On the right side, you can see the normal and expected controls, nothing to excess. The Savage 1911 can be had with a rail. This is the non-rail two-tone model, and it is all 1911A1 and then some.
October 25, 2024
By Patrick Sweeney
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Savage offered a line of pistols up until 1928. Oh, there was the .45 ACP Test Pistol, but those were collectibles even when they were made, and if you see one on the range you should drop everything to watch. The .32 and .380 1907/15/17 pistols were well thought of back during prohibition, but that line ended in 1928. And Savage didn’t make another pistol until 2021, with the Stance. Well, the Stance now has a big brother, and it is an older brother as well, the 1911. Right out of the gate, Savage offers options. While all six current models are government-sized and in your choice of .45ACP or 9mm, you also have your choice of a combo of a rail, or none, all blued, all stainless, or two-tone. Savage also changes the color of the grips, with the non-rail and railed versions each having their own color pattern distinct from the others in the model lineup.
The last previous Savage .45 left the factory more than a century ago, and that one wasn’t a 1911. Now there is a Savage 1911, and it is a good one. From there, they all offer the same excellent features. On top of the no-rail all-black and all-stainless models is a Novak front and rear combo sights. On the plain two-tone, and all three railed models, the Novak rear has elevation adjustments with a tritium bar underneath the rear sight notch, and a tritium-celled front in a big green circle, held into a transverse dovetail. So, on those you can adjust the sights with a combination of rear up or down, and front drifted in the dovetail. Savage sent me one of the two-tone non-rail models in .45ACP for testing, and I have to say, I’m impressed.
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The slide itself is given an interesting sculpture. The slide has serrations, front and rear, and the front of the slide
The front sight on this model is a big tritium dot, and the top deck of the slide has a nicely done scalloped pattern machined in. Here you can see the front serrations, the slide contour sculpting, and the ball-end cuts on the Savage slide. The magazine well opening has been given a small but useful bevel, to make reloads easier. Inside, the standard-ramp barrel is made of stainless steel, regardless of the composition of the frame, and has the normal 1/16 right-hand twist. It has a slot in the hood to be used as a loaded chamber indictor and the crown is machined to an eleven-degree angle, a target crown. In an interesting twist, Savage elected to go with a dual-spring recoil system, on a standard guide rod and retainer arrangement. I asked about that. The two springs have different spring rates and the Savage engineers felt that a two-spring system controls slide velocity better. After all, two springs are likely to have a longer service life than a single spring—5,000 to 10,000 rounds later, someone can give us a report. The barrel gets a standard bushing and it is obvious from a quick look that the barrel has been machined to fit. The barrel has a noticeable increase in diameter where it locks to the bushing. Behind there, it is smaller so there’s decreased friction during cycling.
The ambi safety is large enough to be useful, but not so large as to be a hindrance to carry. This gives you a good look at the flat mainspring housing and the scalloped pattern Savage machines into it. The frame has all the proper goodies, and none of the extraneous one. The grip safety is a wide and raised beavertail, behind an ambidextrous thumb safety. The levers are large enough to be useful but not so large as to be a hindrance to comfortable carry. The slide stop is standard, not extended as was the sometime fashion in the past. The front strap has been lifted, so you can get as high on the Savage as your personal grip permits. The raised front strap is done to the point that the bottom of the trigger guard is relieved a bit behind the trigger location. The grips are made out of G10, aggressively grooved for a non-slip grip, and feature a recess that lets you get to the magazine release more easily.
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The Savage 1911, regardless of which model you choose, comes with a pair of eight-shot magazines. The front strap is smooth, which is an interesting change as well. You see, the top flat of the slide and the mainspring housing have an alternating groove pattern that is similar to the Ed Brown Chainlink treatment. The Savage has a bit more overlap and it works well as a non-slip pattern, leaving the front strap bare is a curious choice. The Savage engineers worked on getting the slide and mainspring housing treatments machined-in in a pleasing and efficient manner on the slide, then added it to the mainspring housing. They are still working on how to incorporate the pattern into the front strap. The mainspring housing is flat and not arched, with the non-slip texture machined into it, and the magazine well is slightly beveled.
You can see the standard slide stop lever, the left side of the ambidextrous thumb safety, the generous beavertail and the commander-style hammer. We paid a lot of money back in the day for those last three. The adjustable rear with its tritium bar. Put the dot over the bar, and dot on the target, and you’re good to go. The trigger is long, and while it does not have an apparent over-travel stop built into it, the trigger pull does not have more than the needed over-travel built into it. The trigger pull lives up to the reputation the 1911 has which is an excellent trigger pull—just under four pounds. At first, out of the box, it was a bit heavier, and I could feel some minor grinding in the sear disengagement, but after dry-firing, and then test-firing, it cleaned itself up to be a very nice trigger. This is the sort of modern improvement that we have come to expect. The details on the Savage are things you’d have paid good money for back in the day, but now you get them out of the box.
The Savage 1911 comes apart like every other 1911 ever made and is easy to clean as well. The two-spring system is clearly in view here. These days, firearms manufacturers have a lot of options when it comes to making things. What Savage elected to do was go with forged slide and frame of stainless, and a stainless barrel. So, the black models are nitride stainless, and the others are the standard surface of stainless. With the whole gamut of billet, cast, forging available to them, they opted for forged. The barrel is machined from billet, meaning, they start with a stainless steel cylinder nearly two inches in diameter with a reamed, polished, and broached bore, and carve a barrel out of that impressive chunk of steel. The disconnector, sear, and hammer are all machined, the sear and disconnector are tool steel while the hammer is stainless. That means that the sear and disconnector are super-hard and will shrug off wear while the hammer hooks are tough, and resist impact. On the blued/black models, and the slides of the two-tones, Savage went with nitriding, which hardens the surface and also brings with it a certain amount of corrosion resistance. Even the titanium firing pin is nitrided in all six.
Groups around two-and-a-half inches were the norm, and now and then I managed two inches. Really good for an out of the box gun, and one that shows promise for tuning to get even more accuracy. Best group of the day, if only I could do this all the time. Five shots under two inches, almost bragging-worthy (top right). Lehigh Defense, with their all-copper bullets, posted excellent groups as well. Test-firing was the expected boring but fun experience. The very nice trigger made it fun to run the plate racks, and the chrono testing delivered the expected velocities we get from a five-inch pistol barrel. The magazines never failed to feed or failed to lock open the slide after the last round was fired. They also fell out of the mag well when the release button was pushed. The grip safety was fitted such that, when fully depressed, it came flush with the frame sides, not a bad thing. Being a bit proud of the frame is okay, but going below the edge is most definitely not. Savage got it spot-on. However, the grip safety needed to be almost fully depressed before the trigger would clear, which is not ideal. I have large but not fleshy hands, and I much prefer a desensitized grip safety where I don’t have to depress it more than halfway for it to clear the trigger. That way, there’s enough engagement to do its job of not letting the trigger move, but if I get a somewhat sloppy grip, it will still work. Since the grip safety appears to be one of the nitrided parts, if I were buying the Savage, I’d have an interesting experience in cleaning that engagement.
The thumb safety is ambi, and while the levers are not overly large, the right-hand one is just a bit too big for my grip, binding on the knuckle of my hand. Unless you choke up on the frame as much as I do, you won’t have such a problem. The last interesting detail of the Savage 1911 is the caliber—.45 ACP. That’s the norm, and to be expected, but apparently a significant segment of the new 1911 buyers is looking for a 9mm. I can see that, 9mm is less expensive than .45 and has less recoil. Another modern improvement, manufacturers and pistolsmiths have figured out what it takes to make the 1911 run in 9mm. That wasn’t always the case back in the old days. In fact, it was relatively rare.
Savage Arms 1911 Specs Type: Hammer-fired semi-automaticCaliber: .45 ACPCapacity: 8+1 rds. Barrel: 5 in. Overall Length: 8.4 in. Weight: 41 oz. Finish: Blued or stainless steelGrips: G10Sights: Adjustable rear, tritium frontTrigger: 3 lbs., 11 oz. MSRP: $1,350 to $1,500Contact: Savage Arms On the accuracy front, the Savage 1911 delivered really good groups for a factory pistol. Like Jim Tarr, I can be kind of a snob on guns. I have to give Savage kudos for the trigger because it is as good as a lot of custom pistolsmiths triggers. For accuracy, hovering around two and a half inches at 75 feet with a full-power .45 (and my new eyes) is about as much as I expect from an out of the box gun. Had it come back from a pricey, big-name pistolsmith, and only did that, I’d probably be boxing it back up and returning it, But from the factory? Nice, very nice. And with a bit of breaking-in and testing to see what it likes, I’m sure I could get it down closer to the two-inch group size. To no great surprise, Hornady posted some of the best groups, but the Savage liked all I fed it.
As far as the price is concerned, Savage is right there in the melee. The lowest-priced models are the blued and stainless non-rail ones, at $1,350. You pay $70 more for the two-tone, and then all three railed guns list at $1,500. In today’s world, $1,500 for an all-steel 1911 with a rail, that shoots like this, is a fair deal. Yes, you can spend a lot less by buying something polymer, but why would you? Shopping around, you can find like 1911 models from other manufacturers for less, but they will lack one or another feature, like the rail or the extra non-slip mainspring hosing and slide top pattern. And the low-price ones lack more than just a few of the Savage details. Back 112 years ago, Savage lost the contest to provide the new sidearm for our armed forces. Now, they are making the pistol they lost to and doing a fine job of it. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, “This is America, you get choices.” Savage offers a choice, and it is a good one. If I could get the door closed on the safe holding 1911s, I’d be tempted, sorely tempted, to add this one to the crew.
