Why Carry a 1911? Gun Guys

[SW CQB 45]

Add a big hammer and punch to Glock for those what ifs


late 2000s, I am called to the range for a G21 2 prefix UBxxx that was locked up. They handed me the gun and the slide functions but the trigger is seized fwd (WTH). The officer said he was shooting and the trigger got stiff, then locked up.

Big hand finger pressure did nothing to the trigger.

locked the slide to the rear, removed the slide cover plate and removed the firing pin and then removed the slide off the frame. There was nothing blocking the trigger and the trigger safety would swing out of the way.

I attempted to push out the trigger pin with a glock tool and nuthin. The hammer pin was seized.

Hammertime
I began smacking the trigger pin hard to get some movement. It finally began to move, I had someone center the slide stop on the pin and with heavy blows I drove the trigger pin out. The trigger pin slots and hammer hole were impacted with a hard dry built up of black grunge. my assumption was this gun was over oiled and over time grunge and build up dried and seized the pin.

We had around 8 armorers at the time and this gun must have slipped by annual inspection (maybe more than once) as this did not occur overnight.

I cleaned the trigger pin and trigger pin hole with solvent, inspected it and returned it to service.

The officer asked me what was the issue. I said bypassing yearly inspection and over oiling.

[Catshooter]

7. Big Fucking Hammer.
8. Punch that can be Big Fucking Hammered on (obviously not Glocks).

Cat

[elsquid]

He also has a 1911 conversion kit for some cartridge that is essentially a .45ACP necked down to .41. I can't recall the name. It was some J.D. Jones idea. To get the full benefit, you had to use .308 brass...cut down, formed, and reamed. This allowed for some pressures that would have been a bit risky with the thinner casehead of a regular .45 case.

That kicked some of my brain cells.

The first 1911 I ever shot - the first semiauto pistol - happened at a small range in rural British Columbia around (86,87)?

The range was empty except for me, my friends and an older retired gent. After some initial small talk, the older man offered each of us the chance to run a mag through his latest pride and joy. He showed us the bottlenecked rounds and said it was a “41 Avenger” IIRC.

I was pretty impressed after shooting it. Nice trigger and sights. More authority than a Smith model 10 and way less painful than a 44 Blackhawk. Those two revolvers were the full range of my handgun experience at the time.

(Reminiscing ends.)

— Michael

[CSW]

Don't know why the hell I ever let this one get away.

A 1918 'black Army' Colt, that someone along the line turned into a wadcutter gun. I bought it for $300.
She ran like a raped ape, never bobbled, and was accurate as all get up.

Stupid trades...

[SecondsCount]

Let's see.

1. The Punch, of course.
2. Needle nosed pliers for the mag release spring.
3. Dental hook for the slide lock spring.
4. 1/4" lag bolt to remove the channel liner.
5. Special punch (I made mine) to install the channel liner.
6. Small flat head screwdriver. Used to need that for the connector removal but I see that lately Glock has altered the plastic ejector housing to accept The Punch. So now it's just needed for getting the mag catch back in and it's spring in place.

I did this from memory, seems like I missed one.


Cat

Thank you

For some reason, nearly everytime any thread is the subject of a certain pistol, it strays off into Glocks.

To be clear- I own several Glocks and 1911s, and as mentioned earlier, carry an HK. Each pistol has it's pros and cons but none of them are perfect, even though Glock marketing would like you to believe otherwise.

What made Glock great is that they came out with a utilitarian pistol that didn't cost a whole lot, and being that they came from a manufacturing background of low cost products, knew how to make a consistent product at a lower price point.

The 1911 suffers from manufacturers trying to chase that same price point. Using poor fitting and low quality components such as cast frames, cheap springs, and other mediocre MIM or cast small parts. Over the years, Glock has had some of the same struggles to try and keep their price points low. Gen 4 extractors for instance.

I think we all know that a quality and reliable 1911 can be manufactured. The issue is that it cannot be done for the price of a Glock. The frames alone are a completely different design. The Glock takes a couple seconds to squirt some plastic into a mold and the 1911 has a metal frame which takes a significant amount time to machine from a material that costs several times that of plastic.

In comparison to the Glock-

I've personally seen the trigger return spring fail on a Glock, HK, and M&P, but I have never seen one fail on a 1911

The 1911 has by far the easier to use trigger system and more safeties, including one that will actually stop the trigger from being depressed. I have also never seen a 1911 come from the factory with plastic sights.

It's been a while since I have seen any 1911 vs Glock accuracy tests but for a long time, the 1911 always won those tests with ease.

That all being said,, shoot your Glock if that's what you enjoy, but please stop bringing them into the other discussions.

[MDFA]

Thank you

For some reason, nearly everytime any thread is the subject of a certain pistol, it strays off into Glocks.

To be clear- I own several Glocks and 1911s, and as mentioned earlier, carry an HK. Each pistol has it's pros and cons but none of them are perfect, even though Glock marketing would like you to believe otherwise.

What made Glock great is that they came out with a utilitarian pistol that didn't cost a whole lot, and being that they came from a manufacturing background of low cost products, knew how to make a consistent product at a lower price point.

The 1911 suffers from manufacturers trying to chase that same price point. Using poor fitting and low quality components such as cast frames, cheap springs, and other mediocre MIM or cast small parts. Over the years, Glock has had some of the same struggles to try and keep their price points low. Gen 4 extractors for instance.

I think we all know that a quality and reliable 1911 can be manufactured. The issue is that it cannot be done for the price of a Glock. The frames alone are a completely different design. The Glock takes a couple seconds to squirt some plastic into a mold and the 1911 has a metal frame which takes a significant amount time to machine from a material that costs several times that of plastic.

In comparison to the Glock-

I've personally seen the trigger return spring fail on a Glock, HK, and M&P, but I have never seen one fail on a 1911

The 1911 has by far the easier to use trigger system and more safeties, including one that will actually stop the trigger from being depressed. I have also never seen a 1911 come from the factory with plastic sights.

It's been a while since I have seen any 1911 vs Glock accuracy tests but for a long time, the 1911 always won those tests with ease.

That all being said,, shoot your Glock if that's what you enjoy, but please stop bringing them into the other discussions.

This^^^

By the time I replace the 3 MIM Parts that were left in my new Ronin and change out the magazine release and have a spare fitted extractor on hand. I'll have $2300.00 into the gun. I'm not whining, I know that's what it takes. Yes I could buy x number of Glocks for that money. but if you want a quality 1911 you have to pay.

Don't expect to buy or run a quality 1911 on a "cheap ass beer" budget. You'll end up with the same result, a headache...

And I'm not bashing Glocks, they're just 2 very different animals.

[03RN]

This^^^

By the time I replace the 3 MIM Parts that were left in my new Ronin and change out the magazine release and have a spare fitted extractor on hand. I'll have $2300.00 into the gun. I'm not whining, I know that's what it takes. Yes I could buy x number of Glocks for that money. but if you want a quality 1911 you have to pay.

Don't expect to buy or run a quality 1911 on a "cheap ass beer" budget. You'll end up with the same result, a headache...

And I'm not bashing Glocks, they're just 2 very different animals.

$2300? That seems a bit steep. I see the ronin's around $800.

I typically replace all the small parts as well just to have spares with the oem parts.

[MDFA]

$2300? That seems a bit steep. I see the ronin's around $800.

I typically replace all the small parts as well just to have spares with the oem parts.

You missed the part that the previous owner sent this one to Nighthawk Custom and had over $1000 of custom work done. And I'm putting almost $200 into it in what I'm replacing.

[03RN]

Yup, missed that part

[SecondsCount]

MIM isn't necessarily bad, it's used in quite a few "modern" pistols, as long as the quality is there. I have a 1999 era Kimber in 45 ACP that has seen 20K+ of 45ACP, and a 22 conversion that's digested many 550 round bulk packs, yet the original MIM ignition set has held together. Later on they must have started sourcing from a lower cost source as parts were breaking.

I've heard about it a lot less on Springfield 1911s so the quality must be higher.