Para USA - Warthog - Any Thoughts?

[CoyoteCreekGuns]

Group,

I am looking to move into a smaller framed 1911 and am intrigued by the Para Warthog due to it's double stack 10+1 capacity, but I don't know much about their reliability or accuracy..

Does anyone here either own one currently or has owned one in the past? What were your thoughts? Why did you purchase it? Why did you sell it?

Thanks!

 

[melensdad]

I love mine. No it is not for sale!!!

I got mine used. It has NEVER had any sort of malfunction. I also think the gun is easier to control than a standard compact 1911, that is clearly just my opinion, but I think the fatter grip frame spreads the recoil across your palm better and reduces the felt recoil?

 

[printcraft]

Go and handle one. I went with the single stack 1911 compact but
to each his own.
I thought the Para was a little fat to get ahold of comfortably.
I guess I'm just partial to a slimmer frame.

They do look great and I have only heard good things about them.

 

[IN_Varmntr]

My brother bought a Warthog, and now it has been at Para's shop for approx 1 week. The slide stop backs out of the frame and drags on the slide. This causes the slide to slow down and has caused all sorts of problems include failure to feeds, failure to fully return to battery, and failure to lock the slide back after the last round. Since the slide stop backs out, the tab that the mag follower pushes up on has been taking small chunks of material out of the mag followers. So hopefully they deal with that as well.

After about 150 rounds, the slide stop wore a decent groove on bottom of the slide rail over the slide stop and I also believe it damaged the frame where the slide stop rides in it.

So hopefully Para will replace the mag followers, slide stop and slide for starters. We will see what they say about the frame when we hear from them. Maybe he'll get an entirely new gun, but who knows.

Aside from those issues, it's fun to shoot, but not for very long. The main spring housing is too short and digs into your palm and the overall grip length is too short to get a good grip on for me even with the finger extension on the mags. Once he gets it back he is ordering a Hogue wrap-around finger-groove grip for it to see if that helps keep a decent hold on it.

When I shot it, I had to constantly alter my grip because the gun tended to rise up out of my grip. The frontstrap of the mag well has a few vertical lines machined into it, and I think some checkering would really help get a good grip on it.

I'll stick with a fullsize frame 1911. Just my personal experiences. I might add that the ammo we have been shooting through both my 5" Kimber Tactical Custom II and his 3" Para Warthog has been our 230 grain lead round nose reloads. I've shot about 400 of them through my Kimber without a single hiccup, and we also run them through our FNP45s with very few problems caused by the ammo.