Llama 1911 38 super any good?

[Cotton69]

You dont see a lot of these,older Llama in nice cond.Need to shoot it but seems to be a solid all steel pistol.I know there will be some na sayers but that's ok,I am a glutten for punishment.Spain did harden the slide lock notch !Good caliber IMO,have a Rock Island in 38 super shoots great.

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[gmerkt]

This is an older gun now. But a late production gun in the history of the company. I'd guess maybe around 1992, shortly before they declared bankruptcy. You can find the Spanish year marks on it somewhere to find an exact year. After 1992, company employees bought the company and renamed it Fabrinor, which is the name found on these even later guns. This one still says Llama on it but has the later slide design. The late Llamas and Fabrinors (made up until about 2005) are more similar to each other, and less like earlier Llamas which had nicer finishes.

I've owned a couple of Fabrinors which are like the gun shown in the pictures above, but they were both .45's. One I bought about 20 years ago and it was perfectly functional. The other was a basket case, missing parts, loose in a box, which I inherited with Dave's stuff last year. I eventually found most of the parts. A couple of missing pieces I subbed with Colt parts. I got it all back together and it was fully functional, I sold it to a member here.

It's my opinion that .38 Super versions of the gun shown are less common than .45's.

I've owned many Spanish-made pistols over the years. The three major brands, Astra, Llama and Star. The latter two firms were well known for making less costly knock-off Colt designs. I found them to be a good, economical alternative. My preference has been for the Star product for no particular reason, maybe because I've been more familiar with it. I still have a couple of Star Model B derivatives that I shoot.

 

[Cotton69]

Thank you for that great info on this pistol!.I was really amazed it had a hi polish quality blue.Here are some more pics ,not too good though, bought it because of that and the not as common a caliber.

 

[gmerkt]

It looks like the year code is stamped on the left side of the frame, just above the trigger guard. Tell us what it says.

 

[Cotton69]

Has some markings and looks like M2 .Here's a picture.

 

[gmerkt]

Has some markings and looks like M2

M2 = 1993. I was pretty close. If there are serious Llama collectors, they'd probably call this a "transitional model." Because it says Llama on the slide, yet looks like a Fabrinor. Since the original Llama firm went bankrupt in 1992, I'm going to guess this gun was made in Fabrinor's early days using some Llama parts.

For years, Llama pistols of this type were noted for their prominent ventilated sight rib along the top of the slide. It can be seen that there is a rib on the top of the slide on this pistol, but it's not like those seen on earlier guns. These are still solid guns. The reason Fabrinor went out of business circa 2005 is not because of the quality of their product, but because of the debt load the new firm assumed that had been racked up previously by Llama.

This gun still has a pretty good finish; those marked Fabrinor usually have a flat finish. This is another sign that it consists of Llama parts. I'm not a Llama expert, but this observation tells me that Llama eliminated the prominent ventilated rib in a design change that preceded the end of the original company. In the 1980's, those compact 1911 designs were coming out, Llama tried to address that market and was making changes in product lines.

 

[dangerranger60]

When new thay had a reputation for being Jam-O-Matics. Part of that was due to the ammo of the day. Euro Spec ammo is slightly hotter than American SAAMI spec. All of The Llamas I shot with Euro spec ammo did just fine. But would choke on American ammo. Thay also did not do well with HP ammo of the day. Good Luck DR

 

[bionic knees]

I have a Llama "1911" in 9mm, it works pretty good most of the time. it does not like hollowpoint ammo at all. fairly reliable with fmj ammo.

 

[gmerkt]

I've been looking at pictures of these online. It appears that when the employees bought Llama and formed the Fabrinor company, they continued to use the Llama name for a while. The black plastic hollow grips shown on the gun in the OP are late Llama, they started using those circa the middle 1980's. The company employee owners took Fabrinor public in 2002 in hopes of raising new money. Guns made during that era seem to be branded Firestorm. One of the Fabrinors I owned was marked Max I. The earlier Llama model designation for .38 Super was VIII.