I’m a marketing guy, first and foremost. I was raised that way. From a very tender age, my pater familias drilled into my head how to get past the hype and determine if the advertiser was playing us. So I tend to look at things from a very skeptical, analytical point. But I’m also human. Marketing works on me, too, even if most of the time I can see through the techniques. Marketing is designed to make you react emotionally instead of logically. You can see that in the way people express their preferences. I can’t drive from here to school to pick up my daughter, without seeing at least one pickup sporting a vinyl cutout of a demonic looking Calvin, whizzing on the logo of a competitor’s product. And you see it a lot on TTAG. We have a variety of fanboys – 1911′s, Glocks, wheelguns – they all have a devoted base. But a reply to RF’s post last week asking if John Browning was the greatest gun inventor who ever lived got me to thinking: is this a good thing?

When I made the conscious decision to get trained and buy a gun, I did what I usually do. I get a lot of reference materials from a lot of different sources, and I study. Then I did what I always seem to do: make an emotional decision and rationalize the Hell out of it, with all my newfound knowledge.

I’d grown up with a father who’d served in the U.S. Navy, in fact, he was on Admiral Nimitz staff, as a Petty Officer, Third Class. I grew up imagining all the things he never told me about – gun battles, near misses, danger, excitement…all the things a pre-pubescent boy dreams about. But he didn’t tell me those stories, because they never happened. Like tens of thousands of our military in WWII, he served behind the lines. He was shot at by a Japanese sniper (once) on Guam. And he almost got his head blown off by a nervous M.P. when he couldn’t immediately remember the password.

In fact, he never carried the very gun I imagined was at the heart of all his adventures, a U.S. Navy Colt .45 ACP semi-automatic pistol, Model 1911 M1A.  Hey, lots of guys came home, having served honorably, doing whatever Uncle Sam asked of them. The fallacy we enjoy in hindsight is that everybody saw action.

But all the fevered imagination of my 10-year-old mind left me with a keen appreciation for the 1911. So when I began to look at guns, I was already favorably disposed towards the 1911.

Allow me to digress for a moment. As a kid, we had lots of pets. Hamsters. Gerbils. Goldfish. A rabbit named “Lucky” that hung himself. (Don’t ask.) Dogs. We never had a lot of luck with pets, but as an adult, I decided that having a dog would be the thing to do. So not long before I married, I bought books and magazines and started researching the perfect breed.

Keep in mind, I was to be a newbie pet owner, living in Dallas, Texas, in a nice residential area (Lakewood) with nice sized back yard which was sadly, fence-free. There are many breeds the experts recommend for those new to dog ownership, living in a part of the country that’s hot more often than not.

A Siberian Husky is not one of them. Nope. Huskies are “headstrong” and “willful” (read: waaaay too stubborn for an inexperienced owner without the patience to deal with them). They have a “Winter Coat” (read: You’re gonna get a basketball-sized ball o’ fur every time you brush them. Which had better be daily, unless you want everything in your house to take on the look of dull gray snowy slush, days after a good-sized snowstorm in Chicago’s Loop.

I bought a Husky. I thought, “Inexperienced owner? Feh. I can handle it. How hard can it be brush a dog every now and then? Working dog? Sure, I’ll walk her regularly.”

Let’s just say the reality of owning a Husky was nothing like my fantasy of owning such a dog. Don’t get me wrong. I loved my dog. She was everything a Husky should be – beautiful, playful, mischievous, and ate a lot. Like a small horse, actually. So let’s just say I’m not unaccustomed to making decisions based on emotion, and using “logic” as a cover.

I did do a lot of research on guns. Some of the best advice I received came from shooters that told me, “Ignore everything you hear about brands and models. Go with what feels good in your hand.” And to this day, nothing feels more natural or more like an extension of my arm, than John Moses Browning’s most famous offspring.

I got other good intel – namely, if you’re buying but one gun for concealed carry, make sure it’s lightweight and you can carry it comfortably all day long. But no, I was determined to own the gun my dad WOULD have carried, had he carried in WWII.

I bought a Springfield Armory 1911 “Loaded,” which was essentially a WWII 1911 with a few modern conveniences (like a beavertail grip safety). Think of it like a modern Jeep, which looks like a Willys, but drives more like an SUV.

I got the 5″ barrel model, “Parkerized” finish, with a steel frame. Damn thing weighs 40 ounces, and that’s when it’s bereft of bullets. Carryin’ that bad boy on my hip all day long is like dragging around a free weight strapped to my hip. And that 5″ barrel? It knew just how to pinch an inch of flesh between my chair and my hip. Not fun.

Being a couple of years older and presumably wiser, I started a search for my “dream gun.” Problem is, I have champagne tastes (and NOT for the cheap stuff) and a beer budget. But I had my heart set on a Kimber Crimson Carry Pro II. I eventually acquired same. And it’s a great gun. Feels great in my hand. Shoots reliably. Lightweight. And a 4″ barrel is a nice compromise between a 5″ (too long to carry) and a 3″ (too short to depend on accuracy).

For some time, I counted myself in the 1911 Fanboy club. You know the type. The ones who have that faint air of superiority about them, when someone tells them that they shoot a Glock. Yeah. One of those guys.

But something funny happened along the way. I began to see the virtues in a number of different handguns, many of them as far removed from Browning’s babies as you could get and still have them shoot bullets.

For instance, I have developed an appreciation, nay desire to own a polymer gun. I’m still favoring the Springfield XDM over the 4gen Glock, but again, that’s because of how it fits in my hand.

I’m also warming to the idea of a wheelgun. My dad’s S&W .38 Special is a neat little pocket pistol with it’s snub nose and small size. Can’t stand the trigger, though. It’s either like trying to move a cornerstone of the Great Pyramid into place with your finger, or cocked, it’s just one hair’s breath away from a hair trigger. I’m really intrigued by the Chiappa Rhino, to tell the truth. I think that could end up being my wheelgun of choice.

Then there’s the “other” guns. The Berettas, Sig Sauers, Kahrs – you name it, the ones that aren’t 1911s or Glock/clones. I’m warming up to them, too.

One thing that stands out in my newly-cloud-free thinking. There are a lot of brands of guns out there, because everybody’s different. Not everybody “fits” a 1911. And not everybody has the same requirements as I do. Some feel more comfortable with a higher-capacity, double-stack magazine. Some want a small gun. Some go large. Some want the latest technology. Others want to rely on the tried and true.

So where do I come down on the Fanboys and Firearms question? Call me a “universalist.” I have preferences, but I’m working hard to insure that they are based on facts and not the fantasies of a younger me. If I were a wealthier man, I’d invest in a bunch of different guns, and keep selling off the ones I don’t like. But for now, I’m going to do some more research.

And the next time I hear someone prattle on about how anything but a 1911 is craptastic, or how Glock has no competition, I’m going to smile politely and go back to my reading. If that’s heresy, then so be it. I’m done with the Fanboy fandango. I’m no fanboy. I’m a gun owner. Period.

Now where can we find such a beast?

There were a number of cars spread throughout the dimly lit parking lot. The people inside looked like corpses. A line of tractor trailers parked in another lot in the rear. The sole lamp-post had a burnt-out bulb; the rest stop’s dimly lit windows and the headlamps of passing cars provided the only illumination.

All that was missing: some dramatic music and a few shadowy figures creeping around in the darkness.

I was carrying my Virginia concealed pistol permit (which has PA reciprocity). I also had my PA permit from when I was a resident, lovingly stamped “no ID required” by the local sheriff.

So I unlocked my glovebox (thanks, Maryland), grabbed my 1911, stuck in a loaded mag, racked one into the chamber, and shoved it into my holster.

The rest stop was nearly empty. A couple of shady characters sat at a table in the shadows. I decided to make this stop a quick one.

Just before I pulled my pants down in the restroom stall a disturbing thought entered my mind. If I sit down with the pistol still on my belt, the pistol would be easily accessible from the stalls on either side. Someone could grab it, run out, and race down the highway before I could even pull my pants up.

Or shoot me with my own gun (provided they knew to switch off the safety).

There was no tank on the toilet to use as a shelf. The toilet paper holder did not look very sturdy. I considered putting the pistol in one leg of my pants, but that sounded like a great way to have a negligent discharge (I was wearing boots which were high enough to push the trigger if the safety were disengaged).

Seeing no other option, I took my pistol out of my holster and hung it on the coat hook on the back of the door. I thought it an ingenious solution. The pistol would still be available, the weight of the loaded magazine meant that the muzzle was pointing in a safe direction (up), and it was completely concealed from the rest of the bathroom by the door.

I was so pleased with my solution that I snapped a picture with my phone before I left.

That brings me to the question fo the day: Where do YOU put your gun if/when you have to use a public restroom? Note what you carry along with where you carry it normally, please.

So I was having my semi-daily chin wag with Fearless Leader today, and talk turned to handgun safeties. RF mentioned he’d seen the Kimber Solo up close and personal, and mentioned that it’s safety was a lot easier to operate (in both directions) than that of the new Ruger. I opined that, IMHO, the Springfield XD has the ideal combination of a grip safety and trigger safety. Why that configuration? Well, that leads me to an admission: despite my ability to put shots on target down range, I have one Achilles Heel: I frequently forget to flip off the friggin’ safety.

If you’ve read any of my work here on TTAG, you know I’m a big fan(boy) of the 1911. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate other makes and models. I just like 1911s, and I dare say I understand them. To me, a 1911 is like a favorite uncle – a little older and maybe just over the high-side of his youth, a little quirky, and you have to ‘get’ his temperament to get along with him. But if you can handle the quirks, he’s a great guy to know, and there’s nobody better to have your back in an emergency. That is not to say that some of those quirks can’t come back to bite you on occasion, and I’m not talking about the need for a beaver-tail grip safety.

I’ve heard the safety on the 1911 compared (elsewhere here on TTAG) to a boat paddle or a propeller blade. Guilty as charged. The ambi safety on my Springfield loaded is big enough to cause it to fail a wind tunnel test. And the safety on the Kimber Pro Crimson Carry II I’ve been shooting is large enough to double as a flipper for a frogman in need. But size (contrary to what you may have heard) is not everything.

In many ways, a large safety that sticks out from here to tomorrow is a mixed blessing. Sure it’s easy to flip it. And that’s good. But it’s also easy to flip it. And that can be bad, if you didn’t mean to take the pistol off safety. Even worse, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to the range readied my pistol, put my finger on the trigger and…nothing. No click. No bang. Because I’d forgotten to take it off safety.

Now what my conversation with RF got me to thinking about was one of my favorite aphorisms of my dear, departed Dad, namely Don’t bother trying to make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenious. And they are. You see, I don’t think it would make a bit of difference if I was shooting a 1911, a Ruger, a Sig, or any other make or model. If you forget to take off the safety, it ain’t gonna fire. Do that in a shootout or self-defense situation, and you are gonna die. And imagine how stupid I’m gonna look ending up as the “Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day,” or even worse – a statistic.

Nope, I don’t think that the design of the safety is Problem #1 here. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that as long as the safety works, you can eliminate that as the problem. No, my problem is that I need to spend hours at the range, doing nothing but practicing taking the gun off safety as Standard Operating Procedure when shooting.

I realize that, for many of you, this is a “No…DUH!” moment. But I suspect I’m not alone in this. I’d bet you a box of Winchester White Box that more than one of you have brought your pistol to the ready, pulled the trigger and realized “Oh, crap…I forgot to take it off safety.” Let’s see a show of hands, shall we? Um huh. Just as I thought. And those that DON’T have this problem? I’m betting there’s a leitmotif that runs through your training routines, that being you practice taking the gun off safety as a part of your range time. Am I right?

Now let’s assume for the nonce that we have the practice part down. (I’m not saying to overlook it – far from it – but let’s look at the other side of the equation.) Revolvers, as a class, have no safety. SA or DA, most guys I know that carry revolvers leave the hammer down on an empty chamber in the cylinder. But if you’re gonna use a semi-auto for self-defense, carrying without one in the pipe will get you killed. I don’t want to have to depend on having enough time to rack the slide, when my life is on the line. So “cocked and locked” is the name of the game. A safety mechanism becomes a much bigger deal in that context.

So…how many safeties are too many? Many 1911 fans insist that the grip safety is an unnecessary addition, and defiles an otherwise elegant design. They point to Browning’s last pistol as evidence that the grip safety was an unneeded addition, added more to squelch the prattlings of a couple of influencers in the U.S. Army, than something driven by need. (I’m unconvinced.) I think that if it doesn’t malfunction or cause the gun not to run, where’s the harm? And I’ve yet to see a 1911 where the grip safety was the reason it wouldn’t run.

The thumb safety is, I suppose, a necessary evil on a 1911. But I can tell you, I have more than once looked longingly at the trigger safety on the Springfield XD, and wished they made that as a street mod for my 1911.

I’m of the school that the original XD design (which does not feature a thumb safety) is the best of all possible designs. You have to both grip the pistol and pull the trigger to get it to fire. An additional safety on an XD just isn’t needed. If you secure your pistol and keep it away from those that would misuse it (that would be kids and bad guys) then an additional safety will just get in the way. Like just when you need it, and forget to take that safety off.

I’m a big believer in Occam’s Razor. Or to put it another way, the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. In a situation where adrenalin rules, I don’t want anything that will keep me from saving my own sorry tookus. I realize and freely admit that there is no design that will ever be “Brad-proof.” That’s what training is for. But I’m coming around to the idea that the best design for a pistol may be the one that acknowledges that attempting to make something extra-safe can trigger that bitch of a task-mistress, The Law of Unintended Consequences. And that never ends well.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Life is all about balance. It’s a Zen thing. Yin. Yang. Black. White. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Name your poison. Like in anything else in life, all guns are a study in the art of compromise. Large calibers = big holes, but come with (more) expensive rounds and fewer that will fit in your average sized magazine. Then you’ve got size. And contrary to what Cosmo magazine would have you believe, bigger is not always better. It depends on what you wanna do. Capice? Thus we have the study in compromises du jour, The Kimber Pro Crimson Carry II.

One wag defined compromise as the fine art of nobody getting what they really want. I used to believe that. Until now. Nope, self-defense fans, the Kimber Pro Crimson Carry II (henceforth “the Kimber” or “the Crimson Carry” cuz I’m tired of typing a name only a Microsoft product marketing manager could love) is that rarest of rare bird – a compromise that delivers on the promise of being the best of all possible worlds.

Let’s take a step back, and review our criteria, so we can make a case for (or against) a given weapon’s suitability-to-task. First of all, you can use just about anything for self-defense. Baseball bat, frying pan, framing hammer…you name it. But the self-defense cognoscenti look for the biggest bang for the buck. Handguns are a particular favorite for those in the know. Why? Because you have that “carry it with you” factor that leaves bats, pans, and claw hammers in the dust. But that begs some questions: How big is too big to conceal? How heavy is too heavy to carry with you all day? What about rounds in the mag? How few is not enough? Is accuracy a factor? Distance to target? Stopping power?

The right answer to each of these questions is quite simple, and surprisingly universal, to wit: It depends on the personal needs/preferences of the shooter. Anybody that tells you otherwise is a liar, a scoundrel, or selling you something. (Or quite possibly, all of the above.) For me (and your results may vary), I want a lightweight, semi-auto that shoots .40 cal or larger, with at least 8 rounds capacity, is accurate between 20 and 50 feet, feels good in my hand, and is reliable as the sun coming up tomorrow.

Per my stated requirements, I’ve found that of all the guns out there, a 1911 feels best in my big hands. Again, your results may vary. But deciding on a 1911 is like ordering a Coke at a well-stocked soda fountain – Do you want Coca-Cola? Diet Coke? Caffeine-free Diet Coke? Diet Coke Plus? Coke Zero? Vanilla Coke? Cherry Coke? Diet Coke with Lime? You see what I mean. So I narrowed it down to an aluminum-frame “Commander-style” 1911 with a 4-inch barrel, and a capacity of 8+1. The Kimber in question fits those requirements to a T.

Shooting the Kimber was a revelation. I took my trusty Springfield Loaded, steel-frame 5″ barrel with me for a side-by side, shootin’ comparison. Only there was no comparison, once I solved one nasty little problem. The laser was off. And I mean waaaaaaay off.

The Kimber comes factory-equipped with a pair of custom laser grips, courtesy of Crimson Trace. Squeeze the grip, see a dot. The idea is, wherever that red dot sits, that’s where mister bullet meets mister target. That’s the idea. The reality is, there are two teeny, tiny, itsy-bitsy hex screws on the laser that adjust where it goes. And for some reason, it was NOT adjusted. Fortunately, I was able to use the tiniest damn Allen wrench I’ve ever seen, and adjust it. Here’s the thing…features = mo’ money.

And in order to keep the cost down on a laser grip-equipped pistol, Kimber apparently figured that no-dot iron sights would be good enough. Um…I’m not sure on that one. My first (and probably only) upgrade to the Crimson Carry would be to replace the iron sights with something with a LOT more visibility, just in case the laser goes buh-bye at precisely the wrong time. Say some fiber-optic/tritium jobbers. With my tired old/Vari-Focus®-equipped eyes, brighter is better. And while the laser is a huge deal, I’d like to know I can shoot without it. Even some white paint on the sights would be a help.

When reviewing a product or service, writers will tell you, it’s a lot easier to be snarky, vitriolic, and downright nasty about something you hate, than it is to shower something with praises. (It’s also a lot more fun.) On that count, I’m afraid that absence of decent sights on the Kimber is the only weakness I found. And I looked. Boy, how I looked. Trigger? Like buttah. In fact, it’s so good and so smooth, I found myself double-tapping without really thinking. It was almost TOO good, but I’m not complaining. Hit me with some o’ that trigger love and I’m one happy camper.

But what about weight? The Springfield full-size clocks in at a chunky 44oz. unloaded. The Kimber, at around 28oz. That doesn’t sound like much. But it’s like the difference between lightning and lightning bug when it comes to feel. Does the Kimber have more kick than the Springfield? Yep. Is it so much more that it makes me prefer the heavier gun? Nope. And interestingly, it didn’t seem to have any significant effect on my groupings. In fact, I’d argue that the Kimber’s lighter trigger offset any disadvantage found in shooting a lighter gun with a shorter barrel.

Now there is one thing you’d want to know up front about 4″ bull-barrel-equipped 1911s. Whereas it’s possible to field-strip a standard 1911 with no tools, a bull-barrel requires one small tool for disassembly. A paper clip. Yup. A lowly paperclip (albeit a bent one) is required to act as a stop on the guide rod in order to take this puppy appart for some TLC.  Oh, sure, you can use a supplied “wrench” but a paper clip is really all you need. Which is cool (paper clips are, when last I checked, in ready supply) and a little UN-cool, in that you have to have a tool to field strip the Kimber. On the other hand, it reduces your parts count by one, and I found that the bull barrel has a very solid feel to the way it fits hand-in-glove to the slide. With one fewer part than the standard model, I think the accuracy factor might go, ever so slightly, over to the bull barrel camp. Not bad.

I’ve frankly never been much on two-tone anything, but the dark slide coupled with the brush aluminum finish on the frame is growing on me. The faux rosewood grips look great, and (once you get the laser sighted in) the laser is a way cool thing to have.

Did I say “way cool”? I meant “if you’re gonna have a self-defense gun, you really NEED a laser grip.” Here’s why…studies show that when you get into a situation where you have to use your gun for self-defense, a couple of things happen. If you’re lucky, training kicks in. Mostly, though, it doesn’t. Instinct takes over. You end up just “goin’ for it.” point shooting wins out over sight picture. grab n’ go beats plan and prepare. So when it’s time to defend yourself, what could be more natural than grabbing your gun and shooting at the little red dot? Of course, you may not remember that you’re controlling where that little red dot goes, but as long as it’s painting the bad guy, no worries. RF once pondered the possibility that the laser might contribute to the tunnel vision effect experienced by many shooters. In my experience, the opposite was true. Focusing my attention on the laser dot broadened my field of vision and kept my focus down range, instead of on the gun sights.

Okay…one last nit. Kimber…guys…what’s with the product names? I mean, I get you have different series of guns, and you’ve got a name for your full-sized, mid-sized, and compact guns. But really…can’t you come up with something that falls a little more trippingly off the tongue than “Kimber Pro Crimson Carry II”? (Can I get an “Amen” from the TTAGencia out there?) There’s gotta be a better name for something this cool. “The Kimber Defender.” “The Kimber Dragon.” “The Kimber Nightwing.” Think about it. When you have a name that looks as if it was coined by a panel of actuaries, it’s time to get some real marketing people looking at a renaming project.

With a trigger smooth as silk, a virtually idiot-proof laser targeting system, handsome looks, and some impressive attention to detail, the Crimson Carry is all that and a side o’ fries. Is it the perfect carry gun? Too soon to tell. I’m gonna avail myself of the opportunity to carry it daily for 30 days and see. But I can already tell you this. If you think that you’ll have to compromise anything to get a kick-ass pistol for conceal carry, think again. The Kimber Pro Crimson Carry II will change your mind.

Specifications

• caliber – .45 ACP
• height – 5.25″
• length – 7.7″
• width – 1.28″
• weight – 28 oz.
• magazine capacity – 8 rounds
• recoil spring – 22 pounds
• full-length guide rod
• aluminum frame/satin finish
• steel slide/matte black finish
• bull barrel – 4″ length
• twist length – 16 (right hand)
• black, fixed/low profile sights
• sight radius – 5.7″
• Crimson Trace laser grips
• Aluminum match grade trigger – 4 to 5 lbs.
• Street price – around $1,200.00

Ratings (out of five)

Style * * * * *

If you like 1911s and aren’t a hide-bound traditionalist, you’ll appreciate the styling. And lasers are cool.

Ergonomics * * * * *

Comfort, thy name is 1911. And this one’s as good as they come.

Ergonomics Firing * * * * *

Surprisingly easy, with a sweet trigger (factory-fresh, no less), bull barrel, and the feel of a custom, hand-tuned pistol.

Reliability * * * * *

No choking on roundball, JHPs – you name it. I didn’t feed it the really crap stuff, but why would you put kerosene in a Ferrari?

Customize this * * * * *

The 1911 is to guns what a Jeep is to SUVs. Customize away, baby! (And start with the sights.)

Overall Rating * * * * 1/2

I’m deducting a half-star for the vanilla iron sights. If you’re under 40, you won’t care. If you’re over 40, figure you’re gonna wanna upgrade those sights, pronto.

Wow. Who knew Russian national pride extended to firearms? Seriously, if Defense Secretary Gates appeared on TV and said “The M-16′s got some reliability issues when it comes to running the guns in less-than-optimal field conditions,” I think a lot of people would go “well…he’s got a point.” Others would say he’s a little light in the loafers. But nobody would look at his statement as an insult to the very fibre of the being that is the good ol’ U. S. of A. Not so back in the (former) U.S.S.R. . . .

Apparently, Russia’s Defense Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, opined publically that the Kalashnikov and Dragunov SVDs sniper rifles, are “morally outdated.” To add insult to injury, he intimated that he’s considering replacing the weapons with something else. Let’s just say this didn’t play well in the Russian equivalent of the Borscht Belt. In fact, “firestorm of controversy” would be a pretty accurate depiction of the ensuing fireworks.

Evidently, Russians are a prideful people. And they take a lot of pride in Kalishnikov’s Greatest Hit of 1947. The AK-47 has withstood the test of time, doing exactly what it’s designer set out for it to do – function as a rugged, all-purpose weapon that was cheap to build, easy to use, and would run even if you filled it full of mud. Accuracy was not really high on the list of objectives, but I understand from people that know far more about the AKs than I, that they are far more accurate than most people believe.

The AK-47 is the equivalent of open-source software in the gun world. It seems as if every Soviet satellite country and a number of other third-world nations have made a cottage industry stamping out AK-47s like Pillsbury stamps out cookies. (Okay, technically the design was updated to the “AK-74″ but the term AK-47 in this case can be considered a generic for the entire AK family of Kalishnikov-designed/inspired weapons. As Fox News points out:

They’re known around the world for their durability in all conditions, firing reliability, ease of use, low production cost and lethality. Military lore holds that an AK-47 can be buried in the mud, dug up a year later and still be fired.

So for Mother Russia, their very own Defense Minister dissin’ the AK would be like Jeff Cooper bitch-slappin’ the 1911, and throwin’ in a little trash talk against John Moses Browning, to boot. But the times they are a-changin,’ and I’m not so sure Anatolovich doesn’t have a valid pointsky.

The venerable 1911 and AK-47 bear more than a passing comparison. They are both well-established, respected designs. They are both manufactured by multiple armories. And they both have several features that are seen in a modern context as design flaws at worst, and in desperate need of an update, at best.

When you stack an AK-47 against, oh, say an American M-4, many would argue the AK comes up short. After all, sometimes, battles are about who can get the most lead into the other guy’s soldiers while wasting the least number of rounds. And when it comes to that, the AK may be a sentimental fave, but a number of other weapons come out on top of Kalishnikov’s carbine.

But what’s the solution? Mother Russia’s not about to buy Americanski guns, or for that matter, weapons of the Frenchy French, the Germans or (not in a million, zillion years) the Israelis. Nope. I suspect a surge in nationalist pride will drive the Russians to find a young, talented designer in the mold of another Kalishnikov, and set them to the task to building a better rifle, by combining the advantages of an AK with the accuracy of a more modern design.

That’s no small order, for the AK was something of an engineering marvel of it’s time. To build a gun with better accuracy and precision, but retain the famous AK features – inexpensive to manufacture, virtually clog-proof, easy-to-use, and reliable as all get out – would be a feat to rival anything the gun world has seen. But to add to the challenge, Russia’s own gun manufacturing is dying due to low pay for the workers.

Eventually, something’s gotta give. So while our military thrashes about, looking to replace the 9mm handgun cartridge with something that has a little more stopping power, and once again flirts with the .45ACP, it’s nice to know other countries are in the throws of their own firearms fandango, fraught with frisson. (Sorry. Runaway Alliteration.)

Will Russia ditch their national firearm for something a little bit more accurate? Stay tuned…

Back in my original post about 1911 quality, I examined the reliability of full-size 1911s in .45 ACP. TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia posed questions about Commander and Officer-size 1911s, as well as 1911 performance in other calibers. You want stats? We got stats . . .

Same guidelines as per last time . . .

I went through every issue of Gun Tests from 1996 to the present, and tracked every 1911 they ever tested. A firearm was considered “broken” if it stopped working, shed parts, or physically disintegrated in some way.  A gun was labeled “unreliable” if it had failures to fire, feed, extract or eject cartridges/bullets—whose non-performance was not attributable to a documented problem with the ammunition.

I decided that an obviously defective part like a single bad magazine would not render a gun “unreliable” if the manufacturer’s regular magazines worked when the bad magazine was replaced like-for-like.

[Note: many of the reviews of 1911s had to use Wilson/McCormick mags for the review guns, regardless of brand of gun. The reliability numbers for 1911s are overly-optimistic, in other words.]

First, let’s look at full-size/longslide/compensated 1911s and compact 1911s in .45 ACP:

1911 Performance in .45acp

Now let’s look at the other calibers of 1911:

1911 Performance with other calibers

Alrighty. And now we will tie up the loose ends and summarize:

Combined 1911 Performance

Conclusions:

1) All sizes of 1911s have documented reliability issues, with the shorter models being even less reliable.

2) Deviating from the original .45 ACP chambering increased the percentage of unreliability. But staying with .45 ACP did not guarantee reliability.

3) Problems were not confined to low-end or off-brand guns.

While not specifically tracked, I did find repeated examples of the requirement of tools to disassemble the 1911s that were being tested. I would be happy to provide the specific models if anyone wants to keep pretending that no 1911 requires tools to take down.

The 1911 design is a hundred years old—and it has the performance that goes along with that age. Some of them work well, others not so well.  If you have a reliable 1911, I am happy to hear that. But there are more affordable, more reliable designs available to the shooting consumer. A prospective customer should be look at all of their options and carefully assess their needs before buying.

Now over three weeks (as the crow flies) into my own little conceal carry odyssey, I’ve realized something. The whole concept of conceal carry has gotten into my head. It’s kind of like back when I was in college. I had a roommate. We were both impoverished college students at the time, and neither one of us hung out at bars and drank, so most of our evenings were spent playing board games. At one time, we got on this backgammon kick. Played literally hundreds of games per night. Hundreds. I had to stop when I started dreaming of backgammon games. I was literally playing the game in my sleep. Which is weird.

So I quit playing backgammon for a while. But even after I went ‘cold turkey,’ you really didn’t want to play either of us in a ‘friendly’ game, for a couple of reasons. First of all we were really, REALLY good. Scary good. And wicked fast – when you start seeing the backgammon board like some sort of metaphysical construct, and view all the possible permutations of the board like some kind of Minority Report special effects sequence gone mad, anybody playing you at normal speed is just plain annoying.

And then there’s the ‘tude, thing. We were both…um…cocky. (We were in our 20s, so that, alone, wasn’t that unusual.) But we were good, and we knew it. We looked on anybody that played either of us with the same patronizing air that a Sensi looks at one of his little “grasshoppas.” Imagine how that made our opponents feel as we beat them. Did I say “beat”? I meant “emasculate.” “Disembowel.” “Humiliate.” Like that. So when I began to dream about concealed carry, it gave me pause.

Last night, I was happily snoring along, bothering nobody. I dreamt I was in a car (for some reason it was my dad’s old International Harvester TravelAll, a vehicle I had the same affection for as something you scrape off the bottom of your shoe). I was going along my own, situationally aware way, when I stopped, in broad daylight mind you, at a traffic light, in downtown Shreveport. Suddenly, three perps are crowding the driver’s side door, pointing a gun at me and demanding the vehicle.

This was weird on soooo many levels. First of all, you know how in dreams, time is liquid, and tends to speed up or slow down at will, and certain details are drawn in minutia, where others are sort of blurry? Well, it registered that these three clowns were, um…”minorities,” and while I didn’t see their faces, I noticed that the gun they were brandishing at me was a cheaply-made 1911, with a lot of cheap-looking engraving in gold on a black slide.

Now I’m sure Dan, MikeB, and the other guys on the left of center that read TTAG will have a field day with that previous paragraph. Note that as an author, I could have spared these details, had I wished. Also keep in mind that, while I’m a WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon Pistol-owner), I’m also a musician. I play in a lot of bands, and jam with a lot of guys. Some of whom have a different skin color than I. They are my friends. I like to think I am theirs. And the issues of race, creed, color, sexual preference, national origin, or any other of the traditional “us versus them” things just never come up between us. Why? Because nobody cares. We’re just people. Friends. Fellow musicians.

On the other hand, I’d have to be as blind as a former head of NPR to miss the fact that a disproportionately large number of carjackings are perpetrated by members of lower-income households, who are, in turn, disproportionately represented by minorities. These are statistical facts. So if you’re gonna dream about getting carjacked, I think it’s pretty normal to cast your perps as gangbangers, as opposed to Thurston Howell III and his lovely wife Lovie.

More interesting (to me, anyway) is the casting of their weapon of choice. Everyone on TTAG knows I’ve got the 1911 bug. And my carry piece for this month has been the amazing, incomparable, triggah-like-buttah Kimber Pro Crimson Carry II, a shining example of the 1911-smith’s art. But my subconscious actually took the time and trouble to go into minute detail about the bad guy’s 1911. Weird.

So what happened in my dream? Here’s where it gets interesting. (I know you guys were wondering about that, eh?) Keep in mind, I’m carrying in the dream, but they have the drop on me. No way I can go for my gun and expect to live to tell about it. (For the record, despite being ‘situationally-aware,’ I think it’s perfectly reasonable that someone(s) could still take you by surprise. There’s simply too many things to account for when you are trying to cover every eventuality. That, and the bad guys will ALWAYS have the element of surprise in their favor.)

So I open the door with my right hand up, my left on the door handle, car in park, keys in the ignition. as they move back from the door to allow it to open, I grab the barrel of the 1911, babbling some nonsense about “what kind of gun is this you’re pointing at me?” and I sweep the gun away from my body. This takes bad guy #1 by surprise, but not as much as when I give the pistol a good twist, clockwise, taking the grip safety out of gear and breaking his index finger. He’s now on the ground, holding his hand in pain, and I’ve got his gun. The other two mooks run off in terror. (Apparently, they weren’t armed.)

Don’t know what happened next. I’m sure, since I was across the street from the courthouse, law enforcement wasn’t far away. And I’m hoping that they’d read the situation as they approached and not assume I was carjacking the bad guy. (In this case, let’s hope the cops have the same built-in assumptions that I admit too, and don’t see me as the Thurston Howell III exception to the rule.)

But the thing that’s still got me thinking is, what’s the significance of the dream? I mean, I don’t think I’m overtrained, overly-obsessed, or anything like that. In fact, I’ve integrated the concept of conceal carry surprisingly easily into my life. Feels pretty natural at this point. I’m still conscious of having a gun on me when I do (and I don’t see that changing. Ever.) but I’m no longer worried about every Tom, Dick and Nosy Parker jumping up and shouting “J’accuse!” at me if I’m printing or my shirt moves out of the way momentarily to reveal my gun.

What’s the answer? I dunno. Guess I’ll just have to…um…sleep on it.

Let’s set the WABAC Machine to 2007, when I first began thinking about “Condition Yellow” and pro-actively protecting my family. As is my habit (and a family tradition), I started by doing a lot of reading. That turned out to be both a good and a bad thing. You see, guns are one of those things that evoke passion on the part of their owners. Much like the kind of “spirited” emotions you’ll see exhibited between aficionados of Ford vs. Chevy vs. Dodge pickups, the “best gun” is a loaded question. Pardon the pun. (Hey…at least gun fanboys don’t drive around with vinyl cutouts of Calvin peeing on some gun manufacturers logos. Yet.)

So my thought process back then went like this: I’m a big guy – 6’4″, around 240 lbs. (on a good day). I can handle a big gun, both from a shooting and a carry perspective. So I don’t need to worry about some little mouse gun. I want some stopping power, baby! But I’m also not into ostentation or bling, so I had no interest in something like a .50 cal Desert Eagle. I’m big on tradition in just about everything (I play a drumset that has achieved vintage status not through buying old drums, but by buying new drums and holding onto them for 30 years.) If you keep something long enough, it’s almost bound to come back into style.

One of the things that instantly appealed to me was the 1911. Hailed by many as the ne plus ultra of handguns, it boasts a combination of classic looks, stopping power, and a rich history (Browning, WWII service, et all). But a lot of people I talked to also gave props to the Glock and other polymer pistols. I quickly discovered that reading alone would not be enough. Off to the range!

I hope your first experience at a gun range is more positive than mine. Dirty. Cluttered. Dank. Dimly-lit. And that was the showroom of the store I had to go through to get TO the range. Did I mention the lack of adequate ventilation? But they did have a couple of advantages: they were the only commercial gun range in town, and they had pistols to rent. The proprietors (wisely) directed me to a ubiquitous .22LR pistol, and gave me about an hour’s worth of instruction on the safe handling, loading, reloading, stance and aiming of the pistol. After three trips to the range for practice, I was ready for something a little more robust.

The gun guys at the range recommended I move to a 9mm. Nope. I was ready for the big time – the classic .45 caliber ACP. (You might ask at this point, why I didn’t consider a wheelgun. Simply put, in Texas, if you qualify for your CHL with a semi-automatic pistol, you’re licensed to carry either revolver or pistol. If you qualify with a revolver, that’s all you can carry.)

The range handed me a Kimber with a steel frame and 5 in. barrel. I don’t remember which model, but it had an adjustable rear sight, so we’ll assume it was a model designed for competitive shooting. Nice pistol. Woulda been nicer if they’d run a bore snake through it occasionally. Apparently, the owner felt that his guns and his store deserved the same amount of attention to cleanliness.

At any rate, I made the transition to .45 ACP without so much as a hitch. The next visit, I shot a Glock. I found that the 1911 felt better in my hand than did the Glock. Now I’m not gonna get into single- versus double-stack, polymer versus steel, or the whole Glock cant thing. Not important, and these issues are a VERY personal choice. Think of it as choosing something you’re gonna wear all the time, like a watch or a wallet. I gravitated towards the mystique of the 1911 like moth to flame. Of course, turns out I have expensive tastes in guns, just like I do in most things. Average price of a polymer pistol? $500. Average price of a decent 1911? Double that. Sheesh…

Of course being all gung-ho about getting my CHL, I wanted to have my own gun for my range test. I looked at virtually all the 1911s out there. Kimbers were impressive, but a little more expensive than I could afford. Taurus 1911s looked like a good value, but I had too many people tell me to stay away from them. Colts were out of the question – no supply locally, and I wanted a new gun. That left me with Springfield. I did some research, and liked what I learned. But of course, being a headstrong, “I can handle anything” kinda newbie, I chose the Springfield Loaded, a full-sized, steel frame behemoth, nicely turned-out with a beavertail grip and all the other little fine-tuning extras you’d expect to find on a gun that put modern innovations alongside traditional design.

Did I mention that the Springfield loaded clocks in (sans magazine) at 44 ounces? Did I mention that I have no concept of how much 44 ounces really is? Perhaps I let slip that I never bothered to strap on on my hip and walk around for a bit, with it fully-loaded, to see if I could handle it as an every-day-carry piece? Nope? Well lemme tell ya…

The Springfield is heavy. Lead ingot heavy. Now that works in your favor, accuracy-wise. It’s much easier to keep a heavy gun on target, and the reduced recoil makes it that much easier to bring it back to bear after you fire it. But carrying it? Lord have mercy, the combination of a 5″ barrel and weight made this a non-starter. Not that I didn’t try. A lot. But it wasn’t seven days into my valiant effort at saving face that I realized the gun was just Too Damn Heavy to Carry Every Day. Period. Which threw a big, honkin’ monkey-wrench in my plans to be able to defend my family wherever we went.

At this point, I’d love to tell you that I started with a blank sheet of paper, and asked “what’s the best carry gun, without restricting my choices to a 1911?” But I didn’t. No, I started looking at the 4″ Commander-style 1911s as well as the shorter 3″ styles. I expanded my quest to some of the double-stack 1911s, too. Then I had a revelation. Why not just look at other guns. I mean, it’s not like I was cheating on my 1911 to look at other weapons, right?

So I availed myself of the opportunity to look around at the NRA Show. What was interesting, however was that I kept gravitating back to the 1911s. Frankly, it had more to do with how they feel in my hand than anything. Having some experience with an inside-the-waistband holster, I hypothesized that a 4″ barrel offers the best compromise between the smaller dimensions of a pocket pistol, while retaining most of the accuracy and stopping power of the full-sized models. That brought me back to where I’d started in 1911-Land – Kimber.

I began looking at the Kimbers factory-equipped with my dream-gadget – a pair of laser grips. The Crimson Carry series looked nice. Really nice. Felt good. And for a 1911, not bad on the price frontier. Sadly, the words “discretionary income” had long since vacated my vocabulary, if you know what I mean. So I waited. And watched. And dreamed. And even schemed a little.

Which brings me back to today. The folks at Kimber graciously agreed to send me my dream gun (warning me that drooling directly ON a handgun is ill-advised). So this afternoon, I’ll be trekking off to my local range to do a full review (see tomorrow’s TTAG) on my dream gun, as well as a comparison between it and what has become my “reference” handgun, the Springfield Loaded 1911. And of course, I’ll report semi-regularly on my experiences carrying the Kimber with me on a daily basis. Stay tuned…

Here’s what we know about Remington’s new 1911′s: nothing. Here’s what they say on their Facebook page: “We’re at the range testing out a few new 1911s we’ll be able to talk about in a few weeks. More soon, and here first.” I call shotgun! If you know what I mean.