1911’s in general, 9mm versions specifically

[fwafwow]

Currently prevaricating over a C or HD4.5 for “everything.”

-J

I was just starting to consider the HDP4 or HD P4.5 but I am not sure I like the rear sight and the Glock mags.

 

[NSI]

I was just starting to consider the HDP4 or HD P4.5 but I am not sure I like the rear sight and the Glock mags.

The mec gar metal Glock mags it ships with are good to go. The forward mounted HD rear sight is a backup, it’s useful for making sure your dot hasn’t shifted, and it’s theoretically a better surface off of which to rack the pistol than the optic. If you’re not mounting an optic, you’d probably not be looking at the HD anyway.

-J

 

[Fatcamp]

The 2311 grip shape/size sucks. A standard Staccato/2011 grip is better. The Staccato C and CS are overall the best carry/duty/everything factory pistols on the market.

If you get a Staccato C or CS, use it, ask me any questions you like, and if after giving it a full on serious training time decide you don’t like it- I’ll buy it from you.

What about the initial single stack C? Any thoughts on them?

 

[NSI]

What’s the roll trigger kit of choice? Or do we have someone like KC Crawford or Doug Hall do it?

-J

 

[Formidilosus]

Currently prevaricating over a C or HD4.5 for “everything.”

-J

The HD is blocky and square like a Glock. A very good “not Glock” Glock duty pistol. But, given a choice the grip of the C and CS are much better shaped- thinner side to side than front to back.

 

[Formidilosus]

What about the initial single stack C? Any thoughts on them?

Very good pistols. If they still made them, they would be the answer for a production CCW pistol.

 

[Formidilosus]

What’s the roll trigger kit of choice? Or do we have someone like KC Crawford or Doug Hall do it?

-J

KC Customs.

 

[eric1115]

@Formidilosus @RockAndSage

So this has been danced around and good input given, but to put a fine point on it -

Say a guy was looking for a first pistol and looking at a G19 because everyone says that's the standard for a do everything gun. He wants it for carry (probably appendix), bears/woods, and will put it on the nightstand at the end of the day. He wants to spend G19ish money ($500-600).

What would you steer him towards? That guy was me about 5 years ago and I went G48 (slim grip/profile was very appealing, and 15 round shield mags sounded great. I've gone back to the factory 10-rounders). Thinking of changing to a 1911, and a single stack commander size Tisas (with Wilson extractor and maybe some trigger work?) seems like the way to go.

I've been dot-curious, but never really felt like the Ameriglo sights on my G48 were holding me back more than my lack of skill. Getting my slide milled and buying a dot has always felt like a much smaller improvement than I'd get from buying another couple thousand rounds and just shooting the damn thing. Do I get one that's dot-ready? How about a rail for a light? I always always have a streamlight 500 lumen clipped in my pocket, but I suck at shooting strong hand only even more than I do with two hands. I'm not crazy about the increased size and weight of a cool-guy light and dot equipped pistol (especially with the weight gain of going from a G48 to a 1911). I've spent a little time with dot equipped pistols, but it has mostly been just plinking. I could see how they would need lots of training under stress, otherwise they are not the silver bullet lots of guys say they are in a time/stress pressure situation. With time, pretty sweet.

What would you recommend a guy do if he didn't want to get sucked too far in, wanted one do-it-all pistol that just works and shoots well, and didn't care about cool-guy points (what the G19 is often thought to be)? Wants to shoot 1k-2k rounds a year, but no aspirations of ever being a truly good shooter?

 

[Howler65]

What about the initial single stack C? Any thoughts on them?

I bought one recently…really like the gun. Easy to shoot well and I’ve had zero hiccups. They are on GB often…expect to pay $1700-2000 for one. The 9 round Wilson compact mags work perfectly in mine.

 

[RockAndSage]

@Formidilosus @RockAndSage

So this has been danced around and good input given, but to put a fine point on it -

Say a guy was looking for a first pistol and looking at a G19 because everyone says that's the standard for a do everything gun. He wants it for carry (probably appendix), bears/woods, and will put it on the nightstand at the end of the day. He wants to spend G19ish money ($500-600).

What would you steer him towards? That guy was me about 5 years ago and I went G48 (slim grip/profile was very appealing, and 15 round shield mags sounded great. I've gone back to the factory 10-rounders). Thinking of changing to a 1911, and a single stack commander size Tisas (with Wilson extractor and maybe some trigger work?) seems like the way to go.

I've been dot-curious, but never really felt like the Ameriglo sights on my G48 were holding me back more than my lack of skill. Getting my slide milled and buying a dot has always felt like a much smaller improvement than I'd get from buying another couple thousand rounds and just shooting the damn thing. Do I get one that's dot-ready? How about a rail for a light? I always always have a streamlight 500 lumen clipped in my pocket, but I suck at shooting strong hand only even more than I do with two hands. I'm not crazy about the increased size and weight of a cool-guy light and dot equipped pistol (especially with the weight gain of going from a G48 to a 1911). I've spent a little time with dot equipped pistols, but it has mostly been just plinking. I could see how they would need lots of training under stress, otherwise they are not the silver bullet lots of guys say they are in a time/stress pressure situation. With time, pretty sweet.

What would you recommend a guy do if he didn't want to get sucked too far in, wanted one do-it-all pistol that just works and shoots well, and didn't care about cool-guy points (what the G19 is often thought to be)? Wants to shoot 1k-2k rounds a year, but no aspirations of ever being a truly good shooter?

That is certainly a minefield of controversy in answering all those questions honestly. But all good, fair questions. Given you're asking that level of detail, I trust a detailed answer, if long, is also appreciated.

Here are two top-line principles that govern my worldview on all of this:

1) Only hits count.
2) Mindset, skillset, toolset - in that order.

On one hand, nothing else matters more than hits - so dog$h*t triggers, funky ergonomics, crap sights, and any other "theory" facet of a gun that interferes with the ability to rapidly hit over other designs, gets those guns sent to the bottom of the pile.

But even the junkiest of those guns can be made to hit, if your mindset and skillset are squared away.

Where people go really wrong, really fast, is not knowing their instructor's zero. Or the zero of whatever influencer it is they're paying attention to. Not knowing the origins of their priorities, values, and survival perspectives. Because what matters to a former SOF operator at the deepest levels of his instincts and cultural DNA is different from what a SWAT officer, street cop, gun gamer, or YouTuber will be. They're often also at a much higher level of training than the average person, and may take things for granted that common shooters just don't know. The danger is that those are the people who generally define what cool is - and that's dangerous as hell. People shouldn't be making life-altering gun decisions based on what's "cool" according to someone absolutely divorced from your own realities. Those people's worldviews have been formed in a very different survival reality than the one you walk in. And unfiltered consumption of their info and content can warp your perspective away from understanding what your own survival realities and survival requirements are.

That's why I shared those two First Principles guidelines up at the top. Everything gets filtered through that first.

And what matters a hell of a lot more to the average person is not whether their gun can go a million rounds, or what Tier 1 unit is using it, or what Gucci factors it has - it's whether you can get 3 accurate hits in 3-5 seconds on demand within 15 feet, in any weather, in any lighting, wearing common clothes, and in any condition you commonly find yourself in, in the realities you occupy. Only hits count. Choose a gun that assists that as much as possible.

You have to see to hit, right? So sights and lights matter. A trigger that interferes with your precision should be avoided, no matter what theoretical reason people offer for it being "good". And if you want more than one hit, the gun has to keep going bang too, so there's obviously a reliability factor.

But does it need to go bang with unyielding reliability in muddy trenches and moon-dust hills? Or are the standards of your personal reality that it just needs to deal with EDC lint, nightstand dust, and a little neglect between lube jobs? What's the intended purpose and realities of the gun? How many rounds do you expect to put on that gun a year?

All this is brought up to say that there's a balance between shootability, reliability, durability, intended purpose, and how much training you can or will do with it.

I personally hate Glocks - because their dog$h*t triggers, funky ergonomics, and crap sights get in the way of my ability to hit with it fast and under duress. But if it was the only tool I had to do work with? Well, I'd be damn happy to have it, and the mindset would craft the skillset around the toolset. And there's thousands of elite shooters who have done the same with those guns, at top levels.

But I have other choices. And I'll always choose the one that gets those 3 lethal shots at 15 feet as fast and as accurately as possible, in any lighting, weather, or social conditions I may face, with the least amount of interference from design as possible, requiring the least amount of training time to overcome. Glock may be "cool", "proven", etc, etc, etc, but it's going to take the average person thousands of rounds of live fire and dry fire to reach the same level of performance they would get if you just stuck a reliable 1911, 2011, CZ-75 type, or DWX in their hands, with just a few hundred rounds. People hate hearing that, yet it's reality as I know it.

Now to answer your question explicitly: The G19 price-point puts severe constraints on maximizing both shootability and reliability.

But for an EDC and woods gun, at $600ish, maybe shooting a thousand rounds a year or so - I'd recommend finding a used Sig 226, 228, or 229, with a rail, and put a TLR-1 light on it. Some HKs would also be great options. Don't worry about a red-dot unless you're willing to double the price of the package, and double the training per year. Form's proven here that some of the cheaper 1911s seem to be doing great, but I know a hammer-fired Sig or HK is going to be reliable out of the box, including used, at the $600 price point, but I wouldn't feel that trust with any 1911 in that price range I didn't put 1000 rounds through first.

 

[Dobermann]

Update - I'm not selling my 320s (at least not yet), but I'm putting them in condition 3 and may no longer carry them, as I would have to change my training to carry in that condition.

New rabbit holes (I need something to spend time on):

• I'm revisiting the Staccato, and maybe the Oracle Arms 2311 (especially since I have lots of P320 mags)
• One gun theory -
  • Go with one of my other hammer-fired Sigs and just have multiples of those?
  • Go with the 2011 model and get rid of all of my other pistols?

Or just come to the single-stack dark side ...

 

[Formidilosus]

What would you recommend a guy do if he didn't want to get sucked too far in, wanted one do-it-all pistol that just works and shoots well, and didn't care about cool-guy points (what the G19 is often thought to be)? Wants to shoot 1k-2k rounds a year, but no aspirations of ever being a truly good shooter?

Well, to start- why not just a G19?

 

[Dobermann]

Thank you. (OP - sorry for the continued tangent. I've considered a separate P320 post, but I am trying to avoid what I'm seeing elsewhere and described in the next paragraph.)

I had been aware, largely due to very light participation on Sigtalk, of the P320 issues over the years. The increased activity has piqued my interest. It's tough to wade through the info on that forum (at least for me), as it seems most posts fall into either staunch defenders or absolute haters. (I'm not throwing stones at that forum - it reminds me of some of the RS debates.)

I did a quick gun.deals search and still found at least the WCP320 available, and selling for more than I paid for mine. (I very rarely sell guns, so I wouldn't be terribly worried if that wasn't the case.)

I am trying my best to avoid any of the videos that are influencer created. I have seen those headlines (although I doubt those are what you are referencing).

Yep


I know many won't use or hate FB, but I found this recent video by Bruce Gray at GrayGuns. He acknowledges he has a dog in the fight, and that video is just a prologue of other videos, but he says they were only able to replicate a UD in one narrow scenario involving a modified pistol.

For those interested, here is the Sig online response @Dobermann referenced.

I'd like to think that I'm neutral on this topic. Yes, I've got a few of the P320s, and more other Sigs, but if the P320 really isn't safe, I will make changes for those.

Yep, let's not derail this thread too much, but some quick replies:

• I'm sure they're still for sale, I was just noting that some places have stopped selling them.
• The sources I'm looking at aren't from paid influencers, but whatever the source, the number of agencies, ranges, and trainers now banning them seems to have grown a lot in just the last week or two.
• Gray may not be the most reliable source on this issue; for just some of the info on the technical details, see the video Form posted above. Some court documents and investigation findings are now out in the public domain also.

Good luck working through the morass, and working out what to do with yours.

 

[LimeSpoon]

@Formidilosus

2 unrelated questions, if you care to spare your thoughts.

1. Have you found that the Wilson Bulletproof extractors offer any material or constructional advantage over EGW extractors? Say it is for a custom build and the ease of fitting is not generally an issue so long as it can be practically done.

2. Do you have any preferences between .45 ACP and 9mm?