You might take a look at the Colt New Agent which is available in 45ACP and 9mm. I have one in 9mm. With Crimson Trace grips, the New Agent is an excellent choice for concealed carry. The New Agent has a 3" barrel and weighs approximately 25 ozs. with a loaded mag +1. Short-barrel 1911s often have issues, but not the New Agent. Aside from one type of JHPs, this gun eats everything I feed it and it functions flawlessly. The gun has a trench sight instead of a raised front sight. On one hand there's nothing to snag or slow your draws. On the other, the trench sight takes some adjusting to. Despite lots of practice, I never became very accurate with the trench sight, especially when shooting against a dark background. But after I installed CT grips, this gun quickly became my favorite for CC.
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I'm sure you know that the New Agent is a derivative of the
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Evidently, I drink so much coffee that I can't hold a gun too steadily. My laser point was hyped-up; jumping everywhere over the target. The guy at the next shooting lane asked to PLEASE turn off the laser as it was making him ill. I focused so hard on trying to steady-down that jumpy laser that I got a headache . Besides, I missed the Hogue rubber grips that came on my Defender. It just didn't feel right. So I took-off the laser grips and reinstalled the stock grips. I immediately shot a 2 1/2 group at 25 yards. The best I can figure is that I have learned (subconsciously) to time my trigger pull with the crossing of my front sight over the target.
My Defender is so old that it doesn't have the nice Novak sights that the new ones have. I have a standard 1911 front and rear sight on the darned thing, except it does have white dots (not Tritium). I talked with the folks at Novak and they can't install Tritium inserts - they need to install completely new sights (like the new Defenders come with ). Here is my Defender (left) compared to a new Defender:
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One point I will make for you and the OP is that the New Agent has slim, wooden grips. It is (in my opinion) rather tough to shoot too much. It twists (torque-recoil) in my hand. The Defender, on the other hand, has those nice, soft Hogue grips that soften the blow caused by shooting a .45 caliber round in such a small gun.
But, again, in my opinion, the Colt Defender/New Agents are the pinnacle of beautiful, well made self-defense pistols. I still believe that you get what you pay for. And you really do pay quite a lot more for a Colt. Heck, you could buy two plastic pistols for the cost of one of these Colts.
Has my bias favoring Colt come through in this post? (smile)