Review of Iver Johnson Thrasher

Ok I decided to post up my review of this 1911 Officer Model finally.

I don’t have any other pictures and frankly I stink at taking them. So I wont offend your eyes with my poor photography skills.
Here we go.
This is an all steel budget priced 1911 Officer model.
It comes in a nice hard case with a cable lock included.
The grips are beautiful and expecting to replace them with a Pachmayer set I was pleasantly surprised how well the grips felt and grip my hand so I will keep them.
The external finish of the gun is very nicely done. Having compared to a Ruger and others I feel it is as good as a more expensive one.
My first trip out was a disappointment however.
I suffered Jams and failures to feed.
This included Nose Dives from the magazine and hanging up with hollow points on the feed ramp.
Swapping out the mag with a friends 8rd 1911 and shooting seemed to eliminate the nose dive issue at least.
But I still had hang ups on the ramp with Hollow Points.
A light press on the slide would overcome this.
No issues with Ball rounds however.
The trigger creep is very little and the hammer release is crisp.
The pull is not heavy and is actually really nice (I have not measured it) and I was pretty satisfied with it.
Accuracy is good enough for me.
It has a three inch bull barrel and I could keep all seven rounds on a small paper plate at 25-30 feet which is good for me and my poor vision and slightly shaky hands.
My buddy did even better keeping it within a five inch group.
A good target shooter I am sure would do even better.
So back to the failure to feed issues.
First off take the magazine that comes with it and run it over with your truck.
Buy some Wilson Combat mags and use them instead.
Ramp hangups were another issue.
First to be fair here I picked Hornady Criticle Defense rounds to feed through it.
Not a good idea due to the bullet taper and the tip having a polymer filler in it.
The bullet would feed and hang on the polymer right at the transition between the ramp and barrel lip.
I think the bullet taper contributes to this as the HCD bullet is more tapered then the standard hollowpoint or ball round.
So that was my first mistake. Wrong ammo for the gun.
But being the anal retentive I am I could not let this be a stopper.
Ramp Work is needed to make the HCD feed reliably.
Switching to another Hollow Point helped but did not eliminate this 100%.
Using a Geco HP round I still hung up on the ramp transition now and then.
Ramp work will be needed for large hole hollow points.
So apart it came and out came the dremmel and sandpaper.
Polishing the ramp and removing the sharp edges improved but did not eliminate.
I noticed during the reworking that the ramp itself had a taper on the sides that grabbed the bullet sides as it fed from the mag.
Opening up the ramp sides eliminated that.
But now I had the barrel lip catching issue to solve.
Putting a slight taper on the barrel lip and cutting it back just a little (10 thousands) seemed to eliminate that even with the HCD rounds. Smoothing all the sharp edges to a rounded profile also corrected the issues.
I figured if I can do a little work and make the HCD’s feed then it will shoot anything I feed into it.
That solved I looked at the remainder of the gun and its internals.
These are tight guns with little or no play between the slide and frame. Very good machining tolerances to where the slide to frame lines looking from the back almost disappear in battery.
Everything on the gun has really tight tolerances which is great.
All the parts are interchangeable with standard 1911 officer parts.
And the quality of the parts used seems to be good stuff.
But most all the parts are coated with a parkerizing type finish.
This makes them grind slightly in the channels they ride in.
Also the edges are sharp and could use a little de-burring to improve them.
Mostly removing that finish would help.
So I removed the finish and cleaned up the edges with some sandpaper.
Smoothed out the contact surfaces with some 800 grit followed by 1000 grit to polish the sliding surfaces up where needed to just remove some machining marks or polish the surfaces to eliminate any resistance.
Reassembled the gun and tried the trigger group out.
Improved for sure making them very smooth to operate and eliminated virtually any resistance at all.
I do not touch sears but will polish them to make the slight amount of movement they do resistance clean.
I honestly think the finish removal made the most noticeable difference.
The parkerizing or whatever it is I think was the biggest culprit to the glass feel of movement because the tolerances in this gun are really tight so just that little bit makes a difference.

So bottom line.
If you want a Quality Made 1911 and are willing to do a little work this is great value.
Well made and all steel.
Throw the mag away and buy a good one.
And don’t buy HCD rounds to feed thru it.
They are great defense rounds but 1911’s are known to hate them regardless of the cost of the gun.
These are 1911’s and have those little 1911 issues to work through.
I can feed HCD’s now and I doubt anything short of a wadcutter will jam anymore.
But I aint shooting them in any semi auto anyway.
A little elbow grease and IMO this will stack up against those 1-2k guns all day long.

There you go.
For what its worth.

9 Likes

eh, I think a couple more photos would have been sweet, I had a Springfield V10 and love the Officers model, good mags are a must,

good write up :upside_down_face:

4 Likes

My photo skills on a 1-10 scale are somewhere around 2.
Perhaps I can get my son to take some more pics (he did the two in the post).
I am more of a writer than a picture taker.
Honestly I stink at pictures.

4 Likes

It’s impossible to take a bad picture of the 1911! It’s like having a “well developed” smoking hot super model. There are NO bad angles to view her from!!

5 Likes

Ok here are a few I did.
I apologize but you asked for it.
FYI the scratches are not scratches but flash reflections.
And this has had rounds run through it as well; as can be seen by the copper smear on the barrel throat.
The finish is actually mirror or damn close.

Ramp and throat after re-work:

image

Barrel Throat after re-work"

image

Ramp widened:

image

image

Slide to frame tolerance:

image

6 Likes

That is a sweet pistol!

3 Likes

It really is very well made.
If you want a 1911 and like to do a little work on them to tweak them in it really is a good value.
I don’t like using that word (Value) because it is misused so much in advertising.
But with this you can have one of those uber expensive quality guns at half the cost.
I enjoy tweaking things anyway so it served a few purposes.
Helped me learn the 1911 engineering.
Let me improve my skills.
And gave me what I feel is a 100% reliable well made carry firearm.
And frankly I enjoyed the time I spent on it and it gave me a little pride overcoming the shortfalls of the design.
Next change would be the sight.
The sight on it is good but I would like the Guttersnipe sight that Detonics showed us on his Smith & Wesson Mod.39 Custom gun from Paris Theodore.
That just seems like the way to go for a carry gun.

image

5 Likes

Hey I want to thank Mosin for guiding me on working this.
His videos were a treasure trove of information.
THANK YOU

6 Likes

love the Ivers Thrasher. I have the Thrasher SS and have never had one problem. My old eyes didn’t like the sites with or without my glasses so I change to 3 dot night sites. Much better now as far as I am concerned. Never had an issue with the supplied mag function and got lucky and found two more mags for it at a yard sale that also function with no problems. I also added a Pearce finger groove under the original grips.


7 Likes

That’s a beauty :+1:

2 Likes

Great looking in stainless as well.
I am old school and went blue instead but did consider SS.
The issue I had with the magazine was nose dive.
Mine came with an ACT MAG stamped made in Italy.
Perhaps I got a bad one or something but it would nose dive on the third round.
I figure it was the spring design in it because that is where the stepped spring would be uncoiled.
Swapping the mag for my friends eliminated it.
So I got the Wilson Combat mags and that solved that issue.
Ammo used was the major issue.
HCD rounds just would not feed as mentioned reliably.
And a hollow point with a large hole tended to hang now and then (Not always).
But like I said I am one of those Anal Retentive types and love to tinker and improve just about anything I can.
I am a huge fan of Hornady XTP bullets and when I start reloading 45acp I will use them.
They have a large hollow point as well and I figured if I can make it feed the HCD’s then it will eat anything.
That retentive side of me took over and here we are.
I do want to say however that if I had chosen a smaller hole hollow point with a standard taper bullet type I would have had no issues.
Ball rounds always fed 100% regardless of the magazine.
The Novak style sights are fine other than they could have come with the dots on them but I suppose that was a cost cutting measure.
I am intrigued by the gutter style sight and would like to find one and give it a try.
I have failed so far to find one though.
Frankly though this is my primary carry gun.
And if pushed to use it (I hope that never happens) I don’t think the sights will play much into the scenario at all.
I can point and place a round easily at 25 yds on a body size target.
And in my world I see no scenario where I would be pulling the trigger any farther away.
I love this little firearm and it is well made and has all the important bells and whistles already on it.
And a good price as well.
I see you have the deluxe version as well with the extended thumb safety, skeleton trigger and more goodies.
Those that are looking at these there is a stepped down version at a slightly lower price.
And you can get the trijicon sights as well.
But they seem to getting scarce for some reason lately.
Perhaps IJ is going to introduce a new model soon.

8 Likes

Good honest review Brother! I liked reading your experiences with it.

4 Likes

I want to be honest and up front with my reviews.
I depend on others reviews as well.
That retentive side of me makes me research virtually everything I buy.
Recently it was a Mop believe it or not.
And I can see improvements to the one I went with too.
But frankly it is good enough as it is.
I wont be modifying the Mop. Unless I really get bored one day.
Sometimes the wife thinks I am Bat-Tunes loony.
(She may be right)
You outa see my Swamp Cooler…
Stock it aint, nor my car, nor my old truck, nor my lawn mower, nor my refrigerator for that matter.
If it can be improved I will at least try to do it.
Really pisses her off sometimes.

8 Likes

An update on the IJ from my range shoot yesterday.
64 rounds shot where 3 were ball rounds and the the remainder hollow points (Geco and Hornady Criticle Defense).
Only ONE hung (GECO HP) and am unsure what the cause was, and it took a light tap on the slide to forward into battery. It was also the last round in the magazine and the gun was very hot.
So a 1.5625% chance of failure to feed after the work done.
I think I can call this a 100% reliable carry gun.

6 Likes