When I originally looked into getting laser sights for my 1911, I was interested in the LaserMax product. The LaserMax units for the 1911 are built with the laser sight contained within the guide rod. Since my .45 has no accessory rail and I never had an interest in the trigger guard mounted laser systems, this seemed like an excellent idea.
My biggest problem with the LaserMax units is how the laser is activated on/off. The switch is contained in the slide-stop/takedown pin. In order to activate the sight, one must extend their trigger finger up to a small cam switch and flip it on. I considered this useless for a combat or self-defense application. Also, the fact that it would require me to replace a pre-existing aftermarket guide-rod made this LaserMax unit less appealing.
An advantage to the LaserMax unit is that is has reduced parallax as compared to the LaserGrips. Also, the LaserMax unit’s parallax falls on only one axis (strait up and down) the LaserGrips have both vertical and horizontal parallax when considering the sight line as compared to the bullet path.
The LaserMax unit is about $100 over the $250 LaserGrips.
With that said about the LaserMax unit, I will start with a short critique of the LaserGrips. As shown in the image I posted, the laser itself is neatly imbedded in the right grip panel. The electronics, the laser tube, a membrane switch and one battery reside in the right grip panel. Another membrane switch and batter resides in the left grip panel. The grips wrap around the front grip frame of the .45.
Sighting is a pain and the sighting adjustments are very sensitive. ¼ turn of the small Allen-head screw is about 2-3” at 50 feet. I sighted the sight for 50’.
The beam quality and intensity of the laser is excellent. Some of the “spray” from the laser illuminated the protruding slide-stop pin on the right side of the frame. I suspected this was because the beam is not 100% coherent. A person could observe no distortions in the beam once painted on an object.
I fired 300rnds yesterday with the sight in an indoor range at distances from 20feet to 80feet. In decent lighting conditions, the laser sight did nothing to improve the accuracy I could achieve with the normal iron sights. At black or dark targets, and especially at the 80’ distance (where the lighting was very poor at this particular range), I found myself shooting much better groups with the aid of the LaserGrip. Outdoors or in optimum lighting conditions, I suspect that in these conditions that the laser sight will offer no improvements of accuracy than what can be achieved with iron sights at any distance.
After the unit was sighted, it never lost zero after 100s of rnds fired.