[QKShooter]

Good Points
Macho. A Harley Davidson.

Bad Points
Antique. Unsafe. Inaccurate.

General Comments
I got acquainted with the 1911 U S Army .45 in basic infantry training in 1962 at Fort Ord (Monterey County, California).

I saw it demonstrated with tracer ammo (to show the trajectory). The trajectory is like throwing a rock. In the same demo a "grease gun" was demonstrated, which was the same. No surprise, they both use the same cartridge.

We were required to field strip the weapon as part of the familiarization. The barrel comes out and is short (about four inches). But what I noted was it flopped around when the weapon was assembled. You could put your finger on the muzzle (the end of the barrel inside the frame) and move the barrel up and down, sideways.

We fired on a range with it. I don't think I hit a thing firing at a man-sized target at about 100 feet.

Safety-wise it is bad news. I don't recall an indicator to say there was a round in the chamber.

The main problem safety-wise was it was not double action. So it might be cocked (you wouldn't know) and all it would take would be a light squeeze on the trigger to fire it.

The double action pistols (like the Walther P- 38, roughly contemporaneous with the Colt 1911), of course require a long trigger pull to fire the first round. Then they go to single action. Much safer. Also the Walther has a pin that indicates a round is chambered.

I live with my great aunt and we would sit at the kitchen table. There was a gouge in the wood wall sheathing by one end of the table. That was a reminder of when my great uncle (passed away by that time) was cleaning his 1911 .45 and it went off. The bullet didn't penetrate the wall even though the distance from the barrel was about a foot. If it had penetrated it wouldn't have come back to hit my uncle's leg. Instead it ricocheted off the wooden wall and hit my uncle. A 9 mm would have gone right through the wall and left my uncle uninjured.

ABSOLUTELY YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!

 

[QKShooter]

OK I'll START

I'll start!...Gee....What did your Uncle die of...Severe Stupidity?
Your Great Uncle was not that great and your Uncle's .45 ammo was probably 60 years old and not that great either...you fizzwhiz...and your genetically identical numbskullish Uncle probably knew as much about Proper Ammo Storage as he knew about cleaning FULLY LOADED FIREARMS. :1saufen:
And BTW...Stop sponging and freeloading off of your poor Aunt & go out and get a job & rent your own apartment or something. :rofl:
And the Wather P-38 is the biggest klunk of a useless firearm that I have ever fired in my entire life.
I HONESTLY would not take one if you gave it to me for free.

OH...I Forgot.........And YES, A Negligently Discharged Bullet penetrating walls is a MUCH BETTER thing to have in the event that your Uncle had somehow managed to live long enough to clean his pistol again. :chairshot

 

[Betty]

Good grief. Insomnia leads to some entertainment, at least....

But what I noted was it flopped around when the weapon was assembled. You could put your finger on the muzzle (the end of the barrel inside the frame) and move the barrel up and down, sideways.

Yes, isn't that horrible? It just makes the bullets go this way and that.

We fired on a range with it. I don't think I hit a thing firing at a man-sized target at about 100 feet.

Oh, you hit something. Dirt! :biggrin:

Safety-wise it is bad news. I don't recall an indicator to say there was a round in the chamber.

Are you the same guy who sued because he thought cruise control on his rec vehicle (wreck vehicle) meant autopilot? Did you look down the barrel to see if it was loaded?

The main problem safety-wise was it was not double action. So it might be cocked (you wouldn't know) and all it would take would be a light squeeze on the trigger to fire it.

You mean you need to squeeze the trigger in order to fire? Who woulda thunkit! Is the gun cocked when the hammer is down or up?

I live with my great aunt and we would sit at the kitchen table. There was a gouge in the wood wall sheathing by one end of the table. That was a reminder of when my great uncle (passed away by that time) was cleaning his 1911 .45 and it went off. The bullet didn't penetrate the wall even though the distance from the barrel was about a foot. If it had penetrated it wouldn't have come back to hit my uncle's leg. Instead it ricocheted off the wooden wall and hit my uncle.

Those guns, they keep going off, don't they? Please tell me where the location of your uncle's fingers were in relation to the firearm's trigger.

A 9 mm would have gone right through the wall and left my uncle uninjured.

You're right; it's better the bullet go through the wall and nail your aunt in the head.

 

[Bumper]

Good grief, QK, where did you find that? Amazing the things a person can fabricate about one's inability to do something as simple as hit a target, cover for negligent relatives or a weak set of genes. If it ever comes to facing another BG, I hope it is someone as ignorant as this....

 

[KenpoTex]

You could put your finger on the muzzle (the end of the barrel inside the frame) and move the barrel up and down, sideways.

Yup, just where I put my finger when I'm using a handgun. :biggrin:

I don't recall an indicator to say there was a round in the chamber.

Whatdya want, a neon-sign? If it's your gun you should know whether there's one in the pipe. If it ain't yours, check.

The main problem safety-wise was it was not double action.

This is a problem?

So it might be cocked (you wouldn't know)

If you can't tell if a 1911 is cocked, you have no business being near one...or any gun for that matter.

and all it would take would be a light squeeze on the trigger to fire it.

Aren't single-actions great. :biggrin:

9 mm would have gone right through the wall and left my uncle uninjured.

and if it had hit him, it wouldn't have done anything anyway. *runs and hides* :tongue:

 

[Euclidean]

I think the 1911 is a good design that offers some advantages, but given the fact that there are so many other choices now I feel its heyday is clearly over. But what I can't stand is faulty criticism.

Good Points
Macho. A Harley Davidson.

Bad Points
Antique. Unsafe. Inaccurate.

Is this guy nuts? Why do you think all the $4500 race guns are 1911A1s? So they'll be super inaccurate?

"Unsafe" I don't agree with from the perspective that a well made 1911 that just sits on a shelf is not going to miraculously fire itself. I feel confident I could go pick up a Kimber and fire it and it would not malfunction in such a way as to cause personal injury.

"Unsafe" could be applied when you actually consider applying the manual of arms in a high stress situation. A light single action trigger combined with reliance on an external safety is not something I value in a defensive pistol. You'll notice that people who actually get in the stink, SWAT officers, Soldiers, patrol officers, tend to use pistols with double action trigger pulls on the first shot and no external safety. If my foe is a steel plate then it's fine, but on the street I don't want any pistol that combines those characteristics. I personally have an overwhelming fear of failing to disengage the safety or the safety disengaging when I do not wish it to. Some may laugh at such a fear, however, with all the quality pistols on the market that don't present this issue, why should one compromise?

However just to say something is "unsafe" without qualifying it is unfair.

General Comments
I got acquainted with the 1911 U S Army .45 in basic infantry training in 1962 at Fort Ord (Monterey County, California).

I saw it demonstrated with tracer ammo (to show the trajectory). The trajectory is like throwing a rock. In the same demo a "grease gun" was demonstrated, which was the same. No surprise, they both use the same cartridge.

And I reason that a Glock chambered in .45 ACP and a Taurus PT145 and any of a number of pistols chambered in .45 ACP both pristine and obscene will exhibit similar behavior. What the author hopes to point out here escapes me.

We were required to field strip the weapon as part of the familiarization. The barrel comes out and is short (about four inches).

Time out... four inches is short for a handgun barrel? What's this guy's carry piece? A Ruger Bisley?

But what I noted was it flopped around when the weapon was assembled. You could put your finger on the muzzle (the end of the barrel inside the frame) and move the barrel up and down, sideways.

Well I'll be horn swaggled. I own two semiautomatic pistols and they exhibit the very same thing... gee could it be that the whole reason why is that the barrel is supposed to move around so the gun can fire?

We fired on a range with it. I don't think I hit a thing firing at a man-sized target at about 100 feet.

Sure blame the gun. I'll admit I find certain guns like Glocks harder to aim. My Springfield is much easier to hit targets with than my Ruger is. But it's because of me not the gun.

Safety-wise it is bad news. I don't recall an indicator to say there was a round in the chamber.

Look I like this feature too but it's really not necessary. It's only good for paranoid people like me who don't trust semi autos inherently.

The main problem safety-wise was it was not double action. So it might be cocked (you wouldn't know) and all it would take would be a light squeeze on the trigger to fire it.

I have to agree with this sentiment. That is a factual statement.

The double action pistols (like the Walther P- 38, roughly contemporaneous with the Colt 1911), of course require a long trigger pull to fire the first round. Then they go to single action. Much safer. Also the Walther has a pin that indicates a round is chambered.

Statements of fact.

I live with my great aunt and we would sit at the kitchen table. There was a gouge in the wood wall sheathing by one end of the table. That was a reminder of when my great uncle (passed away by that time) was cleaning his 1911 .45 and it went off. The bullet didn't penetrate the wall even though the distance from the barrel was about a foot. If it had penetrated it wouldn't have come back to hit my uncle's leg. Instead it ricocheted off the wooden wall and hit my uncle. A 9 mm would have gone right through the wall and left my uncle uninjured.

This story makes my head hurt.

Eject the magazine and check the chamber every time.
EJECT THE MAGAZINE AND CHECK THE CHAMBER EVERY TIME.
EJECT THE MAGAZINE AND CHECK THE CHAMBER EVERY TIME.

I do this on all of my firearms, even the XD with its vaunted loaded chamber indicator. I don't trust that thing.

I can respect that the 1911 is not someone's first choice for a serious defensive firearm because it's not mine. However, I have to play the devil's advocate with myself... what if I was from a time when the 1911 was all there was? I think I'd learn to like it in a hurry. That's part of the reason I want one eventually.

I think this guy has the same problem I do. He has no sense of tone in his musings so he comes across as being dismissive judgmental and harsh when he just means to explain himself. But I think he's also a little bit hung up on blaming a gun for certain behaviors. Guns are perfectly safe, it is people that are dangerous.

It's all about perspective. If I were offered a choice between the Glock 17, a .38 caliber snubnose revolver, and a 1911A1 and that had to be my only pistol for the rest of my life no matter what... well I wouldn't like it but I'd take the last of the three. There are worse evils in the world than Old Slabsides.

Similarly this reminds me of arguments I hear at the range among the Glock crowd. The latest debacle is about how the Glock 19/23 is SOOOO much better than the Glock 23/19. These guys fight over that, get mad about it, and go home angry at each other.

There's other arguments too. There's the revolver vs. semiautomatic stalemate, the unsolvable service caliber comparion quandaries, you know the same old crap they were arguing about before I was even born. People on both sides let themselves get so worked up about it.

I have come to the conclusion that you simply work this crap out for yourself and if you feel the need to extrapolate on why your thought process is so clever and insightful you log onto Combatcarry.com and let it out, but don't be surprised when you get it thrown back in your face or have someone stomp a mudhole in your argument. Consider that you're not unique in your apparent cleverness and someone else out there who has made a different choice might have, in fact, made a more informed choice.

That is the real value of a thing like this, to explain so others may dissect your logic and point out its flaws. To present it in such a less than cogent manner was probably not the author's intention, but he should not be upset when he finds that the flaws in his argument are going to be hurled back at him.

And ultimately often what we see as radically different solutions are in fact not so different. I myself carry a single action semiautomatic pistol with a grip safety featuring an 18 degree grip angle chambered in a caliber that starts with "4". I'd feel kind of silly arguing at too much length why this pistol is such a radical departure from Browning's creation.

 

[Scott]

Idiot.

<rant deleted>

-Scott-

 

[QKShooter]

I should actually be editing my own rant.

Can you tell I was in Rare Form last night?:diablotin
Holy Smokes...Reading that that got me mad. :badwords::nono:
He "tread" on my pistol!
I came across that on EuroSeek...sort of the sub-standard European version of Google.
The land where the "9mm" is King. :king:
Golly Gosh I HATE IT when somebody slams my all time favorite pistol with total nonsense.
That guy needed to get his tushy whacked! :spank:
Actually it's NOT TOTAL NONSENSE.
Historically, the .45 always put out a big, fat, comparatively slow moving bullet with Mil Hardball & it had a bit of a Rainbow Trajectory :silly: But, a very controlled and accurate one.
Modern lighter weight FASTER bullets have changed all that for the better.
They shoot lots flatter & do not need to expand very much to be highly effective.
If I read between the lines I get the feeling this guy only owns a Walther P-38...which is (in my opinion) an absolutely awful choice for a personal defense handgun.
I even LIKE Walther pistols (in general) ~ just NOT the P-38.
My honest opinion is that it's a total klunk.
I would rather carry a little, tiny, Walther TPH .22 caliber pistol than a Walther P-38. I'm dead serious about that.
That being said:
You should not HATE my FINE PROVEN pistol because your Uncle wounded his leg with one as the result of a DUMB N.D. - I don't think any LOADED CHAMBER INDICATOR would have prevented that. Maybe a LOADED UNCLE INDICATOR might have helped. :biggrin:
The 1911 pattern pistol is an ANCIENT design.
Yes it is! So is The Wheel! & we use 4 or 2 of them every day to get where we're going.
But, any ergonomically perfect pistol that "puts them out" flawlessly & one right after another will never become "outdated" ~ There ARE other fine, accurate, "hand perfect pistols" & I'll love them too.
There ARE more modern pistol designs.
They are not MORE reliable than a 1911 - They are AS RELIABLE as a good working 1911.

Euclidian...Yes, I can see how many folks would prefer a Self Defensive pistol with a different Manual Of Arms. That is fine with me. I can also see how many folks would just prefer a High Quality revolver over any semi-auto pistol to meet their personal defense needs and that is fine with me too. To me anybody that carries a firearm for personal protection is on MY SIDE of the fence. This guy should not be "slammin' my baby" in favor of the (gulp!) Walther P-38. :dead:

 

[Rob72]

If you need an LCI and D/A to be safe.......you probably shouldn't carry a firearm. :tongue:

 

[rocky]

yep, sounds like someone who shouldn't own any firearm..................ever.

 

[Captain Crunch]

Gee, I went through "basic infantry training" at Fort Ord, California, in 1961, and the ONLY weapon I fired, or even saw, was the M1 Garand.

 

[Betty]

Ha, ha - I found that guy's review on reviewcentre.com:
http://www.reviewcentre.com/visitor_EBROOKS.html

His great aunt must be quite the sugar-momma if the guy has had 3 BMWs and has moved to a "Mercedes Benz E Class 320 Elegance" out of "boredom."

As expected, my MB purchase did get me admiration and envy. Bear in mind, I bought a black car with black upholstery, and it is the "sport" model, which has 17 inch alloy wheels and just looks more macho and cool than the standard model.

People have approached me in parking lots and said things like "Cool car", and "That's a nice looking car", and such.

Lawyers at the courthouse where I practice (lawyers are the worst for envy and concern about appearances) have tried to find out how much I paid for it, and have given me appraising looks like "How does this court-appointed lawyer get into this, he must be onto something else I don't know about."

Generally I get a lot more respect than with the faithful old 328i.

Go back to your auntie and suck your thumb.. and try not to shoot it off!

:biggrin:

 

[QKShooter]

Addition To Captain Crunch

You probably know ALSO that MANY an earlier Top Notch custom 1911 gunsmith (in the private sector) started out as a Military Armorer working on "Old Slabsides" in the service.
I think by 1962 there were not many GI Colt Govt. Models that had their barrels "Rolling Around" inside of them.
The guy probably missed the barrel link when he put the slide stop in.

 

[Bud White]

What a Joke

 

[Tangle]

That is the biggest bunch of BS I've ever heard and the epitome of ignorance.

And, what he said doesn't offend me one bit!!! Not one bit! Do you understand! It doesn't bother me at all. Just some guy who doesn't know what he's talking about and I'm not going to let it irriate me - not none, not at all!!!

Why'd you post that! We owe you for that!

 

[P95Carry]

I am late to this thread!!

Know what - I cannot add a darned thing - you guys have said it all :biggrin:

 

[Phil Elmore]

A guy once posted on my forum regarding why he did not prefer the 1911 .45. Some of his points didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. As it turns out, he had never owned a gun in his life.

 

[P95Carry]

Haha - that wouldn't be a first Phil!

Reminds me of some of the juvenile keyboard commandos - who read these forums and then write as if the were mature gun owners! Guess it helps them get their rocks off :biggrin:

 

[RSSZ]

Can't recall any military,LE agency,or private contractor ever teaching marksmanship with the old .45 >>AT 100 FEET !! This wacco is overfull of BS.--------

 

[CLASS3NH]

You've all hit that guy right on his dead head!! I wish I found this a bit earlier, cuz you've said it all.........what a whacko