It's been a while since I've been up inside a GI Colt 1911. My commercial pre-Series 70 Colt looks rough as a cob when compared to the match-barrelled, 20-lpi checkered, hand-lapped customs I'd been carrying the last several years, but even it looks like an Ed Brown next to the guts of a wartime GI gun...
When you've got to kill Tojo, you don't have time for namby-pamby nonsense like polishing out toolmarks or making sure there isn't three feet of extractor hanging out the ass end of the slide. Jeebus, the lower lugs on that thing look like they were shaped with a flint axe.
I'm still jealous.
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23 comments:
LOL, they're NOT pretty, but they seem to have worked pretty well over the years!
To me, this one looks old enough that I think its original handler wanted to shoot the Kaiser rather than Tojo.
Yep, Wartime(ww2) colt slide, remington (?) frame, high standard barrel + poast war small parts. Wonder how many wars THAT ones seen? If that old girl could talk.
It's hard to beat a original US issue .45. The ones I used in the Marines sounded like a baby rattle if you shook them. I never did have one fail to fire though.
My current carry gun is a High Standard Executive 1911-A1. Nice gun and not nearly as expensive as a Les Behr.
You say "flint axe" like that's a bad thing.
Not blasphemy; history. Oh, to go back those hundred years. I guess beautiful things like this are as close as we can get.
PB
How come nobody gets all moist and runny over the toolmarks on an AK trunnion?
I always remind myself that JMB built the original prototypes with hand cutting tools and a foot-powered lathe.
You know those had to have been rough looking on the inside.
Was made to hold 'minute of chest cavity' and penetrate a German greatcoat, not spend the afternoon punching neat holes in pieces of paper with underpowered lead pellets. That it can excel at both is a tribute to its designer.
MC
How come nobody gets all moist and runny over the toolmarks on an AK trunnion?
Because AKs were built by slave labor until the fall of the Eastern Bloc. (still are in the PRC for Norinco).
No U.S. ingenuity there!
gfa
"How come nobody gets all moist and runny over the toolmarks on an AK trunnion?"
Because it is the bad guys gun. If Kalashnikov were American and had designed that gun for the good old USA, Jimmy Stewart would have played him in the movie.
Dave_H
Wish you folks would quit quoting Tam's turn of phrase there. I'm trying to put it out of my mind.
Not only am I happily married but as a newbie to the site I'm not sure it's acceptable to think of our hostess in "that way".
Scott J,
It refers to getting all teary-eyed and snotty-nosed with emotion, ya perv. :p
Don't go trying to parse male lust there, TK. ;) PB
Yup. I'm a dude. The perv is in the BIOS.
My love of the 1911 stems from growing up shooting my great grandfather's old war horse with my grandfather. We only shot ball ammo, but that old gun never hiccuped once.
Dave H., If Kalashnikov had designed the thing in the U.S., it would have a receiver that didn't flex like the bottom of an oilcan and fire 600 yard groups at 100 yards.
It might even have decent sights and a stock designed for something bigger than a hunchbacked monkey.
My Remington Rand shows fewer and finer tool marks than (worst to best) series 80 Gov't, 60's Ace kit, Delta lite, and runs about even with a Series 70 Gold Cup. I'm not gonna tear apart the AK's cause, quite frankly, they don't get me moist eyed. 1911's have soul.
I didn't bother to tear apart the Glock in my pocket, either. Hmm.
J.M.B. Designed the 1911 to be used , abused and still work! After 100 years no one has made anything that works as well or that can be made as accurrate with just a little tightening up of some parts. And yes Virginia the 1911 has SOUL!!!
USN Retired
I had a Remington Rand 1911 handed to me. It could keep 7 rounds on a sheet of plywood if I was lucky.
SGTMAJ told me keep it loaded and use it as a club. Nice piece of history but it was tired.
Gerry
#870270 is a 1943 A1 Colt "semi-transition" between commercial and military production, with the wide-spur hammer (Clawson p.71 pic #1) and with a period/field replacement HS barrel. Everything else matches including the slide-stop SN#'s - which went away shortly after this gal got put together.
I have an original '43 Colt barrel but I like(d) the way the High Standard feeds hollow-points better - but they both look quite similar as far as rough tool marks and gouges go - both lower lugs share a similar propensity for "metallurgical repose."
I swapped-out barrels and the 1943 Colt barrel doesn't have the same feed-problem as the High Standard, so besides being "fully correct" now it also works.
Must be slop in the link although they both look and flap around similarly.
It only rattles a bit if you don't grasp the grip-safety firmly enough to make it quiet-down, the barrel lockup is tight. Nominal accuracy is actually quite good - minute of Chinet lunch-plate (8-3/4") at 7-yards easy for sure if you bear down on the microscopic sights. This is the first time it's evidenced any age-related issues...
Back in my teenage years I listened to a Army sergeant talking about the old .45's in the Fort Sill armory. His description was pretty much "They're so worn-out that if you shake them they actually rattle; but they ALWAYS work."
Forgotten Weapons blog has a PDF of a 1940's magazine article on machining out 1911 parts. Quite fascinating.
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