Boomsticks: The Once and Future Pistol.

In the annals of the sidearm, there are many famous handguns. Maybe four have reached the status of Icon; immediately grasped and understood by anyone with even a modicum of exposure to Pop Culture, whether they grok which end the bullet comes out of or not: The Colt Model 1873 (aka "The Peacemaker"); the German P-08, known popularly as the "Luger"; the Glock, of rap lyric and Tommy Lee Jones one-liner fame; and the M1911 pistol, generically termed "The .45".

For a nonagenarian, this is a gun that sure gets around alot. It's the preferred sidearm of quite a few of the more well-known teams of trigger-pullers and door-kickers. Most action pistol disciplines have special classes for non-1911-pattern guns, to allow for an interesting fight for second place. It's still amazingly popular among both casual target shooters and CCW permit holders, and it completely dominates the centerfire stages of bullseye competition. It's still made by Colt, and currently cloned by: Kimber, SIGarms, Springfield Armory, Rock River Arms, Rock Island, Charles Daly, Dan Wesson, Smith & Wesson, Taurus, Para Ordnance, and more. Entire boutique houses, such as Wilson Combat, Les Baer, Ed Brown, STI, and Nighthawk Custom have sprung up around the business of offering handmade deluxe 1911's. Custom parts makers like Nowlin, Kart, Chip McCormick, and Greider Precision would probably dry up and blow away were it not for incessant demand for parts to improve on, specialize, or personalize this old military sidearm.

One of the most sought-after 1911 models on the market right now is Springfield Armory's Professional model. Originally designed to meet the needs of FBI SWAT and their Hostage Rescue Team, this is a no-BS fighting pistol that emerged on top after a thoroughgoing selection procedure that left many pistols from big-name custom houses sucking wind by the side of the road. The Professionals are hand-built in Springfield's custom shop, which is run under the watchful eye of Dave Williams, and lend their aura to lesser, mass-produced guns like the TRP and Loaded 1911 models that come off of Springfield's Geneseo, IL production line. Springfield may not be getting rich off such labor-intensive guns, but the halo effect cast over the rest of the product line by the Hostage Rescue Team pistol more than makes up for that in publicity alone.

Eschewing such competition-oriented touches as a full-length guide rod (a feature which provides no measurable accuracy benefit, may be a detriment to reliability, and complicates takedown) and forward cocking serrations (useless outside certain range-safety procedures during some types of competition), the Pro instead emphasizes ruggedness and reliability, while still offering match-grade accuracy. As an essentially hand-built gun (although not truly bespoke, since you can have any color you want as long as it's Black-T, and the guns are built to the FBI's specs, not yours,) the Pro is expensive but worth every penny, as one of the fastest-shooting, most accurate, hardest-hitting CCW-able pistols on the market. All-in-all, the Professional Model is very nearly the current pinnacle of evolution for the 1911-pattern fighting pistol.

Now, of course, with an expensive pistol like this, one would never dare risk exposing it to anything so crass as holster wear.


Further, it must be understood that such a tightly-fitted and highly-accurate pistol mustn't be exposed to dirt, lest it impede the gun's functioning (and resale value.)


Remember, too, that this finicky match-grade machine requires careful cleaning after firing, to ensure proper functioning.


Of course, that was all a joke: What really needs to be remembered is that here is a pistol that served American soldiers for seventy years in every hellhole on earth, from the mud of the Meuse-Argonne to the snows of Bastogne; from the dry cold of Chosin to the dank swamps of the Mekong Delta. The Pro is simply a current iteration of those guns; a weapon made of tool steel and now coated with teflon, to boot. This may be why the USMC just placed an emergency order for a bunch of them: What worked then works now, and while we wait for the anti-grav device to come along to obsolete the wheel, we can also limp along with these things until the boys at Sandia perfect the Death Ray. Until that day, this'll make for a pretty fair stand-in.