Way back when I was playing hand gun games I wanted to run a 1911, hay you should know by now I am a hard core Fudd.
Well I don't want to put one of my vintage guns through that, so I went looking. I wanted something cheap, so I am not going to buy a multi thousand $$$ 1911....I am thinking $900 tops. Rock Island had a pretty good reputation at the time....this has to be at least 10 years ago I am guessing. But the slides had in great big white letters that stupid rock island logo and the name on it. I don't want a bill board on the slide. So that was a hard no.
Remington had just come out with the R1, so that should put the time frame whenever that was. I am ok, I will get one of those, I want to say it was $600 out the door.
Again I am not going to be dropping my vintage mags on the concrete floor and knowing me stepping on them, or the guy chasing me with the timer.....so I want some new mags. I bought two "good" mags, the gun came with two, so I only needed one more. Ok I will use my most crappy "vintage" mag.
I went to a gun show and there was a guy selling 1911 mags for $5 a pop. The single cheapest chineseium mags I have ever seen, these things are LIGHT and thin. What kind of deal will you make me if I buy 5 of them. $20, I was thinking more like $10. We met in the middle at $15.
I ran that gun, box stock and those cheap mags for the entire season. I never once cleaned the gun....not once. Its nose was so dirty and black I took endless shit because of it. I just want to see how bad it will get before it would start to have issues. I had only one failure to fire, and I think that was the round. It never had any other problem. Those cheap mags as well, they just flat worked. Everyone was amazed. The "fancy" 1911 guys took the thing apart after every round, I just locked the slide stuck it in the holster and visited.
I did not finish first, I never will, but I did not finish last. Bottom third, but I was happy with that, and I had not played the game before. Most of the time it was shot with winchester white box ammo as well. I was not reloading 45 at the time....and just saved all the brass I could.
If I was going to play that game again, and me being the fudd that I am I think I would do one in 38 super. That would fit with my outlook on things.
Just put that in there to say, there are some good things during those years that came out of remington, the new R51 was not one of them.
I do admit however I have a soft spot for Remington, the little black one is named Remington, the white one is Willow.