As It Was In The Beginning

Like motorcycles and arrows, which both wobble a bit traveling in what seems to be a straight line, I’ve intermittently carried pistols by Ruger, GLOCK, S&W, Walther, SIG, FN and others, including a handful of revolvers. I have an earlier love, though, and that’s the 1911. I’ve owned one for 30 years and carried one concealed for 25 (20 on an all-day basis), which puts me well over 40,000 hours of carrying one, not counting occasional competition or working on them. We won’t count cleaning because I don’t do it much.

The 1911 isn’t for everyone, but it captured my attention early as a seasoned 14-year-old when some worldly upperclassman gave me his copy of Soldier of Fortune magazine. Inside was an article by the late Pete Kokalis about a custom lightweight Commander built for him by legendary pistolsmith Wayne Novak, known for innovative and much-copied sights and for stone-cold, reliable carry pistols. I was enthralled: The sinister black finish (“seriously dangerous people prefer black,” Kokalis intoned), the shapely curvature of the beavertail and LoMount rear sight and the cogent history lesson opened my eyes to a world I simply didn’t know existed. To that point, I’d had only a casual interest in guns at all. But this …

Working for a lush $2 an hour — dutifully recorded, dollar-by-dollar, in a hardback ledger — I eventually saved up the money for a Colt Gold Cup, which I shot as religiously as I could afford to. It was followed by a second, then third 1911, the Colt Officer’s ACP that became my first carry gun. It was black, of course, with a King’s bushing kit, Novak sights set for 230-grain +P Cor-Bon and other goodies. Later, it was supplemented by a Colt 1991A1 in .45 Super, which pushed the power envelope even harder. Although I greedily consumed every scrap of information I could about the pistolsmiths of the day, I simply couldn’t afford their guns.

But I could afford some rudimentary tools and the stray book, so Brownells’ catalog in hand, I set about trying to teach myself. Autocorrect has changed “gunsmithing” to “gun smiting,” and it’s a fair evaluation of my early attempts. Nonetheless, I was offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be trained by Wayne Novak and spent several weeks driving a file under his tutelage. The resultant skills let me work on my own guns, and exposure to the variety offered by guns from Devel, Swenson, Pachmayr, Shockey, Behlert and others has kept me deeply enthralled in the craftsmanship side for the ensuing decades as I built concept guns to explore different eras or expressions of the 1911.

The 1911 is as much an idea as it is a gun, which means absolutes are hard to come by. Still, after shooting seven different barrel lengths, 13 calibers from .22 to .50 GI, at least four frame materials (if you count Damascus) and owning guns with capacities ranging from 6 to 18, some of my opinions have changed. Some have not. What follows is a scattershot summary of what I’ve learned.

Power and Control

Much of the 1911’s draw is the relative power of traditional chamberings like .45 ACP and 10mm Auto, but controllability matters more. I thought I was managing the brisk recoil of my .45 Super (which fires 230 JHPs at 1,100 fps and 185s up to 1,500) until I saw a photo of how high that muzzle was coming up. These days, I have a better understanding of the need for follow-up shots and know what the gun likes, so I generally prefer the shootability of standard-pressure ammo, and some of mine stay loaded with light 185s or 200s.

At the other end of the spectrum is where .22 conversions sit. Everything comes down to the fundamentals of sight picture and trigger control, and there is a benefit to building those skills with the platform you’re going to use to defend your life. Ruger’s MkIV .22 is an exceptional pistol, but it is a different pistol. A conversion unit for your carry gun lets you learn its specific grip angle and controls without recoil, which creates and masks bad habits. If you’re jerking the trigger, the visible dip of the muzzle is far more obvious with the mild .22, and you know what to work on.

My first conversion was a short Wilson one for my Officer’s Model after a badly broken wrist curtailed my .45 shooting for a season, and it’s been followed by many others. All have served me well, especially those from FCW/Marvel. Mechanically interesting and just plain cool they provide cheap practice, and the extreme accuracy of a good conversion allows plenty of room to push yourself. I’ve seen Marvel units shoot 1/2″ at 50 yards with bulk ammo, and even now when I’m testing a pistol, I alternate between it and a Marvel because it’s a known benchmark showing me how much of my performance that day is the gun and how much is me.

Programmed Operation

The value in commonality doesn’t stop with conversions. The kinesthetic familiarity with the 1911 thumb safety carries over to other safety-equipped handguns, such as the CZ75 and Hi-Power. They require the same basic movement to deactivate, as do common long guns like the AR and HK91/G3/MP5 family. With the seemingly ubiquitous use of the AR for home defense, there’s much to be said for doing the same thing to “turn on” whatever gun you may reach for under stress. Sadly, it’s not much help for most shotguns, and if you’re into AKs, well, that’s a different article.

The thumb safety also provides secondary protection against a gun takeaway. If I remember my Clint Smith correctly, 80% of police officers who are disarmed are promptly shot with their own gun, and I don’t think armed citizens should expect better odds. That safety buys time — something like 15 seconds — while the bad guy tries to figure out why your gun isn’t going off. This isn’t idle speculation, as in my prior employment I spent a lot of time standing next to violent criminals. Having trained in combatives and Muay Thai over the past several years, I know 15 seconds could mean a second chance to survive. I know, I know, you don’t plan to have your gun taken away. I don’t either, and I went to school to stop it. But it does happen, and you should have a plan.

Reliability and Accuracy

Aren’t 1911s unreliable? Not in my experience. Never forget, it was only adopted by the military after one went 6,000 rounds without a malfunction. Sure, I’ve seen them fail, as I have with every other handgun brand, including the ones that “never” have trouble. My personal favorite 1911 fail was a subcompact double-stack .45. Its combination of too-weak magazine and recoil springs resulted in the gun ejecting both a fired case and a live round every shot but still cycling a fresh round into the chamber. It’s hard to shoot when you’re laughing that hard, but I tried anyway and then sent the gun back for repair.

The 1911s I’ve tested generally come out of the box and go 500 rounds without cleaning, oiling or malfunctioning in any way. The really good ones do that and put five shots in less than 2″ at 25 yards. My daily gun averages 1.5″ — not with match ammo, but ball and hollowpoints.

Part of extracting the mechanical accuracy is that magnificently crisp trigger, which often feels a pound or so less than it actually is. Know what feels like a 1911 trigger? A 1911. There’s really nothing else like it on a fighting gun.

Closing Thoughts

As a rule of thumb, full-size guns work better than little ones, seven-round mags work better than eights and most guns function best in their original chambering. For years, the 1911 seemed intolerant of shorter calibers like the 9mm and .40 S&W, but even that seems to have been overcome.
Having generally spent most of my time on defensive pistols, I’ve branched out to earlier-style guns lately, including Western pistols and barbecue guns. My working guns are still fairly basic, but I’ve learned that pretty won’t hurt you. As long as it’s reliable, has nice grips, a bit of polish, nitre bluing or even engraving adds to the pride of ownership without taking away anything in practicality.

I’m always a bit mystified when people call the 1911 “obsolete.” Does it have a fixed mag loaded from the top with a stripper clip? Has it morphed into a percussion pistol to be loaded with loose powder, caps and pig-fat-slickened round balls fumbled into the charge holes?

Don’t get me wrong: I understand why other pistols have outstripped it in the military and law enforcement world. There, a large number of guns must be maintained by armorers who swap parts as opposed to a wisened pistolsmith with the time to carefully stone replacements to perfection. Uniformity is also critical since the pistol needs to be easily used by all comers, with all degrees of hand size and recoil tolerance, and who may never shoot outside of what’s required for employment. But these limitations don’t apply to the individual concealed carrier who is free to choose the tool that fits them best and to devote their time to pursuing as much performance as the gun is mechanically capable of delivering.

Thirty years since that first Gold Cup, the 1911 does what it’s always done and is generally built to an even higher standard. If you want a dot, fine, we’ve been putting them on since the late 1980s. More rounds? Para-Ordnance did that in steel in 1988, and the currently resurgent polymer 2011 showed up a few years later.

Nothing is more flexible, nothing has the trigger and few guns have the accuracy of the 1911. I won’t say there’s nothing better, but there’s nothing I shoot better. Some of you may recognize the liturgical reference in the title. Time will tell if the 1911 will be best for me forever more, but it certainly has been and is now.

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