years ago when Todd racked up the best score of the match, beating all the ultra-light triggered custom cocked and locked pistols of the Enhanced Service Pistol and Custom Defensive Pistol categories. His gun? The fancy grade Para LDA, identical to the one you can order through your dealer.
Yeah, Jarrett's a professional shooter who works for Para-Ordnance. That's not the point. The point is, he's winning with that LDA he gets paid to shoot, and winning against the very best, including other great champions who are paid to shoot something else.
If you're a 1911 fan, the single stack LDA will accept any magazine that works in your GI .45 automatic. I'm partial to the Wilson-Rodgers in my own Para 7-45. Your high-cap LDA will take the magazines from your old high-cap Para single-action of the same size and caliber. Best of all, the LDA will fit your regular 1911 holsters.
Well, most of them. If your 1911 holster has a safety strap, it was probably cut to fit properly when the gun was cocked and locked. The LDA rides with the hammer down, and its big hammer spur may keep the strap from fastening. If you require or prefer a safety strap holster (and if you do, I'm on your side) you can order your gun with what Para-Ordnance calls the LE (law enforcement) hammer. This has a flat and spurless configuration, much like what you see as factory equipment on the smaller LDA models intended for easy concealed carry.
Little, Delightful Attributes
One thing that bothered me over the decades on three police departments where I carried a cocked and locked Colt .45 automatic in an exposed duty holster was that in rain or snow, the firing pin area of the pistol was exposed to the elements. With the hammer always down, the LDA avoids that.
In the same setting with the exposed uniform gun, there was always the "Oh, my God, your gun is cocked" thing. I eventually got a Don Hume hammer shield designed for service revolver holsters and put it over the strap on my 1911 duty rig. This helped protect from the elements, and shielded the cocked hammer from the eyes of people who got nervous about things they didn't understand. But the point is, you don't have any of that with the LDA.
The bottom line is simple: whatever LDA stands for, this double-action-only 1911 has proven itself. Gun purchasers are voting for it with their wallets, and for very good reason. As I said in print about five years ago when it first came out, the Para-Ordnance LDA is an idea whose time has come.
