Posted on 12/23/2010 5:29:16 AM PST by marktwain
I have said it before and I will end up saying it again: the 1911 an old design that is more trouble than it is worth. I don’t say it to be confrontational, or to draw attention to myself. I say it because I see my fellow shooters mindlessly parroting the gun equivalent of Chuck Norris Facts whenever the 1911 comes up in conversation, and I just don’t get it.
I am not surprised that the 1911 is out of place in today’s world, and you shouldn’t be surprised either. What other 100-year old design is still in daily use?
In the comment section of another blog, I summarized my skepticism of the 1911′s attributes thusly:
It’s a 100-year old design. It needs tools to disassemble. It has unreliable magazines. It is finicky about ammo. And, as a single-action pistol, it is unsafe for 95% of its users to carry.
In my original complaint, I forgot to mention the issue with slide-stop failures, and the whole internal extractor/external extractor situation. Either of which would be serious enough to kill any other design’s reputation in the shooting world.
In response to some knee-jerk defenses of the 1911 from fanboys who drank too much John M. Browning Kool-Aid, who told me how all that I needed to do was buy a bunch of aftermarket parts and send the gun to a gunsmith, I added:
Why does a reliable 1911 cost so much, and need so much gunsmithing?
To be fair, I have some of the same complaints with the Walther PPK. Which is also a very old design, one which has been eclipsed by more modern designs which can do everything it does better.
I mean, is it unreasonable to expect an affordably-priced pistol for defense to reliably feed hollowpoints out of the box? What Smith&Wesson pistol of recent manufacture won’t feed hollowpoints? What about Glock? SiG? Beretta? (I know Kahrs need to have some rounds through them before they are reliable, but it says that right in the owners manual). The shooting public would not accept an unreliable gun of a more modern design. But for some reason, the 1911 gets a pass for all of its flaws. “Just use hardball” is not a valid defense of the 1911 design, nor is it a valid strategy for selecting ammunition to defend yourself.
And God help anyone who buys a used 1911. Everyone and their brother seems to think they are qualified to take a Dremel to their 1911. Guys who can’t change their own flat tire somehow have no reservations about playing doctor on their 1911. Who knows what wacky “custom” parts have been put into the gun because someone read about it on the interweb tubes?
It was the best military sidearm of its day, and for a long time afterward. I do not dispute that. But its time has long passed. And a military sidearm is not the same thing as a handgun for personal defense.
Leave aside the lack of reliability with hollowpoints, and the other problems. The 1911 is too big to conceal. And the smaller versions are less reliable due to the shorter slide-travel and a tendency to limp-wrist the gun.
Some people protest by saying that the 1911 is the best gun for defense, because the most “realistic” shooting sports are heavily populated with 1911 users. And everyone knows that you should train like you fight, so that you will fight like you train, right? Well, that would be a more convincing argument if those “realistic” shooting sports didn’t have intricate rules that somehow disqualify most non-1911 designs. Purely by coincidence, right? Sure, they come up with semi-plausible rationales for some of those rules, but there is no way to disguise the overall bias towards the 1911.
I don’t hate 1911 fans. I merely pity them, because they are victims of marketing hype and groupthink, the lemmings of the gun world. And if someone sinks thousands of dollars into a 1911 (and isn’t using it to compete for money), well they are just gullible. Like the kind of people who pay money for tapwater in a bottle.
So what if Jeff Cooper liked the only handgun in use when he was in the military? It’s not like he had a choice of other handguns to use. And, on a related note, Jeff Cooper has a reputation that exceeds his accomplishments. The best information that I can find shows that he spent the battle of Guadalcanal as the training officer on Gen. Vandegrift’s staff. Not leading a platoon. Not on the line, pulling a trigger. And his coy evasions when asked about his real-world experience with gunfighting are revealing, if one cares to view them objectively. (If you have documentation about Cooper’s real-world experience, please drop me a line. I am happy to revise my opinion.) I have no doubt that he was qualified to teach people how to shoot on a range. Beyond that, a grain of salt is required. I prefer to get my advice on defense & gunfighting from men who have actually been there & done that; Massad Ayoob, Jim Cirillo, etc. Am I a qualifications snob? No, I am an results snob.
Ok, got it out of my system.
The author is wrong. The 1911 is the epitomy of pistol design and mechanics. It was tried and tested through two World Wars and numerous smaller ones and remains the best choice for reliability and sheer stopping power. I keep mine ready in my bed stand at night in the event that an intruder might one day break in and threaten me and my family. I wouldn’t have anything else.
I consider the 1911 design sure as old school, but so is a 1958 Corvette.
I own a Chevy truck with a 496 cubic inch technological monster that requires me to have state of the art diagnostic equipment just to find a problem.
The older Corvette I can fix without a manual, without anything other than a timing light or even a dwell meter.
Yes its classic, but it can work, doesn’t mean that something trying to emulate it cannot work better. I would trade my left nut for a customized Kimber, but I am absolutely happy with my Sig Sauer P220 .45acp.
I have Thompson .45acp built to the Colt 1911 design, shoots crappy with loose rails, the barrel lockup is wobbly and a single stack mag grip feels wrong in my hands, but it has a place. I love fat double stack mag grips, yes I know my Sig is single stack but I have aftermarket grips on it.
About the only thing I really hate on the 1911 style re-assembly is trying to compress that darn non-captive spring, someday I will convert mine.
Para-Ordnance 45 Big Hawg 14+1 works quite well for me and I've had no problems. Things have changed a lot over the years, materials get better, machining is down to a gnats ass and ammo has gotten far better. If you've got a great design, why change it?
I carry a 1911..... because it is hard to conceal a BAR
IIRC, John M. Browning designed the Hi-Power to improve on the M1911.
Yes, the 1911 is an old design, but I have an affinity for old firearms.
I own a 1911 variant. It is picky about feeding some hollow-points. It wouldn’t feed anything but FMJ until I took some super fine emery cloth to the feed ramp. That, in addition to buying good quality magazines, took care of 95% of feeding issues. Golden Sabers seem to feed best of all hollow point ammo I’ve run through it.
I have a few original 1911 Colts, they have served in 2 wars, and a number of brushfires. As with ALL things mechanical, parts need to be replaced after extensive use, or wear. Any one of these would serve reliably in the personal defense role.
Are they accurate? Depending on your criteria of 'accurate. If you want a five-shot-one-hole-at-50yards-offhand-in-the-wind-on-a-foggy-day, these aren't the weapons you want. But if you want something that will work EVERY time, in a space of CQB, then I have it.
The 1911 is not for everyone, it never has been. But, if you take the time and energy to learn it's limitations and strengths, the time to learn the balance of absolute reliability over extreme accuracy, it is a system that could last another 100 years, where newer designs can only dream of that kind of pedigree.
Model 1894 Winchester (also a John Browing design).
And the 1896 Marlin.
Winchester Model 12 (only 98 years old, but close enough). Also a John Browing design. I'm sure there's more.
bogus....
my 1943 Remington Rand, eats whatever I give it...its trigger pull is superior to any striker fired toy guns....and it comes in a caliber meant to kill people, not small game.
The author must’ve taken alot of bad advice.
Not directed at you, but the author seems to only know enough to make absurd generalizations concerning 1911’s.
I’ll give glock and the modern polymer guns their due, however, there is nothing, and I mean nothing like the trigger on a quality 1911.
The 1911 is not meant for newbie, inexperienced gun owners. If the author has one he would like to get rid of I will gladly take it off his hands.
1911 ping!
It’s the AK of side arms. You can get tossed out of a vehicle at 20 mph, in sand, and dig it out of the dirt, sand, mud and it will work. It’s not a target pistol( I’m talking basic, not Gold Cup stuff ).
I don’t know of a side arm that can take the abuse, no maintenance, bad environment and have a higher chance of working. Also, it has high visual impact. World wide, a .45 means business. Plus you can beat people to death with it.
You do need a small flat screw driver, or knife like for it.
Owners can and do fluck up all types of guns. Gunsmiths are cheap and worth the money if you have suspisions.
A bad mag is a bad mag. All mag guns have mag issues. Got a bad one? Get it fixed or destroy it.
Single action is as safe as the user. It’s a trade off of sure fire when needed vs. accidental fire when not needed. What can I say? They are man killing tools, not snow sleds for kids on Sunday. Maybe knives should have round tips and dull edges.
Funny, If it sucks so bad why is it about to enter it’s 100th year of production?
Can you elucidate on this point, please?
Only a communist would write something like this.
Over the years I have owned a lot of handguns. One of the first that I bought as an adult was a Colt Commander. (That’s a stub nosed 1911A1.) I trust it and I can operate it. It was designed to be dissembled and reassembled with no additional tools as per JMB.
We used to gather around a bunch of .45’s in the Army. Singer, Rand bunch of companies we never heard of. We could mix the parts and they worked. They had a AK like roughness to them, and reliability. We knew that when we reached for it, it would work, near nigh no matter what. Which having a M16 as the main, was kind of a nice modern/old style combo.
There's never been an issue with any of them accepting different tyes of ammo. I have each one for a different purpose. The Glock gives me high capacity. The Springfield is an absolute tack-driver at longer ranges. The Kimber is for concealed carry.
The biggest problems the author seems to have are not with the platform itself, but the quality (or lack thereof) of the product and the competence of the shooter.
If you buy a cheap 1911, like a Rock Island for instance, you may experience some of the problems described in the article. You don't even have to spend a lot to get a good quality 1911. Taurus makes a reasonably priced one that has a lot of features usually only found on custom guns. If you have the ability, save a little more and buy a better quality product. That's true for anything. My next purchase is going to be another 1911 derivative: A Kimber Eclipse in 10mm.
The ONLY thing wrong with the Colt .45 was they were too successful—they last too long, too many suppliers for loose spec parts, too many rebuilds, and they are too easy to mess with for the untrained to screw up.
Even so, the worst still chug right along, shot after shot.
New, out of the box, they are fine.
The .45 was designed for combat, and does not ask you to shoot the bad guy more than once.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.