Posted: 1/8/2011 7:01:15 AM EDT
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People have told me that they wont buy a 4" 1911 that has a bushingless barrel and I was wondering why that is?
Also, what does a bushing do? Sorry for the noob question. Thanks for your help!! -32 |
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I can't understand that either, I have a TRP with a bull barrel and love it. A regular 1911 will have a sleeve that attaches to the front of the slide that keeps the barrel in alignment. The bull barrels do away with the bushing and instead have a cone shaped end of the barrel. This if fit properly wedges itself perfectly into the front of the slide and give the same alignment. Bushing on left bushingless on right  |
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I dislike the need of a tool of some sort to hold onto the guide rod to take it apart (most require a "paper clip" to field strip them). They've also got pretty short recoil spring life. The extra .25" of barrel you get with a 4.25" Commander allows you the ease of tool free maintenence and a platform that's been around for 50+ years. Not to mention that if you talk to anyone that's had problems with 1911's and left the platform because of it, you'll find they were mostly with 4" and below pistols. I'll stick to 4.25 and above. That's where 1911 reliability typically lies. |
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i have a 4" semi custom compact and I love it. often times however, i advise against them. the reason why I do this has nothing to do with the design, rather, it is advice not to buy a short(er) slide model from the production companies who market them (as the OP is almost never considering a semi custom in his post). The biggest seller of these is Kimber and I am wary of their 5" models, much less their 4" ones. I am also not partial to these on a full frame for aesthetic reasons, so I don't like champions, and colt never made a 4" (which I find superior to their 3.5" officer IF built right).
so there are actually a few reasons why some don't recommend them though many detractors have little idea or experience behind their assertions. Built right like a semi custom 1911 and id recommend it.all day long. |
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As others have pointed out, I dislike bull barrels primarily because the difficulty involved in field stripping and reassembling them. Also, parts longevity, particularly of the recoil springs suffers in shorter variants of the 1911, as does absolute reliability. In a 5" bushingless platform, really, the only issue is the added difficulties in disassembly, but I still look at and consider pistols to be sidearms, and the use of one is inherently a compromise.
With a bushing barrel 1911 design, I can strip it and reassemble it without any tools faster than I can take down a bushingless barrel 1911, and while some of it may be practice, bull barrel designs are most definitely less user friendly in this aspect. Finally, to a certain extent, I prefer platforms with minimal modifications to the original functional design parts, in my experience, and in the long run, they tend to still be best suited as an overall system; and I certainly wouldn't be too eager to be an "early adopter" of significant functional changes, i.e. pistols originally designed as full sized service pistols tend to function best as full sized service pistols. Same applies to caliber changes. The shortest I would hypothetically go with a 1911 style pistol would be 4.25" with a bushing barrel (Commander), however, all the 1911s I currently own are bushing barrel 5" guns. For the same reason, I'm leery of Beretta 96s, Sig 226s in .40 S&W, and if I could get used to the Glock grip, I would still stick with 9MM, and not go shorter than a G19. There are enough subcompact pistols out there that were intended to be so on the drawing board to try to mess with a full sized pistol and shoehorn it into a subcompact role. ~Augee |
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You do NOT need a clip to disassemble at bull barrel 1911, it just makes it much easier. There is nothing wrong with them and they are perfectly accurate.
My Kimber 4 inch has over 5K rounds through it in less than a 7 months and not a single problem (and its an evil Kimber AND the frame is made of that creepy mythical aluminum stuff that guys dont like either). She goes bang every time and eats every kind of ammo. Watch out for arm chair bandits and mall ninjas, they are everywhere... 
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| WC offers a 4" gun with a size-appropriate "standard" spring guide requiring no tools for takedown, and I wager the same is/can be true of their 5" models. the spring plug has a hole in it like that of a plug for a FLGR, however. I added the 2 piece FLGR on mine, because after having numerous models of both spring guide and FLGR models, the "nuissance" is trivial for me, whereas the benefits (real or perceived) are more welcome on a compact setup IME... that and I don't like having an open spring plug with nothing filling it. |