I like 1911's

[bstrawse]

I use the slim grips on the Kimber SIS Pro I carry because I have smaller hands -- I also like the look better than the stock kimber grips. I have slim grips on my other Kimbers as well.

On the Springfield TRP and my Springfield Mil-Spec, I'm using the stock grips that came with both pistols. The TRP grips are pretty rough on the hands but not overwhelmingly so -- just a very aggressive bite..
b

[m4andxdisbliss]

I use the slim grips on the Kimber SIS Pro I carry because I have smaller hands -- I also like the look better than the stock kimber grips. I have slim grips on my other Kimbers as well.

On the Springfield TRP and my Springfield Mil-Spec, I'm using the stock grips that came with both pistols. The TRP grips are pretty rough on the hands but not overwhelmingly so -- just a very aggressive bite..
b

If ya ever want to sell the TRP grips(Which I'm sure is doubtful), let me know. I'd be interested. Love that grey color.

I have U.S. grips from a GI on my Operator now, don't like em at all. Want the originals but previous owner sold em off.

[MNBlackjack]

I ordered my third 1911. Should be in by mid-week. I decided not to go long slide.

http://www.para-usa.com/new/product_pistol.php?id=11

[Jeff Bergquist]

I ordered my third 1911. Should be in by mid-week. I decided not to go long slide.

http://www.para-usa.com/new/product_pistol.php?id=11

Sweet. I like my P14 .45 and P18 9mm a lot.

[scotts87iroc]

A couple comments. To the original poster, not sure why anybody would think that 7 or 8 rounds should be plenty in a self defense situation. Are you aware that the police have a 13% success hit rate? That's only 1 in 8 shots actually "hit" the target! It's been proven that the average shooter is no better than the police because the average shooter practices at a range and doesn't have any experience moving around, or dealing with adrenaline.

And to the poster that commented on 1911's requiring "slingshotting" not being good, I would disagree. The 3" Kimber that I have states in the manual that you are required to slingshot the slide to chamber a round because of the size of the slide and the length of the spring. The force put on a slide when a round is fired is harsher than slingshotting the slide, so why would you want to "ride" the slide to chamber the first round? The all metal 1911s ain't gonna break by doing that!

[rugersol]

[hammAR]

A couple comments. To the original poster, not sure why anybody would think that 7 or 8 rounds should be plenty in a self defense situation. Are you aware that the police have a 13% success hit rate? That's only 1 in 8 shots actually "hit" the target! It's been proven that the average shooter is no better than the police because the average shooter practices at a range and doesn't have any experience moving around, or dealing with adrenaline.

I have seen/heard a couple of things concerning the number of rounds fired. The first is something that was claimed to be reported by the FBI. According to this report the average incident was:

Avg distance: 7 ft
Shooters involved: 2
Avg Shots fired: 2
Avg Deaths: 1

While the above may be considered interesting, it may be more hear say than fact because it only included statistics where agents were killed.

In addition to the above, I have seen a write up by Massad Ayoob in one of the magazines where he brought up a revision to the NYPD Officer Involved Shooting Statistics. The revision came about after a review of all NYPD data, going back almost 100 yrs. The person conducting the review looked at the data differently than ever before. The big changes were, the elimination of Officer suicides and accidents, and the separation of shootings using revolvers from those using semi-autos. The results for average rounds fired changed as follows:

Average rounds fired from:
Revolvers: 5
Semi-Autos: 9

Statistics are cold comfort when you are the exception, statistics also lie.

The "average rounds fired in a gunfight" is in and of itself obfuscatory because their are, in fact 3 ways to determine an average.

The most common one, the arithmetic mean is determined by the sum of all of the list divided by the number of items in the list - 10 gunfights with rounds fired: 1, 5, 4, 8, 1, 2, 1, 18, 1, 2 has an arithmetic mean of 4.3 rounds fired.

HOWEVER...

The mode, the number which appears most frequently, is 1. This can be considered an average as well...

The median, well, that's not really relevant to this conversation, so I'm going to ignore that...

Bottom-line is that there appears to be a relationship between the amount of ammunition a weapon holds and a tendency to shoot more.

If you have enough rounds in your magazine to end the gunfight, then that is all you need.

Failing that if you have enough rounds in your magazine to get you through the initial exchange and still have some rounds left, you can then reload at your leisure. If you go to slide lock prior to the fight ending, then you'll have to reload and resume firing on an emergency basis.

Having enough rounds to get you through the fight without the necessity of a reload bringing about an inconvenient interruption would appear to provide a genuine advantage, but again, you only need enough rounds to end the fight......

Besides, if you are both out of ammo, the gunfight is over anyhow................

[Jeff Bergquist]

IMO there is no magic formula that will guarantee your safety, you just make the choices/preparation that seem reasonable to you, and hope that you make the best choices if/when crunch time comes. I do think that almost any preparation is better than none.