History of the 1911 pistol

The 1911 semi-automatic pistol was designed by John M. Browning for the US armed forces from 1911 to 1985. This gun was popular during the World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War and the Korean War.  The 1911 pistol

was designed to replace .38 revolvers which were not suitable to stop attackers during one of its war campaign against the Moros in Philippines.  The creation for this gun started after the Ordinance Board concluded they need a .45” caliber cartridge for a better stopping power.

J. Browning re-engineered the design of an autoloader pistol that has a .38 cartridge to suit the .45” diameter cartridge with the 230gr. FMJ bullet and submitted his design for evaluation after the Army officially announced their interest for a new handgun.  There were a few firearms submitted for evaluation and the 1911 was selected after the Ordinance Department prepared a series of further tests.

Browning even went to Hartford so that he can supervise the gun’s production personally. He cooperated with Fred Moore to make sure every part used for test gun was perfect.  Torture test was conducted on 3rd March, 1911 after the guns were submitted again for evaluation. One of the tests requires each gun to fire 6000 rounds. The pistol would be allowed to cool for 5 minutes after every 100 rounds. The pistol were cleaned and oiled after every 1000 rounds.

After the initial 6000 rounds, they tested it with deformed cartridges. And then the gun were submerged in sand and mud or rusted in acid to test its durability.  The pistols designed by Browning passed the test series excellently. In fact, it was the first firearm to go through a test firing 6000 cartridges continuously. The record was only broken in 1917 after another of Browning’s invention; the recoil operated machine gun went through a 40000 rounds test.

The .45 Automatic pistols were named as model 1911 and were chosen as the official sidearm for the Armed Forces of USA on 29th March, 1911.  This gun model was the most popular design done by John Browning. The short recoil principle system became popular during the 20th century almost all modern centerfire pistols that we have today are designed according to 1911.

The pistols that we have today look similar to the original 1911 model. The only obvious difference was the missing crescent-shaped cuts at the back of the trigger for contemporary pistols.  There were some slight changes being made to the Colt Model 1911 in early 1920 to improve the gun. The changes include replacement of the flat mainspring with an arched one, short trigger was made standard, the grip safety were made longer. This model was named as the 1911 A1 Government Model. Another 1911 model was created in 1929 based on the .38 Super cartridge.

A .22 LR version was produced in 1931 and named as Colt Ace. There were about 2.7 million units of the 1911 pistol were procured in the United States during its service life.