This is my Single Stack, there are many like it but this one is mine. I know it’s somewhat ugly, it’s worn and has scratches and dings. But that’s the way I like my 1911. The wear and tear proves that this is a shooter. It’s not a safe-queen. I’ve shot thousands of rounds, done hundreds of draws and reloads with this gun. It’s been snatched off tables and grabbed out of boxes. Jammed into ports, stuck around barricades, and under walls. It’s broken extractors, and barrel bushings. Magazines have busted apart from dropping on the ground. It’s a competition gun. A shooter.

I bought this Springfield Armory 1911A1 .45 in late ’91. I actually bought it at B&B Gun Sales in Los Angeles. This is the store that supplied the AR’s to the North Hollywood police during the infamous North Hollywood shootout. The store has since closed.

I shot probably 100 rounds through it before I had the stock barrel replaced with a Kart barrel, a Bo-Mar rear sight blended into the slide, fitted a Videki trigger, and an Ed Brown grip safety. I had it set up by a member of the Army bullseye team for bullseye competition which I attempted to shoot for a short while.

I was coached by a friend who was on the Marine Corps Reserve Bullseye team and who is to this day one of the top bullseye, free pistol shooters in the world. He missed going to the Bejing Olympics by 1/10th of a point. I wasn’t a very good bullseye shooter but I tried up until I found Action Shooting.

I was first introduced to steel shooting, and quickly found USPSA. I joined in ’92. That’s when my Springfield received a 2.5lb trigger, a guide rod, the ejection port was opened up and an S&A main spring/mag well was added. I bought my 1st competition rig. It was a state-of-the-art Safariland 008 speed holster and a C92 triple mag pouch. Adding some Shooting Star 8 round magazines, I was on my way.

It wasn’t long before Aimpoints started to show up and Para and Caspian race guns were the hot ticket. USPSA created the Open and Limited divisions and I acquired my B Limited card with my Springfield. By then I had an Open gun and put down the Single Stack for many years.

After I sheared the lower-lugs off my Open gun for the second time in as many years, I put my Open gun down and picked up my Single Stack again. Soon after I quit shooting all together for pretty much 5 years.

When I came back into the sport in ’06 my Open gun was still broken and I had no real desire to fix it. So I grabbed my Springfield and started shooting Limited 10 and eventually Single Stack Division once it was recognized. I’m still B Limited, L10 and Single Stack. Came close to my A card in SS but then shot a bunch of bad classifiers which has me solidly in B class again.

I feel like I’ve only really started to learn to shoot since I’ve been shooting my SS over these last 3 years. When I first got started I tried to shoot fast like I saw the “good” shooters. That didn’t work with iron sights very well, so I got my race gun and started blasting away.

Shooting an optic allows you to cover up a lot of short comings in your skill and ignoring that fact, you can have fun and enjoy a level of success. But it will catch-up to you. Shooting a dot does allow you to learn stage-craft quicker in my opinion. Stage-craft meaning how to approach a course of fire. How to move aggressively through a course of fire. Learning the various start positions, shooting positions, and all the non-shooting tasks that stage designers throw at you. Because you can “cheat” on the shooting you can focus on everything else. But in the end it’s all about shooting and if you don’t fundamentally know how to shoot it will catch up to you.

Why it is that I shot a dot in my mid 30’s – mid 40’s and took up iron sights in my 50’s I’ll never know, but I’m glad I have. Am I now a better shooter? Yes, though it’s not reflected in my classifiers yet. (That’s a whole other article). Shooting Single Stack forces you to address your shooting skills. You’ve got to pay attention to the sights and to your trigger. You don’t have rounds to waste. You have to account for every shot.

Reloading becomes important again and you have to hone your stage-craft skills. When Open and Limited shooters cry about a memory stage, Single Stackers are too busy to cry because we’re throwing way more reloads into the mix than the hi-caps.

I love shooting my Single Stack. That gun just flat-out fits my hand like no other. Caliber? There’s only one true caliber and that’s .45 right? That’s my Single Stack snobbery coming out. I am after all member number 43 of the 1911 Single Stack Elitist Club, The Royal Order of JMB Enthusiasts.

I long ago forgot what this article was supposed to be about so I’ll try to wrap it up with something that makes sense and has a point to it. Hmm, what will that be? I guess it’s really a homage to my first competition gun and where it’s been.

Only recently did I decide to get a Limited gun. I bought an STI Edge and am in the process of working it up into a competition gun. It’s gonna be ugly by the time I get done. The grip already looks like hell. But you’ll know it’s a shooter when you see it, just like my ratty old Springfield.

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