I have a Kimber Eclipse Pro II (and a WWII Remington Rand, but that's a different animal). The Kimber is a great gun, ultra reliable and not picky with ammo, mine is barely broken in and is a great shooter. Are you looking for a CCW weapon, target, or home defense weapon?

I'm a Springfield fanboy. Love them. For the money, the Range Officer is a great buy. If you want to spend less than $750, Rock Island Armory makes pretty decent stuff.

I love my crossbreeds :-) Carry one every day.

I want a "beautiful" looking 1911. I have several others that I carry concealed, but I want this one to be a thing of beauty. I will probably carry it occasionally. I'd really like to get a stainless finish and wood grips. It will definitely be my first grab in a home defense situation. I've heard good things about both Kimber and Springfield. I also know they both make a great looking firearm.

Not sure if I shared before but this is my first build. I do have the front site. This was as I was finishing it.
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This is my second build in progress
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You can't go wrong with either, Kimbers seem to be a little easier to find in stores around here, but if you're willing to wait your local shop can order anything for you. Take a look at Colt as well, can't go wrong with a Colt, I have one on my want to buy list.

Any thoughts on sig 1911s? Bought two of em yesterday. Haha BOGO :-)

I have and carry a Kimber Custom II in stainless. I love it. I've had it since 2002. I've always wanted a Kimber CDP for carry though. Like all Kimbers, it comes with upgrades, as standard, not included on all other manufacturers like: beavertail grip safety, Schwartz firing-pin block (not operated by the trigger as on newer Colts), skeletonized trigger, dovetail front & rear sights, lowered & flared ejection port, and more. It comes with an aluminum alloy frame, in black, with a satin finish stainless steel slide, ambi-thumb safety, low-profile tritium night sights, and best of all, the melted treatment. What they did was round every edge on the entire weapon. It's subtle, but beautiful and most of all functional; reducing snags when drawing from concealed carry. It's about 13 ounces lighter than my full size model in full SS (25 oz vs 38 oz) but still has a metal frame rather than polymer. The pro-carry has the full length grip for larger hands but has 3/4" shorter barrel than the full size. It also has nice rosewood grips.

Here's a pic:
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Just my :-)

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Springfield Stainless Mil-Spec with a few tweaks. My jewel of the collection.

That's a beautiful piece. I'm super jealous. My next handgun will be a 1911.

Tharpt is one purty gun.

I've heard great things about them, haven't had the chance to shoot one yet. Congrats on the BOGO, saw a few of those deals at the gun show this weekend, a .22 would be a fun plinker.

Both Springfield and Kimber are well made 1911s, better than most. What I would suggest is make sure that you pick one with the hard to change features included. For example grip safeties and mag releases, are for the most part, drop in replacement parts. Ejection ports being lowered and flared, as seen on both of the above 1911s, is something that requires skilled machining. Likewise with dovetailed front/rear sights. If you have dovetailed sights you can easily swap out sights later on. Without dovertailed sights you have to have the old ones machined off and so on. That is something the Springfield above has only on the rear, not the front sight. I'm not nit-picking the Sprinfield, just using that as an example.

I'd love to see pictures of whatever you choose.

I don't know much about 1911's other then the fact that I want one.. no check that.. I NEED one. But i've heard that the new springfield and kimber 1911's aren't nearly as good as they used to be and that S&W and Sig make the better 1911's now unless you go custom built or very high end 1911. Just what I've heard from forum talk at least.

Where did you get those stunning grips?

Not sure about Springfield but the knock on Kimber is the MIM (metal injection molded) parts and the plastic main spring housing. All drop in replaceable parts if you should ever have issue with them. I haven't had any issues that weren't self imposed. I rounded out the mag release catch pin, which is a small allen wrench head. I'm replacing it with a Wilson Combat one, that uses a flat head screw rather than an allen, and it costs $3. The mainspring housing takes almost no wear and Kimber went that route to decrease weight.

That said my Kimber is 12 years old so I can't say much about the newest ones other than the two my BILs own. Both have had good luck as well.

Springfields have never been better. They ceased production at the Imbel plant, and now final assembly is done in Illinois. My Mil-Spec has the same fit and finish as my full-rail TRP. A good friend of mine has a S&W 1911 and it's nowhere near as nice. And he paid more for it than mine. Don't know which forums you've obtained the info from...but I would suggest http://forums.1911forum.com/ and http://www.1911addicts.com. :-)

Most production guns have MIM parts. Nothing wrong with them. My oldest Springer has over 10,000 rounds through it and no problems. As long as it's put together well, it will last a long time. Poorly fitted parts...no matter HOW they are made...are on borrowed time.

The grips are from http://www.thefinergrain.com

All kinds of good advice boys, thanks! I am almost certain I will buy a series 80 (internal firing pin safety) due to a ridiculous policy at work. So that does limit my list of options quite a bit. I will let you guys know what I end up getting. Thanks again. :-)

Absolutely gorgeous! This is exactly what I was thinking I'd like mine to look like. Beautiful.

That's a good looking rifle. Where did you get the custom rail covers?