1911 Roto m4 on 1911 (best, range, purchase, firearm)

[vicarjoe]

I bought a Roto M4 barrel with thread protector for my 1911 to use with a suppressor. I got it for 45 buck delivered. I was told it was trash and to just throw it away. It was advertised as a drop in barrel. It was not. The hood was too wide and needed to be filed down to fit. Once I got it to fit the gun I took some very fine sand paper to polish up the lugs and other friction parts. After an hour of working on it I got it to cycle just fine in my colt. This is what it did at the range. 15 yards, 230 gr hand loads LRN over 5 gr of power pistol.

[M3 Mitch]

You are obviously a decent gunsmith and a decent marksman. Well done!

[vicarjoe]

Originally Posted by M3 Mitch

You are obviously a decent gunsmith and a decent marksman. Well done!

Thank you, I have never fitted a barrel to a 1911 before and I did not have the center alignment tool for the lug. I just kept fitting it little by little and it is about 40 percent tighter than my colt barrel. But I know colt factory barrels are lose fitted to take a wide variety of ammo.

You know what is funny, on the 1911 forums I posed a question about opinions on the Roto M4 and was told it was junk just throw it away. I posed that I had fitted it and this was how it was shooting and its been two days and not one reply. Usually these guys will post four times before I have finished posting the question.

[rigby06]

Although I have no experience with a suppressor of any kind, I can understand how some would react to what they would consider a lesser firearm. On this very forum; I started a thread on the "Metro Arms 1911"; and as I indicated the Metro was a very good shooting 1911, smooth, very accurate and a real pleasure to shoot. I also indicated that I have shot and or owned higher and more expensive 1911's.


Just yesterday I brought my Metro to the range and shot my friends Ed Brown special forces model 1911. And I will indicate that the Ed Brown shot better than the Metro Arms by a small margin. But the Ed Brown special forces 1911, is around $2000 - $2500 & for what I have in the Metro Arms; I am in it for about 1/3 of that price. The point I was trying to make with this post is no one responded to my post at all about the Metro Arms.


So I have no doubt that a 1911 forum would not comment on something that they would consider inferior; only to be proven wrong on that same item as well.


Glad your new purchase is doing well; and I would agree; good shooting overall.

[TexasRedneck]

Okay....first, lemme clarify that I'm a 1911 nut!

I have NO issue with folks preferring a less-expensive gun, but just as some folks buy a car to go from Point A to Point B, others want to drive in style.....

I'm somewhat known in the 1911 community, and am often asked for my opinion on different 1911's. I won't comment on 'em unless I own them, and as a result have owned a number of the "budget" 1911's over the years. With the exception of the Star line (which, IMO, isn't a true 1911), I've not tested any of them that I'd classify as "junk", and I've run everything from a Tisas to a half-dozen others that were sub-$500.

Just as you can't compare a "rat-rod" to a true classic "hot rod", trying to compare budget 1911's encompasses more than accuracy. Small details such as fit/finish play a large role in evaluation - but the impact will depend on the end user. I'm currently in the end stages of a 100% custom build from a local shop (the owner impressed me enough that I have actually partnered with him), where each and every component has been built to my specification. We spent quite a bit of time selecting the frame and slide, etc. - even down to the trigger itself.

That kind of detail deserved a finish befitting the build - so a highly polished blued gun (in the old, Colt-style deep blue) will be the crowing completion. Every aspect of the guns' exterior will have this polished finish, which equates to over 8 hours in polishing alone. That polishing (and bluing) equates to the cost of some of the budget 1911's out there - but for me, it's worth it. This will be as much of a work of art as a firearm - but it's one that will be carried and shot (I carry daily). Part of my reasoning is simply that I love the platform - the other is that I want a 100% reliable gun.

Frankly, there are a number of budget 1911's that I like - some are even in my collection. There's always a need for a sidearm that you can use and abuse, and not be overly worried about damaging its' cosmetic appearance - but you aren't going to get the finely-tuned feel of a quality 1911 without putting in a LOT of custom work or spending hours of your own time polishing and fitting. Small things - like lapping the slide to the frame to get a REALLY smooth fit - takes time. It's not a matter of slapping it on a mill, it's taking fine lapping compound and working the action to properly mate the surfaces to each other. That alone can take many hours - and most folks won't bother with it (nor is it necessary to make the gun operate "well enough").

So......the above is an overly-verbose way of saying that (in most instances) premier guns ARE worth the extra cost, just as a customized car is to certain folks, but I'll be the first one to say that they're a nicety, NOT a necessity!

[vicarjoe]

Gun snobs are only out done by Wrist Watch snobs. Value has never failed me. Yes you can put a lot of money into a car or a gun but you will never and I mean never get it back. A historical gun is a bit different, but you still have to buy it right. You pay 8k for a WW2 era Colt in 100 percent condition and it would be a hard press to get that money back or half of it. I can not say that people who buy a 12k wrist watch do not get 12k of pleasure from it. Heck what people get pleasure from is totally a personal thing. But I have never bought things that I could not turn around and get my money back of make money on. So to me a high end 1911 is a waste of time and money. I would get more pleasure buying 100 shares of KO or ED and buying a Colt 1911 for 900 bucks that I can get my money back out of and in a few years make money on and watch my stock bring in dividends every quarter. But that is me. People will pay a lot for high quality but that works best for things that can not be produced today, I.E. historical guns that are a finite product. Jessie James or Hitlers gun will bring big bucks but its historical. paying a lot of money for something fresh off the bench is like paying 1k for some limited run beanie baby. Good luck getting your money back and in time you may still not be able to recover. But if it trip's your trigger spend away. On all the guns I have bought and then sold I think I can count two that I lost money on and that was because I sold in 2009 when everything was taking a dive. For the first time that I can remember historical Civil war guns were actually going down in price.

I had a Norinco 1911 I paid 199 for back in the day when they first came out, mid 90s. I shot it and it worked just fine, very smooth no problems. sold it for 450 to some guy who wanted a project gun and they quit importing them. They had gained a reputation for being a good gun to do a build on at a reasonable price. Personally I have always disliked guns that were all dressed up with all kinds of BS on them, or beveled mag wells and other things done for what ever reason. Meat and potatoes has never let me down. I have sold off most of my 1911s and only have three colts and one Remington Rand. One colt is a 1943 in about 95 percent, and the other colts are a SS Commander and Government. The only up grades I made to the Government is I put in the short trigger, I have always hated the long trigger Colt started to put in, ambi safety being left handed beaver tail to stop the hammer bite and a spur trigger to accommodate the beaver tail. I put them in myself and this is the same gun I put the M4 barrel on.

[TexasRedneck]

Yep - we each have our own likes/dislikes. When I first started picking up guns here and there, I couldn't imagine ever owning one I wouldn't shoot.......fast forward a coupla decades, and I have a dozen or so that I don't shoot - and never will. Two of them I've got about $1400 in....turned down $16k for them a few years back - they stopped making them in the early 80's, and the total production run was under 400 units.

My Norinco - yes, decent gun, but most smiths curse the thing - because while it IS a good gun, the steel they used is EXTREMELY hard and tears up tooling......