The winter weather in Ohio was brutal on the day of the test (seven degrees and snowing), so I elected to test the gun in my club's indoor range, which limited my testing distance to 50 feet. While it is nice to know how well a gun will shoot from the bench at 25 yards, such match-grade accuracy is not essential for a fighting pistol. In reality, shooting the gun off-hand at 50 feet is a much better test for a gun that will be drawn and used most likely inside seven yards.

The UCCP liked the Hornady 230-grain TAP CQ ammo.

Yes, I know--some will say that this is more of a test of the shooter than the gun, but I can assure you that I am not such a good shooter that I can make an inaccurate gun look accurate. I pulled together a collection of ammunition that is street proven and shot five-round groups off-hand at 50 feet. The results are shown in the accompanying chart.

After a bit of practice, it was no problem to keep my groups inside the three-inch Birchwood Casey Shoot-N-C target dots, which tells me the gun is more than accurate enough for defense.

The Unertl pistol functioned flawlessly with a wide range of hollowpoints.

Be leery of sending off your 1911 pistol for accurizing, as it has been my experience that the tighter and more accurate you make a 1911, the less reliable the gun becomes. If the gun is for competition only, then such a modification is no problem. But give careful thought as to what it is you require from a personal-defense gun, and you will realize that the needed accuracy is not that great.

I completed my test by shooting several hundred rounds of various hollowpoints through the gun, completing a number of El Presidente and Bill Drills. I uswed a Wilson Combat Tactical Assault holster for the testing, and, as with all Wilson holsters, the fit was flawless and the gun broke cleanly from the rig each and every time with no drag. The accompanying Wilson magazine pouch also proved to be a quality product. The break-open front pouch held the spare magazine solidly in place throughout the afternoon of testing but cleanly released the magazine each and every time.

SPECIFICATIONS Unertl Concealed Carry Pistol
AMMO TYPE	GROUP SIZE (ins.)
Cor-Bon 185-gr. DPX	3 1/2
Winchester 185-gr. Silvertip	2 3/4
Winchester 230-gr. SXT	3 1/2
Hornady 230-gr. XTP	1 ¾ (1.0 w/o flier)
Note: Five-round groups fired off-hand at 50 feet.

The only problem I experienced with the gun was traced back to a magazine that malfunctioned on the last round. For the remainder of the test I just loaded seven rounds in this same magazine, and it functioned flawlessly. Some say that 1911 magazines should only hold seven rounds anyway, but that is up to you.