Got one of these last week in 9mm. Love the gun and the concept of a hi-cap 9mm in a 1911 platform is a great one...really bridges the standard 8-round 1911 45 and the hi-cap striker fired guns. I like 1911 and, to quote my good friend Yamil Sued, "I'm a 1911-aholic". I like them a lot, I shoot them way better than anything, I carry one every day, and I collect them. So, to be able to bridge my favorite platform with 18+1 capacity was a very intriguing factor to me, so I decided to give this a shot.

Let me start by saying that I REALLY like this gun.

However, mine had the absolutely worst trigger I've ever encountered. The trigger bow was so out of spec that the trigger wouldn't freely move in the trigger slot, even with the gun completely disassembled and no spring pressure on it whatsoever. It certainly wouldn't even reset upon dropping the hammer. I tried some minor fitting and, while it helped a little, it still didn't improve. It's incredibly hard to shoot a gun with any odicum of accuracy when you have to manually reset the trigger yourself! I ended up having to fit an STI match trigger to it and tuned it to about 4 1/4#. That was the only significant out-of-the-box issue with it. Once the trigger was upgraded, the gun was actually shootable.

It proved to be combat accurate and reliable enough but I still decided that I wanted to further improve it, to my taste and handling preferences, so, I took it down to Novak's 45 Shop in Parkersburg, WV, and spent a day there working with them on it.

Between them and I, we ended up basically doing a full house custom package on it, save for replacing the barrel. This includes most of my usual handling/performance enhancements that I like on all my 1911s: Novak low mount adjustable rear and gold bead front sights, Novak Answer, Novak NeXT cut, standard recoil system, full carry bevel, and reliability package (tune extractor, high polish barrel feed ramp, polish chamber). These really helped fine tune the gun to a real mean machine. The slide was bead blasted and, since it's stainless, it is now in the white, leaving the gun in, to my taste, an attractive 2-tone finish.

The reason I didn't replace the barrel is that we agreed that I'd just crown it and see how the gun performed in terms of accuracy and reliability. If it performed well enough, then there's no need to replace the barrel.

A couple of pics before carry bevel, reliability package, and barrel crowning:

And pics of the finished work. Same everything, other than the carry bevel (no impact on accuracy), STI match trigger fit, reliability package and barrel crowning... with one of Simply Rugged Rob's great "Classic" Gunsite holsters.

I feel totally confident in this gun, and am very comfortable carrying it in my ccw battery. In fact, it's on my hip right now as I type this. I will more than likely take it with me to my next Gunsite class. This will be a good test for how reliable it is!!

I will do me just fine.

As my old friend Doc O'Neara used to say, and end all of his posts and emails:

WTFS!

Matt

Wish you the best with your new pea shooter. I remember when the first double stack 45acp came out Back when NJ just had bad laws not like now. I couldn't wait to get a frame and build a carry gun. I did and it was expensive and loaded up with 230 gr bullets if I tripped and fell in a puddle I would drown ! So heavy relegated to a house gun till the laws changed so I dumped it at a loss. Just like NJ wants! People in Pa are preping for the flood of $300.00 ar's coming their way.

Shame you had to go to all that trouble to get the R1 to be what you like, but now you have it. Looks good, you shoot it well and its reliable. Enjoy it.

I tend to stick with Tripp/STI for double stack 45s, as their mag design is different and it keeps capacity to 11-12 rounds, instead of 14-15 rounds with the Para/Remington. I do have a one double stack Rem 45 now, and it's a good gun, but way too heavy to carry, especially when I'm used to carrying a lighweight Gov't model!!

Matt

that is totally unacceptable quality control from Remington.

Matt