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WHY STI OR SVI


TNGrumpy

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I haven't seen one in Production yet...

But, basically they're what happens when you set out to build a gun to the requirements and parameters of competition shooting. Their magazines accept as much ammo as can possibly be crammed into 140/170mm spaces (defined by the rules) and they'll build you basically whatever kind of gun you want to have on top of that.

Light loads for steel? There's an S_I for that. Limited .40? There's an S_I for that. 3gun? No problem. Top of the line, flat-shooting Open racer? Guess what.

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Browning HP were used for a while because of the extra magazine capacity. I believe Dave Dawson/Sandy Strayer/Virgil Tripp experimented with the creation of the basic high capacity frame with a 1911 slide. Extra rounds mean less reloads. There is a high reliability factor for SVI v. BHP. The BHP was not meant for the high round counts of competition shooting/practice or LEO work. I believe the FBI was issuing BHP but the high round counts were cracking the BHP.

As time progressed, so did the development and refinement of the SV type guns.

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Both companies have oriented a substantial amount of their focus on the competitive shooter. The major brands are fine options also, but they are targeting several different markets which means they don't focus on the competitive shooter as narrowly as STI and SVI.

I went with SVI for my USPSA Single Stack build and it was a much easier conversation with Brandon Strayer compared to the conversations I've had with other gunsmiths. I didn't have to do much more than fill out the gun builder website and then talk to Brandon once I submitted it. The conversations about trigger pull, magazines, and everything else was easy because the man builds competition guns for competition shooters. All of the education was Brandon teaching me things I didn't know.

When I needed work on one of my Production guns, it was the other way around where I had to educate the smith on what I needed out of the pistol.

The downside to S_I is price and wait times. STI seems like a function of finding a dealer who has what you want. It might take awhile, but you should be able to get what you need pretty quickly with some effort on your part. SVI is take a number and get in the 15 to 18 month line because everything is custom. I'm fine with that given what I'll get on the other end.

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Because no one else really builds a wide-body 1911? Para has its own issues and everyone else seemed to have copied Para.

The slides are the same on a 2011 vs. a 1911. The only thing that STI and SVI have in common is the slide, and they both copied that from JMB. The frames are completely different animals. Sure, they thought that the double stack mag was a good idea and did that, but that is the only thing that anybody copied...the idea. The execution is completely different.

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IMO the others won't be a major factor until gunsmiths start to prefer their frames. They know STI parts and while they aren't perfect, the smiths have experience with them and know where the problems are and how to correctly address them. I don't see a big contingency of smiths deciding to switch without some very big benefits.

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