"For the intended purpose". Keep that in mind.
The combined membership of IPSC and IDPA is about 27,000. Non-members who go beyond box stock are quite probably no more than that.
That means there are hundreds of thousands of people who don't give a rat's patoot about box stock. They're happy with box stock. They buy it, shoot it a few times, and then it sits by the bed or under a pillow or maybe gets carried in the car.
So a box stock anything with hardball, for the vast majority of all users, will do just fine. All this argifying is mostly mental masturbation.
I note that the ads in "Front Sight" are mostly for Colt parts and pieces. Most of the custom gunsmiths specialize in Colts. What that tells me is that they are selling into the largest market. You follow that by what's used the most in competition matches, and that's Colt.
I don't see it as "Colt is better", as a platform. After all, pull trigger, hammer drop, gun go boom, bullet go to target. Works for Glock, Sig, Beretta...But, apparently, the majority of competitors have found that they can shoot both faster and more accurately with the customized Colt.
It's probably more about ergonomics than anything else. For me, the only difference between my Colt and other pistols is that the 1911 feels better in my hand. If somebody else likes the feel of a Glock or can shoot better with a Glock, my advice is to buy a Glock. Or whatever.
From a mechanical or gunsmithing standpoint, there are fewer limits as to what can be done to a 1911 to make it suitable for various specific purposes than most of the others. And that's certainly true from a cost standpoint.
Hey, guns are a lot like cars: 99% are kept showroom stock. What hotrodders do has little to do with the majority of all users.
Art
