Of course we make fun of the 1911 but we also make fun of glocks, sigs, all of them. At the end of the day we most likely own each one and understand that every handgun is unique and has a purpose… except hi points. Those are bricks. Here some pretty useful information on a old classic.
Colt’s classic 1911 still remains America’s favorite handgun, and there are a host of different models that draw in premiums on the collector’s market.
Things to know about the classic 1911:
- It was the official U.S. military sidearm from 1911 to 1986.
- One of John Browning’s many designs, the 1911 proved itself utterly reliable.
- During field trials, it fired 6,000 rounds without a single malfunction.
- There are loads of different models and variants of the 1911 — perfect for collectors.
More has probably been written about the Colt 1911 series of pistols than any other handgun. Without a doubt, it’s the most popular handgun design in the United States and in many other parts of the world. The .45 Auto 1911 was the official U.S. military sidearm from 1911 to 1986 — through WWI and WWII, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. To this day, the 1911A1 is still in service with some Special Forces units of the Army, Navy and the Marine Corps, in part because of to its popularity among the troops.
During the past 100-plus years, many manufacturers have made 1911-style pistols, but most of the collector interest is with Colt, where it all began. There are dozens of Colt variants — too many to include them all here — but we will cover some of the more significant models. Many collectors are interested in the U.S. Military Series made by Colt and several other manufacturers.
The Birth Of A Champion
During the last years of the 19th century, famed firearms inventor John M. Browning was working on a self-loading pistol design that had a moveable breech block/bolt carrier that operated by sliding along the frame. In 1897, he received a patent for the design that would become Colt’s first successful semi-auto pistol, the .38-caliber model of 1900. This gun evolved into the Colt Model 1902 and then the 1905.
The U.S. Army Ordnance Corps wasn’t satisfied with the performance on the battlefield of the .38 caliber and decided that a .45 caliber similar to the .45 Colt Single Action Army revolver cartridge was the answer. Browning, working with Brigadier General John T. Thompson of the Ordnance Corps, developed a .45-caliber pistol cartridge that fired a 230-grain full-metal-jacketed bullet. The cartridge came first, and then the gun. (Thompson went on to develop the famous machine gun that came to be known as the “Tommy Gun.”)
Browning worked on improving his earlier pistol designs and, in 1906, when the Army sent invitations to several manufacturers to compete for the government contract for the next-generation military pistol, he was ready. Among the competition were Smith & Wesson, Luger, Savage, Webley and several others.
Except for Colt and Savage, all the tested models had problems and were eliminated. When the final field trials were held on March 15, 1911, John Browning took a hands-on position and personally supervised the assembly of every part of every Colt pistol. Each Colt and Savage fired 6,000 rounds, and the Savage 1907 model had numerous malfunctions. The Colt had none. On March 29 of 1911, Colt’s Model 1911 became the U.S. Army’s official handgun.
A Pistol Of Many Faces
We want to thank renowned Colt 1911 collector Karl Karash for the following excerpt on the early days of the pistol from Standard Catalog of Military Firearms, 8th Edition from Gun Digest Books, 2016. Karash also provided a lot of the information on the various models and their values.
“The first 40 pistols were assembled on December 28, 1911, with an additional 11 pistols assembled the next day. The first shipment, a single wooden case of M1911 pistols serial number from 1 to 50 was made on January 4, 1912, was shipped from the Colt factory in Hartford, Conn. To the Commanding Officer, Springfield Armory. This single crate, marked on the outside ‘Serial Numbers 1 Through 50’ has become ‘the stuff that (M1911 collectors’) dreams are…