Been looking for a nice LW commander for awhile and found a beautiful one today. Fit, finish and BBL lock up is great. Bushing is a bit loose but I'll run her for a bit before I do any changes. $450 bucks and she followed me home today. Will make a fine addition to the ol Colt collection.

Congrats, that is a great find.  I paid $600 for my last one, but it has Millett dual-crimp sights.  She's at Don Williams' shop getting a facelift right now.

Quoted: Been looking for a nice LW commander for awhile and found a beautiful one today. Fit, finish and BBL lock up is great. Bushing is a bit loose but I'll run her for a bit before I do any changes. $450 bucks and she followed me home today. Will make a fine addition to the ol Colt collection.

Hows the machining look on the inside surfaces?

I have been thinking about picking one up just because they are priced so low compared to other Colts, but have heard some negative comments about the  70s commanders.

Quoted: Quoted: Been looking for a nice LW commander for awhile and found a beautiful one today. Fit, finish and BBL lock up is great. Bushing is a bit loose but I'll run her for a bit before I do any changes. $450 bucks and she followed me home today. Will make a fine addition to the ol Colt collection. Hows the machining look on the inside surfaces? I have been thinking about picking one up just because they are priced so low compared to other Colts, but have heard some negative comments about the  70s commanders.

Machining is actually very good. Surfaces were well done and the tooling must have been nice and sharp as there was no chatter marks. Ramp was nice and smooth [under the anodizing] Biggest thing with the series 70 [note: the commander line was never called the series 70 by Colt] is just to check them out well and break them down. I've seen bad 70s" and very nice one's, this is a nice one with a very sweet polish job before the bluing. Still hard to find any other maker that can put as nice of a blue job on a 1911, cept for the small $$$$$ makers. Besides $450 won't get you jack in a new 1911 anymore unless it's filled to the rim with MIM. SA is about the only game at that price point and I'd still drop $100 into one if I bought one.  [I'm not considering RIA and such]

I'd check any 1911 out well before I bought it regardless of the make, I've seen poor examples from every maker out there. Local shop had a SA GI a while back that you would fire and the slide would STICK back upon recoil, you would have to smack the back of the slide to get it to run foward into battery again. Rails were just to tight and were warped a bit.

And quite honestly, I happen to like Colt 1911s,  have around 30 of them and find they are great guns as long as you check them out well before purchasing them. Decent one's hold their value well and you can usually sell them for what you paid for them as long as you take care of them properly.

congrats, got photos

Quoted: congrats, got photos

Ummmmmm, that WAS my Digi camera money that I spent. Was going to buy one after the new years sales got underway. I've pulled this about 4 or 5 times this year.