The Enduring 1911 Pistol

Being the most popular of all James Browning’s designs, the 1911 pistol better known as the M1911, has been in use from World War I till the mid-eighties. It is so popular that even now the pistol is used by armed forces of the United States. Its design has been the benchmark for pistols made by other nations while the original M1911 went on to become a must have for the US armed forces.

The 1911 pistol was used in action in all the major wars fought by the US after WWI. It was used in WWII, the Korean and the Vietnam wars as its name got changed over several battlefields. From an automatic pistol, caliber.45, it has got its present M1911 name. In all the wars fought by the US last century and where the pistol was used by servicemen, sales of the M1911 have totaled nearly 3 million.

After the trial run the colt became a US army weapon in 1911 from when it carried its present name, the M1911. Later in 1913, the marines adopted it too. As demand shot up during the First World War some of the manufacturing had to be gotten done by the government to keep pace with the war requirement.

The pistol got a makeover after the war after inputs came in for further developments like a shortened trigger and a comfortable grip leaving the interior intact. Production of these pistols under license from US was carried out in Norway before WWII intervened and the Germans occupied the country. Even they could not resist using them, but changed the model name. During their occupation production of the pistols continued.

As their quality and finish was of a very high standard, gun collector even now hunt for the models produced in pre-war Norway. From that time the model was replicated with some changes by gun manufacturers in Spain and Argentina.

M1911 developed with the two wars fought by the US and in the run up to WWII and during the years of the war nearly 2 million pistols were sold by various manufacturers who pitched in for the war demand. Companies like the Rock Island Arsenal, Springfield Armory, the sewing machine company Singer, Union Switch and Signal, Ithaca Gun Company and even the typewriter maker Remington Rand produced the gun for the forces doing battle in far off places in Asia, Africa and Europe.

Military personnel across all services of the US armed forces found the M1911 to be a hot favorite. Left with huge stocks after the war, the US government ceased ordering further only to periodically send some of them for re-conditioning when necessary. Popularity among US military personnel for the pistol can be judged by its continued use much later for the war in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!