The Colt Commander may not be the best fighting pistol of all time, but it’s Top 5 for sure and one of the most iconic.
After World War II, the U.S. Military wanted a lighter and more compact pistol for officers to carry. So, Colt created a 1911 with a 4.25-inch barrel chambered in 9mm Luger that was built on a lightweight aluminum alloy frame. In 1950, Colt began manufacturing that pistol—known as the Commander—but they also offered it chambered for the .38 Super and the .45 Auto.
Twenty years later, Colt introduced an all-steel version of this shorter-barreled 1911 called the Combat Commander, and they renamed the original alloy-framed gun the Lightweight Commander. When I became a police officer in 1992, a Colt Lightweight Commander chambered in .45 Auto was considered by many professionals to be the premier off-duty/concealed carry gun.
Of course, I had to have one, but finding one like I wanted was not easy. In 1983, Colt added a firing pin safety to all their 1911s, and this made the trigger—for lack of a better word—horrible. I wanted a pre-80 Series Lightweight Commander chambered for the .45 Auto, because, well, back in the ’90s everyone knew you couldn’t stop a bad guy with a 9mm.
My first Commander was the Lightweight model in .45 Auto. I stumbled on it in a local gun shop in 1994. I laid it away, paid for it with overtime money, and then sent it and a lot more overtime money off to Novak’s in Parkersburg, West Virgina, for some custom work. That pistol lived on my side for almost a decade when I was off duty and on some stakeouts. I even used it in local combat pistol matches and won sometimes. I shot it so much that the aluminum alloy frame developed a hairline crack, so I sold it.
I acquired my next Commander a few years later after I’d hung up the badge and had begun writing for gun magazines full time. I’d met the lead pistol smith at Para Ordnance, and he insisted on building me a steel-framed, single-stack Para Commander. I had him fit it with XS Big Dot sights, and I carried it out to Gunsite Academy to take my first 250 Pistol Class. On the first day, an instructor asked what pistol I had. When I told him it was a Para Ordnance, he grimaced, gave me the stink eye and said, “Good luck.” Turns out I didn’t need any luck. The pistol never hiccuped, and I won the man-on-man shoot-off on the last day—even though no one thought it possible with those Big Dot sights.
I carried that pistol a lot, too, but I also longed for the much lighter Lightweight model, so I ordered a brand-new one from Colt. Like all new 1911s from Colt back then, it needed some work. I took it to Dove’s Custom Guns in Princeton, West Virginia, and he made the common adjustments that were considered necessary for a 1911 Commander, essentially building a pistol that was almost exactly like—and just as good as—my first lightweight Commander from Novaks.
That pistol and I spent a lot of time together, too. Just like my original Lightweight Commander, it carried like a dream, but I struggled trying to decide if the comfort of the easier carrying Lightweight Commander was better than the softer-shooting steel-framed Commander. Ultimately, I decided I needed both, and I ordered a full custom steel-framed Commander from Nighthawk. Just like the Para Commander and the Colt customized by Jerry Dove, the Nighthawk Commander also had XS Big Dot sights.
During this time, the performance gap you see on paper between the .45 Auto and the 9mm Luger cartridge was proving to not be the same performance gap you see in real life. Modern 9mm ammunition performs very well, and the dogma associated with the man-stopping qualities of the .45 Auto was beginning to melt away, as it became apparent shot placement meant more than caliber. In addition to being easy to shoot, the increased capacity of 9mm pistols made them very appealing, and I eventually caved.
I caved, partly because of how much I liked the Browning HiPower, but also because of the new EDC X9 pistol from Wilson Combat. In 2017, I put my Commanders away and either carried an EDC X9 or a Browning HiPower. In fact, I sold every Commander I owned (raising kids is expensive) except for the Para Commander. I kept it because of our time at Gunsite together.
But my appreciation and love for the Commander never waned, and I don’t know how it could. When you trust your life to a particular pistol for so long it almost becomes a part of you.
Two years ago, I was taking a team tactics class at Gunsite Academy and Sheriff Jim Wilson was serving as a guest instructor. Jim is a former Texas sheriff as well as a gun writer; he and I go way back. We’ve been on safaris together in Africa twice, we’ve done a lot of shooting together and, on one occasion down near the Southern border we had to deal with a particularly unwholesome and ornery fellow.
The evening before class started, Jim asked me to come by his room. When I got there, he showed me a Colt Commander he’d been carrying for a while. Like my original Lightweight Commander, this pistol had been to Novak’s, and it had all the usual custom tweaks to include the Novak Answer, which is a one-piece backstrap that does away with the 1911 grip safety.
When I went to hand the pistol back to Sheriff Jim, he said, “No, keep it; it’s yours.” You don’t argue with the Sheriff. When I thanked him, he asked, “What you gonna do with it?”
I said, “By God, I’m gonna carry it, sometimes hidden and sometimes for the whole world to see.” I changed out the Novak rear and gold bead front sight for XS Big Dot sights, and sometimes that Combat Commander and I go to town together. Yeah, 42 ounces is a good tug on your belt, but it sure brings back damned good memories.
The Colt Commander might not be the best fighting pistol of all time, but it’s Top 5 for sure and one of the most iconic.
I’ve got mine. Do you have yours?
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the January 2026 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
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