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Eyes On: the Dan Wesson Discretion 1911

Mike the Mook

One of the most iconic American pistols of all time is the Model 1911 A1. Its design has endured for over a century and it’s still serving elite forces in the US military. This 100+ year old design has been produced by hundreds of companies, but one of the best of the bunch is Dan Wesson with their latest model: The Discretion.

We recently had a chance to shoot one. Our test pistol shipped in a durable hard case with cutouts for the pistol, spare magazines and cleaning gear.

The Discretion is definitely not the 1911 your grandfather carried onto Omaha Beach in WW2. Dan Wesson took John Moses Browning’s greatest design and enhanced it as only they could do. Most noticeable is the integrated Picatinny rail on the dust cover so you can attach a light or laser, or unit which incorporates both. The next major difference is the skeletonized slide.

But perhaps our personal favorite touch is the installation of a threaded barrel. It takes more than just a threaded barrel to call a firearm “suppressor ready” and Dan Wesson has shown that with the taller sights and lightened side. While we can certainly shoot through just about any can, these sights definitely make life easier.

Other features include tall suppressor-style sights with tritium inserts, fully checkered front strap, ringed hammer, beavertail grip safety, flawlessly blended magazine well, G-10 grips and a match grade trigger.

You’ll find 25 lpi checkering on the front strap and flat mainspring housing. Some shooters may find this a bit too aggressive at first, but once you get used to it, you tend to like it.

Shooting the Dan Wesson Discretion was extremely pleasant. The pistol digested every type of round fed into it without a single failure to fire, feed, extract or eject. This pistol averaged a 2.5” group at 50 feet on an FBI silhouette target with Freedom Munitions 230 grain ball ammunition. Better results were made with 230 grain Freedom Munitions Hush ammunition, shrinking the group size to below 2”.

We ran four different suppressors on the Discretion, thanks to our good friends at SilencerShop.com. We have several AAC Ti-Rant 45 suppressors in .45 ACP and an older EVO-45 model, but we wanted a glimpse of what else is out there. Silencer Shop was good enough to send us a Thompson Machine ISIS-2.

The AAC Ti-Rant 45M in both long and short versions is our favorite, but the ISIS-2 in 45 from Thompson Machine proved to be a winner, too. It may be a little heavier and slightly louder, but it’s priced right. Note: If you’ve finally realized HPA won’t pass anytime soon and you swore off NFA buying because you used a trust and still don’t understand the ease of going the individual route, Silencershop has a cool setup called the Single Shot Trust that may be worth checking out.

Grey Ghost Gear

The tolerances on this 1911 are perfect to us. They’re not loosey goosey like an old “US Property Marked” Colt, nor so tight that the slide locks closed after twenty rounds like a custom race gun. They simply found that sweet spot between accuracy and reliability that can be difficult to achieve.

With an MSRP of over $2k, the Discretion is definitely one for the “buy once, cry once” niche.

Features and Specs:

• Model: Discretion
• Caliber: .45 ACP
• Magazine Capacity: 8
• Frame Material: Forged Stainless
• Slide Finish: Duty Finish
• Grips: G10
• Overall Length: 9.5″
• Barrel Length: 5.75″
• Height: 6″
• Width: 1.5″
• Weight: 42.2 oz
• MSRP: $2,142

-Mike

Mad Duo, Breach-Bang& CLEAR!

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