my first .45 ACP, a war surplus Gov- ernment Model. Over the ensuing 50+ years I have experienced more than 100 1911s from a baker’s-dozen manu- facturers as well as at least half-dozen custom makers. The majority of these have been standard 5" guns, along with a dozen or so Commanders, and a couple of miniaturized .45s. In ad- dition to the standard .45 ACP, the list also contains .38 Super, 9mm, .38 Casull, .460 Rowland and even .22s. Also found on the list is the Para Hi- Cap P14 and the LDA. The two semi- autos before me are family members of the latter two .45s. The Super Hawg Para 1911 is a hi-cap,
double-stack single-action
1911 with several worthwhile features. Sights are absolutely excellent with a low-riding, fully-adjustable rear sight set in a dovetail. The back of the sight gives a perfectly square sight pic- ture, and is also serrated and angled slightly backward to reduce glare.
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Mated up is a fiber-optic front sight, which is a square post of the proper width to allow daylight on each side when viewed through the rear sight, and most importantly, contains a brilliantly red fiber-optic dot. When shooting quickly it’s the front sight which is the most important, and this one shows up quickly and brightly if there is any light available. Taken all together this sight com-
bination is an excellent proposition. I’ve mostly preferred black-on-black sights, however I must admit fiber-op- tic sights are much easier and quicker to see, especially as eyes get older. For ease of operation and com-
fortable shooting, the Para USA Super Hawg 1911 has an extended ambidextrous thumb safety, a compe- tition trigger matched up with a skel- etonized competition hammer and a beavertail grip safety which totally eliminates any possibility of hammer bite. The magazine release is found in
the normal place on the left side, and when pressed, the magazine releases easily and positively. Gripping the Super Hawg results
in a very secure feeling, as the front- strap is finely checkered for its full width, and the backstrap is also finely checkered and is of the original flat 1911 style rather than the later arched 1911A1. The rounded version was in- troduced to naturally raise the barrel when shooting, as the 1911 seems to point low for many shooters. Person- ally, I prefer the looks and feel of the original version. On the slide we find six large
grooves on both sides in front of the rear sight as a gripping surface for manually operating the slide rear- wards; there are also three gripping grooves on both sides below the front sight for doing “press checks” to make sure it’s loaded — or not. The Super Hawg gets its name from the fact it is 1" longer than a standard 1911. The
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