Well, it’s official. Ruger has entered the rather crowded 1911 pistol game. Ordinarily, I’d respond to this with a yawn, but a few factors make me suspect they’ll do great things with it.
Jeff Quinn wrote a nice writeup on it, and he sounds optimistic. It’ll have a cast frame, which is little cause for worry since the folks at Pine Tree Castings have been proving the investment casting process to be capable of great durability for decades. A point of interest is the fact that the plunger tube is cast as part of the frame, which corrects one of my greatest complaints about the design.
When I first heard they’d be making a 1911, I worried a bit. Ruger being Ruger, I expected them to slap a giant lawyer warning on the side of the slide (like they do on their revolvers). They avoided that, and surprisingly, the gun is quite traditional in form. The only real “modern” safety augmentation is the addition of an unobtrusive witness hole serving as a loaded-chamber indicator. Smith & Wesson uses a similar design on their exemplary 1911’s.
In fact, the gun lacks a firing-pin safety of any sort. Though Michael Bane (warning: bad low-rent Jan Hammer music) is slightly mistaken in referring to it as a “Series 70 safety,” it’s interesting that Ruger chose to go this route. The gun also lacks forward slide serrations, an ambidextrous safety, or a full-length guide rod–things I despise on a 1911.
Aside from the stainless steel slide and frame and Novak sights, this is a fairly conventional build in a field dominated by whiz-bang ISPC Frankenstein monstrosities. Ruger is quoting an MSRP of $799, which will likely translate into a street price in the middle $600 range.
This could be a big splash in a widening pond, and it could obviate a few troublesome guns in the same price range.