Thinking about a 2011/1911 from a Glock

[Jfitz427]

 Forgot to add, the trigger is so nice, breaking at slightly over 2lbs. 

[darmster]

Nice!

[Jfitz427]

The only thing I can complain about is the reset, it’s not very aggressive/audible at all. It’s pretty week. Will have to see how that effects my shooting. You really feel the Glock reset snap back, with this it’s just weak. 

 

My other 1911, a Springfield is exactly the same, weak reset. Is this just a characteristic of 1911s? I’m sure it can be improved, but can it ever be as aggressive as a Glock?

[darmster]

You can add a little more tension to the middle leg on the sear spring. Just a little, a little goes a long way. Also adjust your over travel screw. YouTube if you need to. 

Edited September 21, 2018 by darmster

[RJH]

20 minutes ago, Jfitz427 said:

The only thing I can complain about is the reset, it’s not very aggressive/audible at all. It’s pretty week. Will have to see how that effects my shooting. You really feel the Glock reset snap back, with this it’s just weak. 

 

My other 1911, a Springfield is exactly the same, weak reset. Is this just a characteristic of 1911s? I’m sure it can be improved, but can it ever be as aggressive as a Glock?

If you are waiting to hear/feel a trigger reset you are wasting time.  Just lift your finger slightly, then reapply pressure.....

 

 

PS That is a nice looking pistol

Edited September 21, 2018 by RJH

[CzViper]

Any updates? Thoughts and impressions?

[Jfitz427]

On 10/5/2018 at 2:12 AM, CzViper said:

Any updates? Thoughts and impressions?

Let’s just say it only took about 3 weeks before I bought a 2011 open gun. The plan was to buy the pantera, see if I like the 2011 platform, but keep primarily shooting my open Glock since I shoot like 75% 9mm. I just find the 2011 points more naturally then the Glock. And the trigger is just on another level, and it makes quite a big difference for me. 

 

The pantera is a sweet shooter, but it’s also an incredibly well build gun. I don’t know these kind of guns that well, but the fit and finish is better then my sti trubor. And my sti is a really really nice gun, but the sps ever so slightly nicer on the side to frame and barrel fit. Triggers a bit lighter on the trubor, but the break isn’t as crisp as the pantera, which is like a glass rod breaking. Forgive me, I’m still learning the basics on these types of guns, but things like the barrel, slide, thumb safety all have to be hand fit, I think, and those parts are noticeably better with the sps. Just my observations. 

 

From what ive read though most of the internal parts are lower quality mim parts that probably won’t last the longest. My trubor will likely go a lot longer before that stuff needs to be replaced. 

 

Id like to add a different grip to the pantera, and maybe a flat trigger. Eventually when the integrals wear out I’ll replace them with something nicer, and have someone do a really nice trigger. Although coming from a Glock the stock trigger is just phenomenal. 

[Jfitz427]

I just hit the 1000 rd mark last night and this thing runs like a friggen sewing machine. I don’t think I’ve had a single malfunction at all. I do chamber check all my rounds in the barrel before so anything that doesn’t pass either goes back though the fcd, or if that doesn’t fix it it gets tossed. 

 

It runs great with my mbx mags, and my sti mags. The mags that came with the gun had issues, the base plate was hitting the magwell. I chamfered the tops of the baseplates a bit and they also work fine now. 

 

Triggers just awesome. Breaks like a glass rod, short reset. I think the reset could be improved a little. A bit more aggressive. 

 

The sights are really nice. Fully adjustable. And it’s just a sweet looking gun. One day I’d like to replace the grip with one of the extreme shooters. And maybe a flat face trigger. 

 

It it will be interesting to see how long the mim internals last. One person said he had to replace all of them around 5000rds. I do a lot of dry fire, plus live fire. So will see. 

[Jfitz427]

Just hit the 2500rd mark. I couldn’t be more pleased with this gun. Not a single issue or malfunction so far. The gun just runs and runs. This thing runs as reliably as my glocks, it’s incredible. I haven’t done anything to the gun. Trigger still breaks right at 2.5lbs, it’s got a nice break, like a carrot cracking. I would still like to get the reset a little more aggressive. At some point I’d like to get an infinity flat trigger for it. 

 

If and when parts break I’ll replace them with quality aftermarket parts. But if it ain’t broke, you know. The fitting of this gun is just incredible. They really did a good job with it. For 1400 bucks and runs like a top out of the book, it really can’t be beat. Didn’t have any kind of break in period either, the gun just ran. 

 

As for the magazines. This is where I was worried. So many horror stories about the mags for 2011s being finiky. I have 2 sti mags with grams guts and Dawson snl basepads and they’ve been great so far. They hold 20 reloadable, or 21 non. Hoping the springs wear in a bit more and I’ll get 21 reloadable. These mags are my favorite, I like the big basepad for reloads, I get a very secure grip on it. Then I have 2 mbx mags. These have also been 100%. Same capacity as the sti mags, 20 reloadable, 21 non. Again I’m hoping I’ll get 21 with time. These are really nice mags, but I prefer the sti with Dawson’s only because of the big basepads. Been thinking about fitting Dawson’s to an mbx tube, but this would be a very expensive mistake if it didn’t work. The 126mm mags that came with it also work fine. 

 

Overall, this gun was a great investment. I was a little skeptical, but sps makes an extremely high quality gun. Will see how it holds up at 5k rounds. 

[CzViper]

Gun really looks awesome. Mags are a concern for sure. But can't go wrong with MBX from what I hear. My STI mags with Dawson baseplates are my preference too and haven't had any issues. Great to read update. Thanks.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[Jfitz427]

So there isn’t a whole lot of info out there on the parts used for these SPS guns and I’ve been trying to find out more. So I tried emailing SPS, and I was surprised that they forwarded me to another company. I figured they would know how their guns are made. But they don’t make these guns. Metro arms builds the entire gun, , they make all the parts frames slides internals. The only thing that comes from SPS Spain is the polymer grip. 

 

Weve heard people speculate on cast frames and mim internals etc. but I got the answers from Metro arms. 

 

Forged slide, which I think everyone knew

 

forged frame, this was a surprise, I heard people speculate that they were cast and that’s how they kept the prices down. But no, they’re forged. The guy said many companies use cast to save money since the frames don’t take the same beating as a , slide, but no, these are forged frames. So the slide to frame fit should stay tight for a long long time. And the frames should last forever. 

 

And the internals, hammer, sear etc. are MIM, as we speculated. But not all mim is that bad.

 

So at some point  changing out the trigger group for an EGW or Brazos kit. And when other stuff breaks I’ll replace those too with quality parts. But it’s nice to know main 3 parts are high quality, the  barrel, slide, and the frame. 

 

Here’s a shot of a group I shot yesterday at 20 years just standing, no rest. I never tested it for accuracy before so I wanted to see what it can do. I’m a really poor group shooter to, so I have no doubt someone with better skills could do even better. This is with 180g blue bullet, and 4.3g clays around 950fps. Not a bad group for me. 

 

 

[vgdvc]

That looks like a pretty badass group freestyle 20 yards ,nice shooting! Something of note: be careful making major pf with regular Clays in .40 with any grain bullet regardless of jacketed or not. I have researched this and talked with several experienced shooters. Since Clays  is a very soft shooting powder it makes you want to find a load but there is no official data I'm aware of that supports a safe load in .40 major. Pressure spikes very quickly when going above recommended data and usually leads to flow around primer pitting the breech face (been there). I have used a 180gr coated with 3.0gr  to make 135 power factor shooting minor,very soft.

[Jfitz427]

On 12/5/2018 at 9:41 PM, vgdvc said:

That looks like a pretty badass group freestyle 20 yards ,nice shooting! Something of note: be careful making major pf with regular Clays in .40 with any grain bullet regardless of jacketed or not. I have researched this and talked with several experienced shooters. Since Clays  is a very soft shooting powder it makes you want to find a load but there is no official data I'm aware of that supports a safe load in .40 major. Pressure spikes very quickly when going above recommended data and usually leads to flow around primer pitting the breech face (been there). I have used a 180gr coated with 3.0gr  to make 135 power factor shooting minor,very soft.

Ya I know clays isn’t the safest. I saw a few threads on it with some guys doing it and where to start. So I started at 3.5 and worked up. No pressure signs, but a bit of bullet setback or a slightly higher charge could be disastrous. The pro who coaches me used to run this load and said the same. He said to give n320 I think it is a try. He has 200lbs of it lol, but won’t sell me any. I’m gonna buy a pound of that next time I order powder.. I usually shoot titegroup, which isn’t a whole lot better, but it’s better. If anything I’ll practice with titegroup, and use the Clays just for matches and load it on my turret where I can be very precise and careful. 

 

I loaded up some clays at 3.1g, man was that a sweet shooting load. Super soft. Definitely one of my favorite loads. 3g of titegroip is very similar too. Even the major load of clays at 4.3g was really soft. If only it was safer....

[Bmeehan19]

Great to hear all the positive reports on the SPS. I just picked one up. Any preference on mags? STI gen 1 or 2, MBX if you had to choose 1?

[hamiltonian]

In the old days, we ran Clays with 180 g bullets at 182 PF all day long.  You had to prepare the gun for it though: the barrel needed to be freebored enough to allow long loads and to give a jump to the rifling to reduce pressure similar to the approach Weatherby rifles uses in their chambers.  With the reduction in PF to make major down to 165, Clays becomes even more feasible as a soft powder choice.  However, it still requires some care in its use.  I have switched to N310 as it is a lot cleaner burning.

[yigal]

few members of my group have 5 sps guns open and limited.

most  of them over 50k  9mm minor.  works perfect .

[vgdvc]

7 hours ago, hamiltonian said:

In the old days, we ran Clays with 180 g bullets at 182 PF all day long.  You had to prepare the gun for it though: the barrel needed to be freebored enough to allow long loads and to give a jump to the rifling to reduce pressure similar to the approach Weatherby rifles uses in their chambers.  With the reduction in PF to make major down to 165, Clays becomes even more feasible as a soft powder choice.  However, it still requires some care in its use.  I have switched to N310 as it is a lot cleaner burning.

Do you remember what the load data was(grains,o.a.length etc.) and where you using lead or jacketed bullets. I know some have done it but has made me concerned. Biggest problem I've had when pushing the top end of Clay's is gas flow around the primer,pitting the breech face. I'd be interested in hearing what you had come up with however,thanks.

[Jfitz427]

10 hours ago, Bmeehan19 said:

Great to hear all the positive reports on the SPS. I just picked one up. Any preference on mags? STI gen 1 or 2, MBX if you had to choose 1?

I have 2 sps mags, 2 mbx mags, and 2 sti gen 2 mags. They all run perfectly. Personally I like the sti gen 2 mags. My sti mags have Dawson snl basepads and grams guts. I really like the big Dawson pad for reloading. Gives you a big surface to grab onto. So going forward I’m going to be buying more sti mags. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re 20 bucks less then the Mbx mags. 59 for the tube, 30 for the base and 18 for grams s&f. I didn’t have to do any kind of tuning to any of the mags. Stock they run, and with the different bases and guts they run. The sti and mbx both hold 20 easily reloadable, and I’m closer to getting the 21st in the sti tubes. You really can’t go wrong either way. 

[Jfitz427]

8 hours ago, hamiltonian said:

In the old days, we ran Clays with 180 g bullets at 182 PF all day long.  You had to prepare the gun for it though: the barrel needed to be freebored enough to allow long loads and to give a jump to the rifling to reduce pressure similar to the approach Weatherby rifles uses in their chambers.  With the reduction in PF to make major down to 165, Clays becomes even more feasible as a soft powder choice.  However, it still requires some care in its use.  I have switched to N310 as it is a lot cleaner burning.

Ya this older pro I shoot and train with was talking about when he ran Clays when the power factor was 180. And he was telling me he had the barrel freebored so he could load out to 1.250. He says he was one of the firsts to do this in uspsa sometime back in the early 90s. I think it’s a great soft shooting load. 

[Bmeehan19]

4 hours ago, Jfitz427 said:

I have 2 sps mags, 2 mbx mags, and 2 sti gen 2 mags. They all run perfectly. Personally I like the sti gen 2 mags. My sti mags have Dawson snl basepads and grams guts. I really like the big Dawson pad for reloading. Gives you a big surface to grab onto. So going forward I’m going to be buying more sti mags. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re 20 bucks less then the Mbx mags. 59 for the tube, 30 for the base and 18 for grams s&f. I didn’t have to do any kind of tuning to any of the mags. Stock they run, and with the different bases and guts they run. The sti and mbx both hold 20 easily reloadable, and I’m closer to getting the 21st in the sti tubes. You really can’t go wrong either way. 

How is the thickness of the metal?  Are the SPS noticeably thinner? My issue is I am limited to 10 rounds. So if I want 140’s I need MBX or I buy STI or SPS and try dimpling my own. 

[Bmeehan19]

4 hours ago, Jfitz427 said:

I have 2 sps mags, 2 mbx mags, and 2 sti gen 2 mags. They all run perfectly. Personally I like the sti gen 2 mags. My sti mags have Dawson snl basepads and grams guts. I really like the big Dawson pad for reloading. Gives you a big surface to grab onto. So going forward I’m going to be buying more sti mags. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re 20 bucks less then the Mbx mags. 59 for the tube, 30 for the base and 18 for grams s&f. I didn’t have to do any kind of tuning to any of the mags. Stock they run, and with the different bases and guts they run. The sti and mbx both hold 20 easily reloadable, and I’m closer to getting the 21st in the sti tubes. You really can’t go wrong either way. 

How is the thickness of the metal?  Are the SPS noticeably thinner? My issue is I am limited to 10 rounds. So if I want 140’s I need MBX or I buy STI or SPS and try dimpling my own. 

[lgh]

On 9/17/2018 at 9:38 AM, 12glocks said:

The 2011 runs good with fresh mags but now I am experiencing some stoppages and need to tune the mags.

When I was shooting a 1911 45, mag springs and followers were changed every year. Mag related problems in a 1911 are common enough that a lot of people do it as preventive medicine. And this is after you find the mags that work best in your gun. Still, 1911 is a nice platform.

[hamiltonian]

13 hours ago, vgdvc said:

Do you remember what the load data was(grains,o.a.length etc.) and where you using lead or jacketed bullets. I know some have done it but has made me concerned. Biggest problem I've had when pushing the top end of Clay's is gas flow around the primer,pitting the breech face. I'd be interested in hearing what you had come up with however,thanks.

I was using 180 g jacketed bullets and 5.x g of Clays loaded to 1.230 using WSR primers.  We used extra long firing pins also to help reduce primer flow from what I was told from the gunsmith.  I never had any breech face erosion.  My barrel was prepped to run these with no problems; however, my brother had a Para and he tried these loads without prepping the barrel and had a case head blow.  Good thing it was an all steel gun as it blew out the magazine but no permanent injury to the gun or my brother.  

[Jfitz427]

9 hours ago, Bmeehan19 said:

How is the thickness of the metal?  Are the SPS noticeably thinner? My issue is I am limited to 10 rounds. So if I want 140’s I need MBX or I buy STI or SPS and try dimpling my own. 

Definitely not noticeably thinner. They could be a bit thinner though. The new sti mags are really stout. But the sps mags seem to be well made. They list 21rd mags on some websites for like 55 bucks. So I’m thinking about buying one of the 140s and replacing the guts and base pads and seeing if 21 is possible. They’re similar to the old SV mags. The SV mags are definitely better quality, but the design of the SPS has one thing going for it over the SVs in that the control ribs extend further down the mag basically right to the bottom, whereas the SV control rib ends pretty high up, lot of room rounds to slip off and under the follower. 

 

Guess that doesn’t matter to you if you’re only loading 10rds. I’d definitely say give the SPS mags a try. 

[Bmeehan19]

9 hours ago, Jfitz427 said:

Definitely not noticeably thinner. They could be a bit thinner though. The new sti mags are really stout. But the sps mags seem to be well made. They list 21rd mags on some websites for like 55 bucks. So I’m thinking about buying one of the 140s and replacing the guts and base pads and seeing if 21 is possible. They’re similar to the old SV mags. The SV mags are definitely better quality, but the design of the SPS has one thing going for it over the SVs in that the control ribs extend further down the mag basically right to the bottom, whereas the SV control rib ends pretty high up, lot of room rounds to slip off and under the follower. 

 

Guess that doesn’t matter to you if you’re only loading 10rds. I’d definitely say give the SPS mags a try. 

Great!  Thanks for the reply. Cant wait to get my hands on it!  $55 is a littke better than $130!!