Sig Tac Ops with most of the parts I hated replaced:
Of course, I bought it to tack a bunch of stuff on it, so here it is all dressed up:
I grabbed a stack of 50' center of mass targets and put them out at about 50' (16 yards, so more like 48'). This is my first target from function check and getting acclimated to the sites. Plenty of room for improvement on my part, but the gun did well enough.
It ran pretty well through a hundred rounds of Winchester 230gr ball, and successive targets got a little tighter as I became familiar with the gun.
Finally, I ran 24 rounds suppressed through it. Shooting a handgun with a silencer on it will quickly disabuse one of any Hollywood preconceptions. The can is big enough in diameter that it blocks the sites, and as it heats up, it creates a mirage that further complicates aiming. So you mostly point it at the target as though you were pointing a broomstick.
The Sig hiccupped on 3 of 8 rounds out of the first magazine. Would not cycle the slide far enough back to reset the trigger twice, and would not fully return to battery once. Then it seemed to find it's groove, and functioned as expected for the remaining two magazines. Despite a rocky beginning, I was very pleased/surprised to see how tight it shot with the silencer on it.
Overall, I am happy enough with it. It has a few features that mildly irritate me. The Sig 'profile' adds some bulk to the front of the slide, making it not compatible with any of the railed 1911 holsters I have in leather or Kydex. I hadn't planned to carry it or compete with it, but it would have been nice if I could have. It has about as good of a trigger as one can get with a series 80 firing pin safety mechanism. I could have it removed, but I don't want to compromise it much more than I already have.
The grips on it were also 'different'. They occupied a size between conventional grips and thin grips, but were magwell-cut, which was nice. They appear to be of some type of injection-molded plastic, and were very grippy. While they are no doubt very tactical, this is just a fun gun for me, so I swapped them out with some quilted maple grips that are the opposite of 'tactical', but look pretty to me.
I like the gun, and I hope it will prove to be a reliable silencer host as it wears in. I am glad I got this Sig, but I doubt I'd buy another of their 1911s based on the slide profile, series 80 system, and external extractor. One is enough. I do imagine it will get a lot more use as a silencer host than my 220 Super Match, because I have no qualms with running it hard or scratching the hell out of the finish.
A final shot of my single action Sig family:
