole thread is an unexpected hoot.

Three out of three SA Range Officers I have shot enough to be able to say I know them well have worked quite nicely after nothing more than some deburring and/or a reasonable break-in. All three are 9mm 1911s, which 9 out of 10 guys named Jeff at the LGS will tell you are inherently unreliable and inaccurate. They were inexpensive to begin with, and two of the three were impulse buy, can't-pass-this-up deals to boot. Only one has found its "forever home," as a cat only needs so many "fun guns" that he does not intend to use for serious business (though I do believe the pick of the litter - a 5" all-steel Operator - would capably check that box as well). IOW, I/we* have had good luck with SA ROs chambered for the "Hun neun" in what might be normal civilian use... which is to say higher round counts but lower levels of dirt and knocks than my uncles put their GI 1911s through in 1944-1945.

Of the firearms I regret selling or trading off in my 45 years of looking for grass that is greener in the shooting game, only one of them was originally a high-dollar, bespoke gun. The rest have been off-the-rack things that the cognoscenti would not bother with. Not necessarily what Horace Kephart described as "guns that would bring only the price of scrap-iron in New York," but nothing that a cyclically undercapitalized household couldn't bear. These ROs demonstrated to me that they can be solid, durable performers despite their initial cost, though I may have gotten all the good ones... which would be rather remarkable considering my track record with lead-launching lemons.

*The "we" encompasses the spouse/CFO, who would cut off any genitalia sprouting from my forehead (or elsewhere) if I ventured too far into more expensive custom and semi-custom 1911s.

[Grey]

Man, I knew someone was gonna say something about that.

Like the Honey Badger - The 575 Dollar 1911 don't care.

This is like the rusty beater Honda I drove in college...It ain't much to look at, but it runs if I just keep putting oil and gas in it.

One of these days, I'll cut my check to Alchemy and then I'll care.

Wait a minute... You dont even own an Alchemy but you keep telling me to buy one... Hrmmm...

[Tamara]

Man, I knew someone was gonna say something about that.

Like the Honey Badger - The 575 Dollar 1911 don't care.

This is like the rusty beater Honda I drove in college...It ain't much to look at, but it runs if I just keep putting oil and gas in it.

One of these days, I'll cut my check to Alchemy and then I'll care.

As far as having a feature set I like, I would be ecstatic to stumble across a TLE/RL II that ran (ditto a railed Operator). It's just that, as noted upthread, a Kimber or SA has about a fifty-fifty chance of running right out of the the gate, or being just the entry fee to a thousand dollar project.

For $575, though? I'd probably roll those dice. Even if I lost the gamble, Kimber makes a frame/slide/barrel kit as good as anyone else does, after all.

[MGW]

@SW CQB 45 off topic but have you viewed Hilton’s Duty Tune DVD? Wondering about your thoughts since you have been to his class.