Over a decade ago I did a torture test on my Colt railed 1911. This is while the testing was going on for what became the M45A1 the Marines adopted for a bit. Lot of talk at the time at the info leaking out about the rail gun failing after a few thousand rounds. This was absurd to me because I’ve seen and owned many 1911s over the years with considerably more rounds through them than the supposed leaked info claimed. You can read that at the bottom of this post.
Years have since passed and I have used this gun so much more. I couldn’t give you an accurate round count on it at this point but you can be sure it has exceeded 10K easily. I have replaced the recoil spring a couple of times and swapped grips a couple times. I replaced the original MSH with a checkered S&A part. That’s about it. I’ve never even completely taken it apart beyond field strip to clean it. I do clean it and I do keep it oiled. I am a big believer in keeping things well oiled.
I decided it was a good time to see what it still had after all this time and got it out while the weather was tolerable for some shooting.
I thought it would be fun to use one of these Colt targets they gave away at the 2016 NRA show for my warm up. I shot this at 7 yards off hand slow fire as a warm up. I fired 5 rounds at the X then 3 at the head area.
Then I shot 10 rounds from 7 yards offhand semi rapid fire. This is a 10 round mag. I’m still in love with the Wilson 10 rounders
Next up was 25 yards slow fire off hand with a 5 round group.
Below is a 35 yard slow fire off of bags. Was supposed to be a 8 round group but I have no idea where the 8th round hit. Backer is already full off holes and I couldn’t spot it. I have no excuse. I must have pulled it terribly.
This is a 10 rounds rapid for group at 10 yards.
All of this was shot with plain federal 230 grain ball. Because I have a lot of it and 230 grain is what I have shot through this gun the most. Probably 99.9 percent of all rounds through it are 230 grain ball from one brand or another.
I think that is more than acceptable for this gun. I bought this one in 2010 and I’ve used it hard. I can’t even think of anything I would change on it. Maybe have the front strap checkered if I had money to waste.
You can read the original torture test below.
Scattered Shots 