Worst gun I ever owned was a Colt I bought when I read somewhere that Colt was "producing the best 1911s they've ever made".
I would have hated to see what came before....
Worst gun I ever owned was a Colt I bought when I read somewhere that Colt was "producing the best 1911s they've ever made".
I would have hated to see what came before....
I think it's fair to follow up after today's USPSA match with a note that the Colt Competition ran flawlessly through five stages and a classifier. Accuracy was very good, so long as I did my part. The sights were regulated for POA+POI, which along with the bright green FO I installed proved to be very good for target focused performance (both eyes open, bracket the desired impact point with the rear sight, cut it loose when the dot appears in the notch).
This paid off on a particular high-risk target where one could engage the head of a disappearing target BEFORE hitting the activator (high risk because the rest of the entire target was covered by a no-shoot). A pair of head box alphas at 20+ yards saved me a couple seconds, as opposed to going through the activation sequence. 35-yard shots of opportunity and a fairly long Texas Star also paid off well. I didn't once find myself shifting focus to the front sight with this setup.
Zero issues with a mix of 230 ball and 230 HAP hollow points, all run through Wilson ETM mags, POA=POI and with the upgraded lockwork I installed, it ran just great. The sensitive grip safety on my particular example also worked great with my XXXL hands. Ejection was positive and I think my extractor re-tune was dead on. Consistent ejection.
The dual recoil system made no discernible difference compared to my usual SA Professionals, but, I was running 190 PF ammo.
Detail strip and cleanup after the match revealed correct barrel lockup, with zero peening on the lugs, and no signs of anything unusual.
Yes, the out of the box hammer and sear were ridiculous, but a bit of work and a few good parts has literally put this thing on par with any of my 1911's with a much higher cost, so I'm overall quite satisfied with the silly thing.
As a follow up, shot the Colt in a time-plus match yesterday. Zero malfunctions. This has turned out to be the first full size 1911 that has a grip safety that is 100% functional for me under time pressure. Installed a Stan Chen magwell that happens to exactly match the rest of the finish on the piece and really is a good bit of kit.