- Heinie hex head adjustable, low profile (no snag) front and rear sights.
- Full length guide rod, requiring NO special tools to field strip.
- Cuts at the rear AND front of the slide for better grip during charging the weapon.
- Ambidextrous safeties.
- Beaver-tail grip safety (no hammer bite!)
- Lightweight hammer (or so it appears!)
- Extended mag release button (MORE extended than the Colt!).
- Over-travel adjustable trigger - also drilled for reduced weight.
- Stippling cut into the trigger guard, front grip, and mainspring housing (better grip!).
- Ejection port cut-out to help prevent stovepipes and ejection malfunctions.
It DOES have a two groove Picatinny rail under the frame. THIS is the main reason it was chosen, along with the fact that we found so many excellent reports from other owners.
This pistol was tight, tight, TIGHT out of the box! We test fired it with 185gr SWCs and it is very accurate! At 50 feet, from a rest, I was able to keep them all in "about" 1.5". My shooting buddy was able to keep them in about 2". The trigger is crisp and we estimated to be "about" three pounds, with a barely discernible creep. It breaks quite suddenly and is 100% better than the stock factory trigger on our Colt. The slide to frame match-up was "snug", but not tight, as was the barrel bushing around the barrel, and in the slide. This loosened up just a tad as we fired it, but the pistol is still "tight". It seems as though it were built to be "broken in" by the owner!
There are only a few things I can think of that aren't complimentary about this 1911 clone. We've discovered that the Picatinny rail can make it slightly difficult to retrieve from certain holsters. We have a holster here that has a soft, nappy sort of fabric on the inside and the rails hang on it. But the pistol does NOT hang on an Uncle Mikes shoulder holster rig, or an older U.S. issue leather shoulder holster, or an older Bianchi leather holster that we have. We noticed that the rail causes a slightly snug fit in holsters designed for 1911 pistols. Also, because of the Picatinny rail, it's a really bad idea to carry this pistol tucked into the waistband, especially behind the hip. It hangs badly during retrieval when carried this way. We found the smaller, lightweight hammer to be a tad difficult to find and cock under stress. I'm certain that this can be overcome by the shooter with practice, or simply carried cocked and locked.
The first time we loaded it, we stacked a magazine with 230gr FMJs, released the slide using the slide release, and *clunk*...the bullet rammed into the feed ramp and jammed it back into the casing! Ruh Roh! We took a good close look at the feed ramp and it looks like it might have even been polished to some degree, so we didn't think much of this and simply used 185gr SWCs since they stripped off the magazine and loaded correctly. After firing a couple of magazines of 185gr SWCs though, we couldn't reproduce the FMJ feed problem, so we're chalking that particular malfunction up to it being new and tight.
All in all, we like this pistol a LOT. The cons that I listed above are very minor and we're still extremely pleased with the purchase. If you're a 1911 fan, you will NOT be dissatisfied with this pistol!
You can read more about this little gem at -
Taurus 1911-ALR
Here's what it looks like -
