That's a quarter behind that seven shot group.
I think there are three reasons the GI 1911 was considered inaccurate.
1) Shooting handguns accurately is much harder than shooting rifles accurately.
2) Related to #1, the military doesn’t spend a lot of training time on pistol marksmanship. Of the skill soldiers need, it’s not that important.
3) The GI issue 1911 had *horrible* sights. The easiest accuracy upgrade that can be done to a GI issue 1911 is to put some decent sights on it.
That's a quarter behind that seven shot group.
If the sum total of your training with a weapon that you had probably never picked up or touched before...consisted of a 3-6 hour block of classroom instruction, followed by maybe...maybe a fifty round shoot at the range...what would you expect?
It was convenient to blame the inherent "loose" tolerances of the 1911 for a perceived gross inaccuracy of the weapon, but the "mental" tolerances of the shooter contributed more than anything.
Believe me, I speak from much, much experience...having conducted extensive training of troops on the 1911.
Nobody I trained ever failed to qualify with the weapon, using the US Army requirements and specifications.
Including the so-called "small-handed" weak females and a few males.
Exception being weak-hand shoot...which is difficult to overcome without a lot of training and shooting.
An accurate weapon is in the mind of the shooter as well as in the characteristics of the weapon.
I can shoot not less 45 out of 50 with any 1911 in existence and will make the claim that I can shoot 50 out of 50, if I have a ten-round familiarization with it.
It's all in the head.
A shooter with average talent can stay in the black all day at 25 meters. A well-tuned hardball .45 match pistol can stay within the 10-ring at 50 meters without a flier.
If you can't shoot a .45 well, you can't shoot.
Needed to learn to put some pressure on the trigger while aiming. Otherwise the jerk does make one think the aim is off. (But it was me.)
Like anything, it takes practice.
I carried a 1911 as a topside watch when the boomer was in port. I never fired it or removed it from its holster.
These are pointless. A trained shooter, able to squeeze off shots slowly, at a range under no pressure means NOTHING to a GI under fire or fighting for his life.
Oh Really???! Say that to my face at 50 yrds and I’ll put all 9 in your face said the Corpsman!
"I saids!"
lol
Second round I qualified for this.
Maintained it for 23 years with every worn out .45 (and Baretta) they could hand me.
While I’ve heard enough accounts of good accuracy from 1911s that I believe it, my own personal experience (which consists of just one popular, but inexpensive brand) has been less than stellar. Mine doesn’t put groups on the target. It patterns like a shotgun. As a general rule, I never sell firearms and I won’t sell it, but I hate the damn thing and I’ll probably never buy another 1911 because of it.
Is it possible that much of the “inaccuracy” was caused by the fact the blowback from the 0.45 ACP round on the M1911 is something a of pistol shooters weren’t used to?
I entered the army just as units were switching to the M9. We hit the pop-up range, and most of us fired Expert right out of the gate - including several who had never fired a pistol.
Why were we so good? The sentiment from more experienced soldiers was the range was set up for the M1911, and the M9 was apparently more accurate.
I know many will pooh pooh the story...some legitimately will point out the 1911s were old while the M9s were new...but I think it should be inherently obvious that the larger caliber will be harder to control. I’ve got a 1911 frame that fires .22LR...and I feel that I’m much more accurate with it, than a .45 1911, again for recoil and control related reasons. Probably the reason why college pistol teams don’t use .45s (in addition to cost).
I love the 1911, though. I just can’t pretend its more accurate than smaller caliber pistols.
I had a 1st Sgt who had been seriously wounded in Viet Nam. He was assigned to a pistol range during his recovery. He obviously burned through a lot of ammunition there. Whenever anyone would complain a pistol was inaccurate, he would fire one or two shots and after, keyhole all remaining shots. A box of 50 rounds would result in a hole in the center of the target approximately the size of an average coffee mug.
One day, on the rifle range, he was challenged to see what he could do with a .45 at the 200. The bet was to put 3 of 5 rounds on the paper. He placed 5 of 5 in the scoring rings. He did the same at the 300. I know what you are thinking and I would have thought the same except I witnessed it.
He was quite good with a rifle too but preferred the pistol.
I have an actual GI 1911A1 Colt made in 1943 (US Government). I bought some 45 ACP ammo from WWII back in the late 90s (60 rounds) and I shot about 100 rounds or so. Very smoky and very corrosive. They sat around for years and when I got into reloading and specs and stuff,
I decided to dewat some of it to see what’s up.
Inspected the primers, pulled the slugs and magnified and inspected the inside of the case. The first thing I found out is that you cannot use a momentum puller. You have to have a very good bullet puller rig - I started with a 45 caliber but some of them were so tight the collet actually deformed the copper and lead bullet enough so that it wouldn’t pull. I had to finally go to a 44 cal collet to get a tight enough grip and with a lot of force could pull them.
Why? Because a lot of the manufacturers sealed the primers and also put a sealant on the bullet which over time had solidified solidly locking in the bullet. I even wrote an article for the KTOG owners group about it with pictures and all.
What this told me is that I was taking my life in my hands when I shot that ammo - the internal pressure on the cases was very likely tremendous. Since then I have been dewatting them as I get free time.
A bad workman always blames his tools.
The mechanical accuracy of every 1911A1 I encountered while in the service was just fine. Sometimes sights were off, but they grouped well enough. I had a secondary MOS as a marksmanship instructor, so I got to work with a lot of shooters, with both the 1911A1 and the M9.
Handguns in modern battle are mostly tits on a boar, and unfortunately most Marines and Soldiers would rather hit the gymn than the range.
If President Trump appointed me military sidearm czar, I’d let every officer and NCO choose their own sidearm in either .40, .45 or 9mm and write off one purchase every two years on their taxes, and I’d take all the money spent on diversity training and use it to by ammo that any service member would get to use on the range. I’d also give those who qualify expert an extra banana or two in the old paycheck, and make concealed carry possible in every state for those who qualify.
There are all sorts of accounts where police shoot 100-200 rounds at a suspect to only hit them 3 or 4 times. They are using modern 9mm or .40cal. To paraphrase Bruce Lee, ‘targets don’t shoot back.’ Accuracy changes drastically when being shot at.
My Kimber hits where the nice little built in lazer points to.