Para USA's Black Ops 1911 Part 2

Hmmm… It isn’t often that we put a firearm through a live fire workout and it looks as good at the end as it did when we began. Not even frame dust cover scuff marks on the slide or in the grooves of the rails. Powder residue wiped right off. Easy hold, tight hold… the Para Black Ops 1911 cycled without a hiccup without so much as a dent in a case mouth. Empties dumped on the ground between 6 and 9 feet, depending on type of ammo.

Not a fussy eater

With a variety of defensive ammo on hand, the Black Ops was shot with same and mixed ammo magazines. Only the TAP ammo is rated +P. Below, in order of appearance above, with the exception of the Remington ball ammo which is not pictured.

The loads chronographed at or very near rated velocity. I anticipate the email, “Dude, Why the 7 yards and what’s with the lousy group? My Russian Nagant shoots 1″ groups at 200 yards, with open sites, all day”.  We’ll, lets see…

A little diversion

If you live in Wiki land, they will tell you that it is a drill distance because that is how far a human can travel in 1.5 seconds and how long it takes a trained person to draw a firearm and shoot into a 10″ circle. Upon examination the thought occurred to me that  an Adrian Peterson 1.5 seconds might be a bit different than a Logan Mankins’s 1.5 seconds. Additionally, is that a young whippersnapper combat ready troop or yours truly at 5 AM and before coffee. And if that were the case, wouldn’t I want to extend that range to maybe 8 yards to give myself some breathing room?

The next logic applied to the 7 yard distance is that is an official law enforcement drill distance because according to a 1981 police department report that was a compilation of data from 6,000 attacks on police that occurred over a span of ten years. 75% of the attacks, where personnel survived, took place inside of a distance of 20 feet. In cases where personnel did not survive, 90% of the attacks took place within 15 feet with 81% inside 6 feet. Firearms were used in only 60% of the attacks and knives accounted for only 5% of the balance.

Which applied to my reason for selecting 7 yards. None of the above. Again, I don’t need the thrill of letting an attacker close the distance until my life depends on split second reaction time. By the same token, I don’t make arrests and try to cuff suspects or make traffic stops. So the proximities in the study have little bearing on my life. But 7 yards is about the distances I can see, from a position in a comfy chair to a point of entry someone breaking in might use. Or the view from the stairs to the upstairs bedroom, or the distance between the garage entry door to the door to the house. Living in a rural setting there are of course greater distances, but few that would be defined as an eminent attack on person or home.

Practical accuracy

Setting aside the basis for training distance, the objective in most cases is to plop all of the shots into a 8″ – 10″ circle at engagement distances. Below, the squares are 1″, but the groups were shot slow fire and at my choosing. The Black Ops actually worked well as a point shooter with follow on shots where the 8″ rule would not be a problem in a stressful situation.

I have at least three personal 1911s that will tightly cloverleaf at this distance. One is a Colt Gold Cup and the other is the product of a few years of being slicked over. The good news is that the Para USA Black Ops is an accurate firearm in the hands of a practiced shooter and it seems to be that way regardless ammunition selected. The single stack grip is comfortable, if a bit narrow, but the 1911 is an easy gun to shoot. The Black ops is no exception.

Anything I would like to see improved?

I’d like to see a cleaner trigger with lighter pull. Maybe, because excellent triggers are almost synonymous with the 1911, that even very minor roughness stands out, as does a relatively heavy 4 1/2 lb trigger pull. Aesthetically, a clean up of logos and ATF required markings would be nice. The “Para” on the left side of the slide appears to have been applied with an etch process and the depth runs from deeps to barely there. Picky, but hardly a discount priced firearm. While the Black Ops has more features than a bare bones $829 Ruger SR1911 (Tritium sights, Ambi safety, accessory rail, etc), it does not have quite the finesse finishing of the $1,299 Remington’s R1 Carry.

Generally, the Black Ops has all of the right pieces and all the right fitting. Very minor tweaking would make it optimal. The Para USA Black Ops has accuracy and reliability expected in a quality defensive firearm and there is every indication it would do so over the long haul. The Para USA lifetime warrantee is a pretty good statement of a manufacturer’s confidence in a product.

Para USA’s Black Ops 1911 Part 1
Para USA’s Black Ops 1911 Part 2