Shooting The Ruger SR1911 LW 9mm

Why would you carry a gun designed 105 years ago instead of a modern, polymer pistol? Good question, and one I’ll try to answer, but first, let’s talk about my shooting experiences with Ruger’s latest SR 1911 pistol. Frankly, the 9mm lightweight Commander style pistol surprised me from the moment I took it out of the box in the Gunsite Pro Shop. Pulling the slide back I was amazed at how easily it retracted, an indication the pistol had a very light recoil spring. Two thoughts crossed my mind: This will make the gun easy for young shooters or those with little hand strength to manipulate, and, I wonder if it will run reliably.

Being there’s only one way to find out, I went directly to the South Range for a shooting session. Loading up the two supplied 9 round magazines and several 10 round magazines from Wilson Combat, Brownells and Chip McCormick I started shooting. It didn’t take long for problems to surface. About every 10 rounds or so the slide was failing to go forward far enough to chamber a fresh round and the muzzle flip and stout recoil, quite frankly, shocked me. The pistol felt more like a lightweight .45 shooting hot ammo than a 9mm. After about 100 rounds of mostly defensive hollowpoint ammunition I was frustrated and worn out.

Since I’m supposed to be a firearms instructor I paused to analyze the way I was shooting. I realized my shooting hand thumb was probably dragging on the slide and slowing it down as it sat atop the thumb safety. In some cases the slide slowed down so much I could feel and see it moving. You see, the Gunsite way to shoot a 1911 style pistol is with the thumb riding on top of the safety but some people don’t shoot that way. I recall a heated discussion with the engineers and executives at Colt in their Hartford headquarters over just this issue. But I digress; I concluded the light recoil spring and friction from my thumb was slowing the slide and causing the malfunctions. Placing my thumb below the safety solved the failures to feed but the pistol was still recoiling sharply with full power defensive ammunition due to the light recoil spring. I packed up my gear and went home.

To solve the issue of my thumb slowing the slide I installed a Gunsite Low Thumb safety. This safety drops the shelf of the safety lever down and does a couple of things. First, it gets the thumb away from the slide, and second, it allows a better grip on the pistol that facilitates depressing the grip safety, particularly for shooters with small hands. Next I ordered up some new recoil springs from Brownells and replaced the light factory spring with a standard 18-pound Commander spring. Finally I removed the black rubber stocks and replaced them with an attractive set of Gunsite logo wood stocks because, well, why not?

Returning to the range I was delighted with the performance of the lightweight Ruger. Muzzle flip and felt recoil were significantly reduced and the pistol felt like I expected a 9mm to feel. I fired string after string of hammers (two very fast shots) with more than a dozen different loads ranging from full metal jacket training ammunition to +P+ hollowpoints without a single issue. The pistol fed everything, there wasn’t a single malfunction, and it was a joy to shoot, feeling quick and lively. While the Low Thumb safety had something to do with this the major reason the pistol shot so well was due to the heavier recoil spring. Is there a downside? Yes, because of the stouter spring the pistol is a little harder to manipulate – someone with little hand strength may have difficulty locking the slide to the rear, for example. This lightweight 9mm is a keeper.

Brandon Trevino is the pistol product manager at Ruger’s Prescott factory – where SR 1911s are made – so I checked in with him to discuss the light recoil spring shipped with the pistol. He explained they have to design a pistol to shoot the broadest assortment of ammunition, especially the low powered range ammunition they anticipate a lot of customers will shoot, hence the light recoil spring. He said, because I was primarily shooting full power defensive ammunition while testing the pistol, the switch to a heavier recoil spring made sense. In fact it’s one of the positive features of the 1911 platform – the pistol can be tuned for various loads. Brandon also suggested that John Browning didn’t anticipate the 1911 would be shot with the thumb atop the safety and said that, wherever the two of them are now, he and Jeff Cooper probably argue the point endlessly.

A few words about magazines are in order. The 9 round stainless steel Ruger magazines that come with the pistol seat flush in the magazine well. They function perfectly but it’s difficult to get the 8th and 9th rounds pushed into the magazine without the aid of a magazine-loading tool. The McCormick and Wilson Combat 10 round magazines are stainless steel and have an extended plastic base plate while the Brownells 10 rounder is blued steel and has a similar base plate. All three of these magazines function perfectly and load easily, with only the 10th round being a little tough to get into the magazine. These after market magazines are available from Brownells, a great company to deal with and one I have been doing business with forever.

What now? I think I’m well on the way to having the Ruger set up. I’m planning on changing the sights from the three white dots to Novak’s plain black rear and a gold bead front and I may install thin stocks and a short trigger. The nice thing about 1911s is there are a gazillion parts available for them. This new SR 1911 is good to go as it comes from the factory or, as I’m doing, you can customize it to suit your needs.

So back to the original question: Why would you choose a 1911 chambered in 9mm rather than, let’s say, a Glock 19 for a carry gun? Both pistols are about the same size, the Ruger is thinner and the grip on the Glock is shorter. Fully loaded, the Ruger is an ounce or two heavier than the Glock and the Glock has a five round capacity advantage. The Ruger is much more easily fitted to various shooters. It probably comes down to whether you like Glocks or 1911s and there isn’t much I could say to dissuade you from your choice. Except for that wonderful 1911 trigger. If you haven’t tried it you really need to shoot one. It only takes once.

For more information, visit Ruger.com

About the Author:

Ed Head is a regular on Shooting Gallery, Gun Stories and Down Range TV. He has worked for almost 30 years in law enforcement, first in the United States Air Force and then with the United States Border Patrol, retiring as a Field Operations Supervisor. During his Border Patrol career, Ed worked in a variety of patrol, investigative and training capacities. Ed has an extensive background as a firearms instructor, having trained thousands, ranging from beginners to police, military and special operations personnel. Having taught at Gunsite for 20 years, Ed first trained there under the world famous shooting school’s founder, Jeff Cooper, then later ran the school as the operations manager for more than five years. Ed lives in Chino Valley, Arizona, where he continues to teach and write.