The Operator's slide has grasping grooves fore and aft. Its ejection port is lowered and flared, and Novak-style sights with tritium inserts are dovetailed neatly into the slide. The sights are nice and bright, and they come with white outlines, which I prefer over plain tritium inserts because they give me a better sight picture in all lighting conditions.

The Lightweight Operator comes with a 5-inch, match-grade, stainless-steel barrel and a matched stainless-steel bushing. The barrel also has a small loaded-chamber cutout, which eliminates the need to press check the pistol given enough light. A two-piece, full-length guide rod is also standard.

The test pistol's controls work very well. The high-rise beavertail grip safety is fitted perfectly, with no unsightly gaps or uneven points. The speed bump makes activation of the safety a sure thing, even with a less-than-perfect grip.

The leading edge of the pistol's dustcover is angled to match the forward grasping grooves (l.), while its magazine well is beveled for speedier reloads (c.). Standard features include ambidextrous safety, beavertail grip safety, Novak-style sights with tritium inserts, and aluminum trigger (r.).

The ambidextrous thumb safety is a nice, trim number, with just enough of a shelf for those who like to ride the safety but not so much that it digs into your side when holstered. It engages smoothly and positively, with an audible and tactile "click." The standard-sized, serrated magazine release works perfectly, as does the serrated slide stop.

The hammer is skeletonized, and the trigger is an aluminum, three-hole model that is adjustable for overtravel. The sample pistol's trigger breaks at 4 pounds, 5 ounces according to my Timney trigger-pull gauge. It has a bit of creep, but overall, it is pretty darn clean for a factory trigger.

I am quite impressed with the Lightweight Operator's fit and finish, too. The pistol is free of sharp edges, save a small spot at the front of the magazine well. Slide-to-frame fit is nice and tight, and the slide reciprocates smoothly. The barrel and bushing are fitted perfectly, with just the right amount of engagement of the lugs, although the bushing is just tight enough to require a bushing wrench for disassembly. Given the obvious quality of the new Springfield 1911, I was anxious to start running rounds through it. So I packed up a dozen Chip McCormick and Wilson Combat magazines and 500 rounds of ammunition from Black Hills, CorBon, Federal, Hornady, and Winchester and headed out to the local sheriff's department shooting range.

Springfield's new Lightweight Operator is a full-size 1911 with integral Picatinny light rail that is lightweight enough to carry comfortably for extended periods.

I started out on the 7-yard line to get a feel for the Lightweight Operator. The trigger had a bit more take-up than I like, but it was crisp and clean with minimal overtravel. The sights were dead-on with the first ammo I fired--Federal's 230-grain American Eagle FMJ.

ACCURACY RESULTS:
LOAD	BULLET	AVERAGE VELOCITY (fps)	AVERAGE ACCURACY (in.)
Black Hills	185-gr. JHP	912	1.69
Hornady	200-gr. XTP	898	2.17
Cor-Bon	230-gr. Match	826	1.13
Federal	230-gr. Hydra-Shok	814	1.58
Federal American Eagle	230-gr. FMJ	829	2.15
Winchester USA	230-gr. JHP	866	2.96
Accuracy is the average of five, five-shot groups at 25 yards fired from a Caldwell HAMMR rest. Velocity is the average of 20 rounds measured 10 feet from the gun's muzzle.

When I tried rapid-fire drills from the low ready out of a Blade Tech belt scabbard, I found the Lightweight Operator to be quite controllable. Double-taps and triples with the Lightweight Operator came fast and easy, with less muzzle flip than my Custom Garthwaite Titanium Commander. The Springfield 1911 fed perfectly no matter how fast I ran it, and it extracted and ejected spent cases smartly, well clear of the gun.

I fired several box drills and rapid-fire strings from the holster without a bobble, despite coming up with a less-than-perfect grip several times. I am not a fan of limp-wrist testing. In my opinion, it is not a fair assessment because a gun should not be asked to make up for the shortcomings of an unskilled operator, but the Lightweight Operator was unwaveringly reliable even during such testing.

The Lightweight Operator was as accurate as it was reliable. At 15 yards from a sandbag rest, it produced tight, ragged holes with Black Hills 185-grain HP, CorBon 230-grain Match, and Federal 230-grain Hydra-Shok. The five-shot, 15-yard groups were inspiring, but the true test, at least according to our editorial guidelines here at Shooting Times, is 25 yards. So I moved down the line with my Caldwell HAMMR rest to see how the new Springfield fared.

The Lightweight Operator would have been a snap to disassemble were it not for its two-piece guide rod. Were the author to purchase this pistol, he would scrap the guide rod in favor of a GI guide rod and plug.

Hornady's 200-grain XTP load was a pleasant surprise, with the first of my five groups falling into a nice cluster that measured right at 2 inches. Subsequent groups were pretty close to that, with a five-group average of 2.17 inches. Federal's 230-grain Hydra-Shok load did well, but the accuracy champ was CorBon's 230-grain Match load. It turned in a best group of just 0.85 inch and a five-group average of 1.13 inches. The other loads also shot very well at 25 yards. In fact, even the cheapest FMJ loads shot less than 3 inches.

The Lightweight Operator was phenomenally accurate at 25 yards, but I got a chance to test it a bit more when I took it to the ranch a few weeks later. I was shooting rifles with a few friends, but I was wearing the Operator on my hip. When my friend asked to shoot it, I let him, and soon our plinking session turned into a 100-yard rock-breaking contest. The Operator did very well, breaking more than its fair share of softball-sized rocks and hanging clay pigeons when we did our part. Bigger rocks didn't stand a chance.

The next night, my tracking dog, Tuffy, and I followed a friend's wounded hog. We jumped it up in some brush, which sent the irate porker running towards a nasty mesquite thicket. I raised the Operator, found the hog in the beam of the rail-mounted SureFire X200, and touched the trigger. The 230-grain Hydra-Shok dropped the hog in its tracks.

The Lightweight Operator's best 25-yard group was this 0.85-inch five-shot string. It was fired with CorBon 230-grain Match ammo, but the pistol shot all five factory loads very well.

I had to run up and finish the job, but thanks to the Lightweight Operator and the X200, that hog didn't have to suffer, and my friend had some good meat for the freezer. It probably wasn't the scenario the wise folks who envisioned the first light rail had in mind when they designed it, but the ease with which I was able to identify my target in the dark and pull off a difficult shot certainly validates the concept.

Whether you are a police officer looking for a duty gun or a civilian in search of the perfect packin' pistol, Springfield's Lightweight Operator would be pretty tough to beat. If you're in the market for a quality pistol that combines the ability to mount high-tech, low-light tools with .45 ACP power and 1911 reliability, this is the pistol for you.