At one time, I owned 4 of the Norinco 1911A1 clones, and purchased them for $219.95 each through an Air Force owned FFL, no less. That caused the McClellan AFB MWR to have to fill out the multiple purchase paperwork, but there was no real problem. Obviously, this was before the Clinton-administration push to get rid of kitchen-table FFLs.
I bought them on the advise of the late Armand Swenson, who told me the forged steel used in them was every bit as good as, if not better than, the Colt and Springfield Inc. 1911 variants of the day. That was good enough for me. My own 1911-smith called the steel in the Norinco "hard as the hubs of hell". He went through a few dovetail cutters in the mill when doing Bo-Mar cuts in my guns, and named my IPSC/carry 1911A1 a "Gook Cup", as a jab at the Colt Gold Cup along with damning praise for how the Kart-barreled Norinco performed in competition.
Armand was right (when wasn't he?), and it wasn't too much later than folks like Ed Brown and Jim Clark Sr. started using the Norinco 1911s for full-custom guns. As a matter of fact, a LOT of the custom race and carry guns done by some of the better-known names used the Norinco as the basis for their conversions, because they were that good, and also quite reasonable in price compared to Colt and Springfield Inc.
