The question many never ask is "if the quality of the magazines which come with my pistol are poor .... what is the pistol like ?"

Granted you can tweak with after market accessories many .45's so they are nothing like they were ... and for EDC carry where most defence situations are between 4 and 8 feet ... you don't need hand lapped frame fitting ... but looking at polishing the feed ramp and changing out the springs and the safety and the trigger and hammer etc ... it all costs more than it would for a good starting point pistol where the quality is there at the start.

Like the heat treatment given to a knife the parts that "wear" on a pistol need a good "HT" ...

If Dan has a Rc testing pin for his work it would be interesting to check the quality of the parts like the trigger sears in the cheaper modern 45's and any old .45 he may have ... my experience from access to a lot of old pistols ( our heritage centre's can only keep old examples ) shows that the triggers on some pre WWII .455 Webley 1911's done by Colt for our Royal Navy were made to far higer standards of temper and fit and finish than the recent models which we have in the armoury of current models ....Colt included ...

There is usually a "quality" issue explaining why some are "cheaper" than others ....