Ed Brown’s CCO LW is the best example of a 9mm 1911 carry gun you’re going to find.
Because of watching too many episodes of “Miami Vice” as a teenager, when I was in my early 20s I found myself the owner of a Lightweight Colt Officer’s Model. It was the closest thing I could afford to the Detonics Combat Master detective Sonny Crockett carried in his ankle holster.
New 1911 in hand, I headed to the range—and sold the gun a short time later. Small, light 1911s chambered in .45 ACP are painful and abusive to shoot. Even if you’re a true believer in the magical stopping power of the .45 ACP—as I was in my youth—you find reasons not to shoot small, light guns chambered in that cartridge. The problem is, if you’re not shooting you’re not practicing.
The new CCO LW—Concealed Carry Officer’s, Lightweight—from Ed Brown Products is designed to be the ultimate carry 1911 that combines features you want in a custom 1911 carry gun while recognizing the advances that have occurred in ammunition. Yes, you can special order it in .38 Super or .45 ACP, but the standard model CCO LW is a 9mm with an eight-round magazine.
The Ed Brown CCO LW combines a compact Officer’s-size frame with a Commander-length slide. This means a grip that is about a half-inch shorter than the original Government model frame and a barrel that is 4.25 inches long instead of the five-inch tube on the original.
To me, this is the exact way to make a “carry” model. Too many manufacturers build their carry models with full-size grips and shortened slides. But it is the grip and not the slide that makes guns hard to conceal. Shortening the grip, as Ed Brown