ive owned several guns in my day, and as expected i graduated to a 1911, i will never look back. i currently have two 1911's on kimber custom tle2 and a custom crimson carry. both for obviousl reasons, but both shoot flawlessly and effortlessly. ive always loved to shoot but since i got my kimbers, i really love to shoot. for the money you cant get better... bear in mind i said for the money, there are better 1911's and worse. but for the bang for your buck kimber is the way to go. btw i spent around 1000 for each of mine

Ya might consider taking a look at the Sig GSR. It is a SA 1911 clone. If you are looking for something that shoots .45 ACP and does it super well tkae a look at HK USP-1's. The one I had never had a malfunction and the fire arms guys at the fed leo academy in Georgia could not induce a malfunction into it.

Both pistols are fantastic.

Any comments on Para's? They appear to be a love 'em or hate 'em gun maker. I read somewhere that they have some proprietary internal parts. I generally stay away from anything proprietary, but the new GI Expert has caught my eye. Looks to be a solid 1911 at a good price point. I was thinking I could get some different grips on there and it would be good to go. But I don't want to be buying a problem either.

I'd have bought that Kimber for $500 too. Sounds like a great deal.

People who have them seem to like them. I have no personal experience with their 1911-styles pistols and they have a lot of models. I believe they all have the Colt series 80 style firing pin block.

One review, here:
http://www.m1911.org/ezine/POPX745S.htm

refers to the gun as being so tight that it makes no sound whatsoever when shaken vigorously. That's a plus for accuracy, and the reviewer did shoot a nice tight group by the end, but the 1911 design is known to favor slop for best reliability. At the same time, Para claims to have done a pretty serious torture test of the gun (so hot the stainless feed ramp turned golden) with zero failures.

To drive home what I've been saying about people complaining about 1911s that aren't 1911s, the same reviewer says, "The PX745S SSP-SS utilizes an internal extractor, which I find to be an aesthetically pleasing feature of this gun." If you have an externally visible extractor, you have a materially different design at work. I'm no purist, but when people do the logical equivalent of calling a break open single action shot with a 5" barrel a 1911 and complain about the low capacity, it makes me a little nuts.

Their "high capacity 1911" is well regarded for the most part here:
http://www.policelink.com/products/products/338-para-ordnance-1911

You can drive yourselve nuts trying to research everyone's version of a pistol that has "1911" attached to it in some way. The best way to go at this in my opinion, conveniently provided free of charge but without warranty, is to decide on what properties you want your pistol to have and that will play a roll in determining if a 1911 is right for you and, if it is, what "options" you want to take.