Unusual colt 45

[Bill Hughes]

I was visiting with a friend today and we went out to his range to shoot a little. He had an unusual 1911A1 that I shot and the gun shoots better than I can at 75. It has a colt slide but the frame is marked ESSEX SN 43422. He said that the internal parts are all colt. Who is ESSEX and did they make complete guns or just the frames and what time frame? Thanks, Bill Hughes

Information

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[John Wyatt]

The ESSEX frame is commercial, not GI. They don't have a very good rep

[jjroth]

definitely, 70's, as a source for new frames for making IPSC "race" guns, meaning all tricked out.
Nor sure where they were made, but some were 50/50 proposition on quality.

[Chuckindenver]

Essex frames are ok, nothing real special, but they work, alot of shooters built up pistols from Essex frames,
they do need some smoothing out, but i like them.
an Essex frame shooter with Colt slide, in good shape should fetch 475.00 all day.

[ctom3]

I heard bad things about them in the '77, but I bought an Essex frame .45 at a gun show in 1977 anyway. Everything checked out ok on it at the show; disconnecter, trigger, everything, but it was a different story at the range. It would fire fine when initially cocked, but the trigger would not function between shots without giving the hammer an extra tug to the rear. I couldn't feel anything click or set into place. The best guess, without mic'ing every part, was that a hole may have been drilled off by .0001? Anyway, I dumped it as fast as I could. I have felt guilty the last 30+ years that an LEO may have ultimately bought it as side arm.

BTW, I heard from someone at the time, when Essex's were fairly common, that they rewelded chopped frames. I also heard that disconnector problems weren't unusual, but I cannot swear to any that.

[chuckfw]

As I posted on another thread..... I have a Colt slide on an Essex frame sn:39xxx and it is a #1 shooter. It's accurate, and I have not had any FTF or FTE when using ball ammo. I think the hairy reputation that Essex got was because of the many "gunsmith" claimers screwed up the fit when they initially matched the frame with the slide. A lot of the problems I have read about the Essex frames were in fact problems caused by sloppy work in building the pistol...ie: parts rubbing against something or the sloppy fit causing looseness. If one is a bad fit with problems, I would blame the person who fitted the frame, not the frame itself.

[Johnny Peppers]

As they came, some couldn't even be fitted with the safety. Best to return something that is so bad out of spec it can't even be assembled than to be accused of messing it up.