I picked-up this pistol over the weekend. Cost was $1275 + sales tax and my LGS.
It was field stripped and inspected. The pistol comes with a beavertail grip safety, checkered front strap, NM barrel, and Novak night sights. The fit was a bit disappointing in that the grip safety is very loose and rattles with about 0.5 mm of play at the top and 1 mm of play at the bottom. Slide to frame fit is about what I'd expect from a mid-grade 1911 in that its a fairly smooth action with a little looseness when twisted side to side; it's nothing like the solid lock-up on a gun from Wilson, Brown, or SA Custom Shop. The finish is Ionbond which has a reputation for decent durability but most of my experience is with Black T and Wilson Armor-Tuff. The gun is supplied with 2 10-round Colt magazines that do not have baseplates.
The trigger breaks at 5 lbs on my meter with no grit and a decent reset.
I greased the rails and wear points with TW-25B before reassembling the pistol and heading out to the range.
The order of fire on my first trip was as follows:
1) 50 rounds of Federal 147 grain AE
2) 50 rounds of Federal 124 grain subsonic
2) 40 rounds of Spear 147 grain GDHP
Accuracy was very good with the extreme spread of 10 rounds of 147 grain AE at 15 yards measuring 2.6 inches when fired off-hand.
The gun had 1 FTE where the spent casing was oriented horizontally between the barrel hood and slide at approximately round 25 with the AE. There was 1 FTF with the Federal subsonic load. All loads exhibited erratic ejection with a BTF about every magazine. Sometime spent casings would also be thrown forward. One casing, a subsonic load that was the last in the magazine, just barely rolled off the slide.
Next, I performed a 10-8 Extractor Test whereby single rounds are fired without a magazine inserted. The 10-8 protocol calls for 8 round to be fired two handed and 8 more with strong hand only. All rounds should eject between 2 and 5 o'clock.
For those unfamiliar with it, the idea behind this test is the 1911's internal extractor relies on spring tension that is highly variable depending on a number of factors including materials, wear, and the skill/attention of the armor assembling the gun. Failure suggest loose tension and an extractor that is only partially functioning.
This pistol failed spectacularly and would not eject a spent casing when the magazine was removed. I stopped after 3 attempts - all of which resulted in the same horizontal FTE with the round wedged between the barrel and slide.
Bottom line, this sample of 1 is unreliable and exhibits signs of poor extractor tuning. The beavertail safety, while loose, is probably considered to be within spec for a mid-grade production gun. I will be contacting Colt tomorrow to get the extractor fixed, and I'll update the thread once the pistol is back.