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armanius wrote:Yes, the Croatia thing seems to ALWAYS come up!

It doesn't bother me. My SA 1911's frame was made at the Imbel factory in Brazil. My S&W M&P45 is assembled in the U.S., but the parts are made in Croatia. Some of the most highly sought after Glocks are made in Austria. My H&K was made in Germany. Both my wife's and my Over & Under shotguns were made in Turkey. My pump action was made in China. Etc., etc., etc. The Croatians have a long gun-making history. No reason to doubt the quality of the gun. It's true that in a global melt down there might be a burp in the parts supply chain. But in the end, you can get almost any American made part for a Glock that you want, including new frames. No reason not to expect that the XD/XD(m)s and the M&Ps won't some day be the same way. And if not, well I still own two 1911s and a Ruger .22 (and a Colt Government .380, and three revolvers, and 3 American-made Kahrs, etc.). We'll get by somehow.

armanius wrote:Thanks for all the info everyone.

Looks like the Springfield 1911's got the most accolades. Strangely, most gun forums seem to dislike Springfield's striker fire XD and XDM pistols.

I own a 5" 1911 for carry use. My EDC gun is an XD(m). I like it a lot, and it compares very favorably with my 1911. They are very different guns, with different strengths and weaknesses, but they are both good guns. They are both reliable, and the XD(m) is actually a little bit more accurate than a 1911. So, at least for me, it isn't true that I dislike the striker fired gun. Both of them are excellent products. The biggest complaints I've seen against the XD/XD(m) pistols is that they are Croatian made and not U.S. made, so some people worry about parts availability in the Zombie Apocalypse. But if that happens, my Ruger .22 pistol will be more valuable.

My SA Loaded (and all other SA 1911s as far as I know) is the original 1911A1 design except for the straight mainspring housing and do not have the firing pin device. Instead, they use a titanium firing pin. The pin is too light to overcome the firing pin spring inertia if the pistol is dropped muzzle down.....so no firing pin device is necessary. One less thing to break. And as long as the mainspring doesn't break so that the hammer strikes the firing pin with sufficient force, that titanium firing pin with strike the primer with enough force to ignite it every single time. I have never experienced a light primer strike in my SA.

Regarding firing pin safety devices: I do have to say though that when I owned my Kimber, it had a great trigger, and I am unable to tell the difference between the OEM trigger on my old Kimber, with its firing pin safety, and the smoothed and lightened trigger on my Springfield, with no firing pin device at all. Both have a nice crisp let-off at about 4-4.5 lb of pull, and there is no practical difference between the two. I think that all the hyperventilation about how "terrible" a firing pin safety makes the trigger feel, it is exactly that—hyperventilation. In the real world, particularly that subset of the real world known as "active shooter scenario," literally nobody can tell the difference. In my mind, the only real issue with a firing pin safety in a 1911 pistol is that it has the potential, however small, to fail in such a way as to disable the gun. That never really bothered me, but it might bother some. (In other designs which cannot "cock and lock," all bets are off and I would not carry one that did not have such a device.)

My 2¢. YMMV.

extremist wrote:

AndyC wrote:Avoiding, hmmm...

I would never buy an Auto Ordnance - ever.

Two other brands I'm not fond of are Para Ordnance and Kimber.

Agreed. And I'll add Sig to that list...

And any S&W 1911 with a Swartz safety system.

James

I've had good results with Kimber, and I have no particular opinion about Paras other than I think that a double stack defeats part of a 1911's raison d'etre, but I'll second the complaints about Sig 1911s. Mine was a disaster. Doesn't mean they all will be, but this one was horrible. Beautiful to look at, but about as useful as a brick.

Springfield Loaded is a pretty decent gun at an affordable price (read that, "under $1,000), and I like mine. My son has had a Taurus PT1911 for a number of years and it has only ever had one failure, which was fixed in 2 minutes by using a Kimber part I had laying around.

Right now I only own two 1911s, and both are 5" guns. But I think that if i had to settle on only ONE 1911, I'd make it a 4" model just for carryability.