Once you go Red…..Yeah, you can go back.
Decided to pick a impulse purchase out of a bit of curiosity to compare and contrast the Red ‘1911’ with the original platform.
While the influence of the 1911 on the Tokarev is apparent, it certainly is not slavish to the original, some have been so bold as to say the TT has some design improvements over the 1911.
I knew full well going in basically what to expect, but still I thought it would bet interesting to try out the design brought about in the ‘workers paradise’ of the glorious revolution.
The gun is a Century Arms M88A built by Zastava in Serbia, a company in my experience builds great quality AKs, they can build a gun. Think of the M88A as a Commander version of the TT with some upgrades and chambered in 9mm.
My thinking that at $200 this would make a great stash gun to leave in the truck, most likely in my bug out/get home bag.
Gun came in and noted right off that it was dripping in oil/grease, while not Les Baer dripping, but still needing a good cleaning non the less. The gun uses a similar bushing and locking lug lockup as the 1911, though they certainly unique in their own way, not the least of which is greater circumference of the locking lugs around the barrel. While a single action, the gun can chamber a round with the safety on, also can carry cocked and locked, or hammer down since it does have a hammer block. The trigger group comes out as a single modular unit, also the recoil spring is a hinged two piece design .After stripping the gun down and cleaning with Ballistol I was looking forward to getting grabbing a few hundred rounds and heading to the range.
The gun is all steel and very thin, I was kind of digging on this, would be very comfortable to carry, though heavy for it’s size, if all else fails it would make a solid club. While a bit loose, it fit nicely in either a VM II or Tucker Answer holster I took to try it out with.
Trigger pull had significant initial creep, but once pulled through that, it broke fairly cleanly and surpassed what I expected. With a bit of work, and maybe some stoning, it might well be fairly decent. One thing that was a bit odd was that due to the cartridge modularity of the trigger group, you could watch the hammer jump around like a Mexican jumping bean as the trigger was manipulated!
The slide mounted safety while not having a positive ‘snick’ as I like on my 1911s was fairly positive and would not give me pause….heck, better than some 1911s I have seen over the years.
Machining was….well it was no Brown, we will call it utilitarian and leave it at that.
Sights were thin and for sure a negative, sight picture was poor, but then again, I am spoiled with .140 - .156 U notch set ups. Borrowed some yellow finger nail polish from my wife and touched up the front blade, it helped.
I had ideas if this thing pans out, might drop a bit more change into it, have a smith stone the action a bit, then dig out some decent combat sights and have dovetails cut in the slide and sights installed, maybe even make a project gun out of it….silk purse from a sow’s ear?
One thing I hated was the magazine safety, came very, very close to removing before I ever when to the range, as it turned out, probably best I decided to wait until proof of concept of the pistol function.
Got to the range started out shooting some steel in the IDPA pits, from 15 yards, I was clanging the steel targets wth satisfying regularity. Recoil was snappy despite weight, my bull barrel 5” 9mm this was not.
Next thing that became apparent right away was hammer bight. I ride a grip frame as high as possible, the M88A has had it’s ‘beavertail’ modified from the original TT, as it turns out this was not a step in the right direction, at least for my beefy hands. I was able to shoot the gun without hammer bite by the end of the day, but took a conscious effort to change my preferred grip.
The sights seemed to be pretty much spot on vertically, however POI was a bit right by about 3” at 15 yards, Was not a really a issue on the steel, but did become apparent when shooting paper, accuracy was surprisingly decent.
So far so good, despite some not unexpected warts, I was kind of digging the little Commie, then things started going south. 50 or 60 rounds the gun had not missed a beat with the UMC hardball I was burning up, then the trouble started.
Dropped the hammer and click, checked and found a round had not chambered, and continued to happen, found magazine was unseated and dropped down about 1/8” ( due to magazine safety they will not drop free”. My first thought is I am somehow riding the mag release with my shooting style, after a bit of ‘double checking’ I confirmed this was not the issue.
Continued to happen with both supplied magazines so that led me to believe it was not most likely magazine specific, but most likely the magazine release itself. After clearing the weapon, I would drop the slide on a empty chamber and observed the magazine unseat about half the time. Obviously there is something out of spec, decided to wait until I go home to take apart and figure out what the fix was.
Magazine issue not withstanding, found this to be a interesting little gun and as long I can get it sorted out fairly easily, think it will make a great stash gun and to be high value. Considering I saw no issue with feeding or extraction that were not obviously directly the result of the magazine unseating, I am thinking this may well be a keeper for intended role.
Improvement on the 1911 design….meh, not seeing it with but maybe one caveat . The ignition components would seem to be far simpler and I can see from armourer’s perspective how it could have some advantage in maintenance and repair, easy to strip, easy to fix and I suspect a fair amount less requirement for hand fitting than a 1911.
At the risk of being Captain Obvious, I guess you do get what you pay for, but then again the Wilson will set you back another 3,800 +
YMMV
Last edited by Hammond; Today at 11:22 AM.
One You Go Red
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