Para 1911

Got mine tuesday. Took it to the range wednesday and yesterday. I had typed out before the quality, some of you may have read it. I'll just leave it at the bottom line of the gun I got is very well made, and an amazing value.

Wednesday's trip sent 400rds of mixed ammo. All brass cased 230gr fmj. Not one single malfunction of any kind, very high accuracy. I don't shoot a pistol very well because of a lack of experience, but I was still getting 2" groups at 15yds slow fire, well aimed. So the gun works and is accurate. Saturday I had my first issues, but nothing that isn't user-correctable. First, I got some stupid cheap federal aluminum cased rounds. The aluminum seems to not like to slide on the breech face well and the cartridges balance weird because theyre lighter. So I had a couple feed failures, and 2 primers didn't detonate on the first strike. All ammo related. Have yet to have a problem with anything brass cased (check out LAX reloads, served me well). It ate federal brass, winchester, speer, corbon, pmc... just the aluminum cases suck in my gun. Then a small problem with the rear sight. The set screw worked loose and drifted itself under recoil. I tapped it back no issue (except my dumb*** got a brass scratch on it). I also got 2 boxes of federal hi-shocks. Yes, not the best, but work with what you can get, right? They cycled just fine and went bang every time. Until I can get/test better jhp, that's what I'll be keeping in her. After a few hundred rounds, the burnt powder blocks out the light collecting capability of the FO front sight, and it just has a green tinge or is completely black, which I can deal with. I plan to replace with tritium soon. EDIT: the finish that PARA uses, does not like tungsten carbide wedding rings. I have a small chip/wear mark on the front strap from where my ring hits and the recoil cycle causes it to rub. I don't care and I know that my ring is much harder than the underlying steel anyway. It's a character mark to me, and I don't plan to sell the gun.

Ammo comments: I've fired the most of the LAX reloads, I got them for .27C/ea at a gun show. Mixed brass, 230gr fmj. They don't seem to have a light powder charge, but it does run slightly dirty compared to pmc bronze, blazer brass, or american eagle. I'm happy and will buy again. The pmc, blazer, and american eagles all seemed the same performance wise. All of those including the reloads shot to the same POI with no noticeable difference in recoil. The federal aluminum case, however cheap, didn't cycle reliably (probably 5 failure to feed), one out of 250 fired didn't go bang the first time, they ran incredibly dirty and had far more muzzle flash, and were slightly less accurate. The regular fmj rounds had about equal muzzle flash. The hishocks had the least flash.

Hopefully someone got something out of this.

Conclusions:
1: The Para Elite Commander that I got is a quality, accurate, dependable gun.
2: Cheap ammo is all about the same if it's brass cased (in this gun at least)
3: The aluminum cases are OK for just making holes in paper or whatever, but still not as cheap as reloads.
4: LAX reloads (it's what I could get on hand), work well for me and are higher quality than more expensive ammo.
5: Make sure your sights are tight. It took me a little bit to figure out why I was shooting to the left so bad. Lost some good training because I was focused on why I couldn't hit center but was still grouping.
6: Just like Mr. Painless says, I can confirm, shooting stuff is fun.