Gunner Quinn
Line of Savages
Savage tells me this gun is representative of their whole new 1911 pistol line, the details of which I’ll delve into shortly. As a point of reference, the MSRP of the gun I tested is $1,429. This would put it in the high end of mid-range 1911s. A quick internet search suggests its street price falls between $900 and $1,200, in the upper-middle of the mid-range 1911 pack.
Value is a relative thing determined by what a product delivers versus its cost. You can get a lot of value from a crappy $5 umbrella if you’re caught on a city street in a downpour. The mid-range priced Savage 1911 is a great value because it turns out to be a lot more like a high-quality custom 1911 than its mid-range peers.
Right out of the sturdy Savage plastic carrying case, the pistol exhibited excellent fit and finish. Except for frame style and metal finishes, all the Savage 1911 models share the same features. The full-size frames and slides are made of forged stainless steel, finished in black nitride, matte stainless or, as in my case, a mix of both. The frames have either a standard government-style dust cover or a Picatinny rail. The 5″ barrels are stainless steel and rebated slightly behind the barrel bushing contact area for smooth cycling. They have 1:16 right-hand rifling protected at the muzzle with an 11-degree target crown. The trigger is aluminum and on this gun, it broke crisply at 4.5 lbs.
The Savage slide diverges distinctively from the traditional 1911 aesthetic. It is enhanced with deep, broad, forward-angled grasping grooves in the front and rear. The upper front sides are shaved back slightly. Along the line of sighting, the metal surface is subtly lowered and matted with a balanced pattern of softened diamond-shaped scoops. The ejection port is lowered and features a shallow-radiused relief cut at the front, right hand, edge and a single deep scoop on the outside surface of the back edge to prevent live rounds from getting hung up when clearing the chamber.
The frames have a slight undercut at the rear of the trigger guard to move your grip slightly higher for better control. On the tactical rail model, the dust cover area is slightly wider than the frame and its rail section widens slightly again. The grips are VZ G10 laminate carved with a dual-directional pattern that isn’t too aggressive for concealed carry but gives the flesh lots of cavities to press into when you need to hang on.
The left panel is cut with a deep thumb rest behind the traditionally checkered magazine release button. An extended beavertail grip safety, thinned at the top to better accommodate smaller hands, is enlarged at the bottom for more positive engagement. Below it, the flat mainspring housing is textured with long oval scoops providing — like the grips — plenty of contact surface to engage the heel of your palm without scratching up everything else it comes in contact with. The overall combination of layered straight lines and sculpted organic curves gives this pistol a fast, futuristic look. I think it is a very handsome pistol — practical with an understated elegance.
The pistol felt broken-in right out of the box. Its ambidextrous extended safety levers, slide lock release, and magazine ejection button all worked smoothly with the thumb alone. The two 8-round magazines provided have extended polymer floorplates and drop freely from the magazine well when the release button is pressed. I noticed the mouth of the magazine well was beveled just shy of half the thickness of the grip frame, which helped guide fresh magazines home during reloads.
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