ODA 226 wrote:
On a historical note, John Browning positioned the slidestop (on the 1911) on the left side of the slide with the contention that it should be operated with thethumb of the left hand and NOT the thumb of the right.
Which says more about the state of combat handgunning circa 1907 than anything else. Envisioning the slide stop on the 1911 being operated with the left thumb by definition requires the weapon to be held in the right hand, so you're not exactly scoring points with the left-handers here.
And while I'm probably committing heresy here, I don't entirely see what makes the 1911 supposedly the greatest design of handgun ever made. Just on the
"Best 1911..." thread, I read descriptions of endless FTFs and TFEs unless the feed ramp was polished
just so, the weapon readjusted after breaking in, only one particular brand of magazines was used, etc. etc. Strikes me that a design that's that finicky, and needs so much work merely to function reliably, cannot be called perfect by any means. I'm sure a well tuned 1911 is an utter joy to shoot, easy to point, crisp, accurate, etc., but the same could be said for a Luger. From what I understand, the old P08 was essentially a target pistol masquerading as a combat handgun; wonderful to shoot if kept meticulously clean, but so much as put it in the same zip code as a speck of dirt, and it would malfunction.
It sounds a bit like a Ferrari; great fun to drive, I'm sure, wonderful performance, but it takes a ton of maintenance to keep running. A Honda Civic might not be anywhere near as impressive, or fun to drive, but it'll pretty much start and get you where you need to go when you need to almost all the time (oh, and it's so much more affordable).
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On the topic of AR pistols, by the way,
check out Olympic Arms' offerings.
The trick is that she's a lefty, so I'd like to focus on models that haveall ambidextrous controls (mag release, slide release, and safety (if applicable), at least at first. The 9mm autos I'm aware of are:
