That Wilton is probably the best of the "clamping vise" range. Like an Anvil, a vise is one of those tools that
should be simple and inexpensive, and just isn't. Stability, clamping strength, the jaws being parallel, and even the strength of the casting* all suffer with crappy vises. Since a clamping vise has two screws that need to be manufactured correctly, it's twice as likely to be crappy at any given price point.
I have 5 vises currently (in three "work areas") two Wiltons, an ancient USA made 4" I got from my grandfather, one HF china crap I haven't broke yet and a Panavise for guns. All are bolted to something sturdy. If you don't have the space luxury of dedicating a spot to the vise, like others have said, bolt it to like a 2x6, and then clamp the lumber down with C-clamps. That spreads the load out and will likely work better then the one clamp screw of a clamping vise. Basically, my experience has been you never really appreciate how you will reef on something in a vise until you have something in a vise that needs to be reefed on.
All of that said, you said you needed something to hold a 1911. I mentioned my Panavise (I have a
301), and they make a
clamping base. (mine is bolted to a table however). I REALLY like this for gunsmithing as it allows me a lot of flexibility in the orentation of whatever I'm playing with. It should be understood however, that this is more of a "holding things so you have two hands to work" vise as opposed to a "hold this tightly while I torque/hit it" kind of vise. If I set the Panavise so the rotation is against the hard stop it'ss hold an upper to torque a barrel nut, but that's pretty much it's limit for tight holding. It will however hold that upper (or any other gun) in any angle I want so I can see what I'm doing, and it'll do it with non marking jaws.
So the real question is what kind of work will you be doing to your gun?
Also, did you get the MSH out?
