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The classic M1911 is an American Icon, and I bet even people who aren’t fans of the platform know a ton about it. If you’re a firearms enthusiast, you very likely know the simple facts, such as John Browning designed it and it served for more than seven decades with the United States military.
Still, there is always something new to learn, so I’m bringing you 19 things you didn’t know about the M1911.
The M1911 wasn’t created in a vacuum at the request of the Army. Browning was a super busy man, and between 1899 and 1911, he created many handguns.
The M1911 actually descends from an earlier design, the M1902. The M1902 continually evolved and changed into guns like the 1903 Pocket Hammer and then later the Colt Model 1905, 1907, 1909, and finally, the M1911 we all know and love.
Speaking of the M19XX family, the Colt M1911 wasn’t finalized in 1911. The actual original M1911 was called the M1910. This was the gun that entered the final military trials and beat the Savage model.
The M1910 is where we saw the famed grip safety, grip angle, and internal extractor. However, the gun wasn’t approved and adopted until March 29th, 1911. Therefore, it became the M1911.
General Officers have a long tradition of carrying a more compact variant of the general issue handgun. When it comes to the General Officers and the M1911, they carried a model known as the RIA M15 Pistol. This is a compact variant of Colt with a 4.25-inch barrel length. It maintains the standard grip length.
Only 1,004 of these pistols were ever produced and remained in service with General Officers until their retirement.
The classic American warhorse originally came in .45 ACP and quickly evolved to accommodate other cartridges.
Over the years, the common calibers like 9mm, .38 Super, and .40 S&W all made their way to the M1911. That’s expected, but we also saw options in 7.62 Tokarev, .357 Magnum, .50 GI, and even .308 — a rifle caliber. Of course, the .308 option uses a custom, single-shot, drop-on slide assembly for hunting.
In 1985, the M9 became the standard sidearm of the United States military. However, the M1911 stuck around for quite some time.
It was a favorite of Special Operations forces. Units like Force Recon kept the gun well into the Global War on Terror. Elite unties like Delta Force used heavily modified custom M1911s for decades after the Beretta’s adoption.
John Moses Browning was a Utah resident, and his family had a long history of arms design. John Browning was the most famous of the Brownings and created the M1911. In a display of state pride, Utah adopted the M1911 in 2011 as its official state firearm.
Prior to the Colt 1911, the United States had never adopted a semi-auto handgun. Revolvers dominated the military market of this era, and the adoption of the M1911 by the United States was groundbreaking. The U.S. was an early adopter of automatic handguns and clung to one design for more than seven decades.
While companies like Glock and SIG dominated the duty handgun market, the M1911 remained a favorite among elite law enforcement units. LAPD SWAT, LAPD SIS, FBI HRT, and many more clung to the design well after the advent of the “Wonder Nine” and polymer-framed “Plastic Fantastic.”
The Colt M1911 wasn’t the first short recoil weapon or the short recoil pistol, but it was the first successful example. Browning’s pistol showed how well the short recoil system worked, and that went on to influence almost every modern pistol currently in production.
The M1911 is an international success. The pistol has been adopted by dozens of countries and used across the world. This includes Allied forces in Europe who acquired them through Lend-Lease programs. Australia even received some that were used in World War 2 and found a place in their museums.
Across Asia, clones are made in China, the Philippines, and both Koreas. African forces have been seen using the M1911, as have South Americans. The M1911 has been everywhere but Antarctica.
The M1911 is a powerhouse of a firearm. Its popularity more than a century later is a testament to its design and staying power. While stopping power is a myth, staying power certainly isn’t.
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