Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 100 years

one of my favorite pistols is having a birthday. I have owned it for nearly half of that life span. My Colt 1911 govt was manufactured in 1916. The old gal has been my constant companion for almost as long as my wife and I have been married. I aint parting with either!

Cool!!!

That's great, and a great handgun!

Found a pic of a Colt 1911 - manufactured in 1916.

<><> http://bobrayburn.com/1911/26.JPG <><>

(Original WWI era two-tone magazine - top half steel color / bottom half blued.)

Yes sir I have the original mag but I dont use it. I do how ever shoot the old gun a good bit. It is my winter time carry pistol as well. It is accurate enuff and always reliable.

Lonerider, that is a really great story. Congrats on finding both keepers.

Excellent!

If you get a minute, post a pic of it!

Waders
I dont have the skill to post pictures.

Lonerider, PM me and I'll send you my email address and post them for you, if you want.

Just saw a nice 1913 Colt 1911 on Gunsamerica yesterday that Turnbull redid. Beautiful gun.

https://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/tu...61&utm_campaign=/blog/turnbull-1911/

Just all-around cool!

Posting these pics for Lonerider. Old Colts never die!





grandson helping Poppy load


granddaugther's target


Every day's a good day at the range

Is that a great story or what? Good on you and thanks for a great post. I have a similar story and if you don't mind, I'll tell it here.

I joined the navy before I got out of high school in 1960, but I had to wait until I graduated before going off. In fact, I had to wait about four months after I graduated. During that time, I got a job on a survey crew. There was a guy working on the crew who had just got back from Viet Nam which is the first time I had ever even heard of the place. He had not long been out of a VA hospital after coming back. All I remember about him is he was quiet and didn't say much. One day we were back in the boonies cutting a survey line and stopped for lunch. Somebody asked Jimmy to throw them a coke out of the ice chest, but Jimmy didn't hear him. So the guy picks up a small dirt clod and tosses it near Jimmy to get his attention so he could get a coke. When that clod landed next to Jimmy he came straight up out of a sitting position like he was catapulted and yelled INCOMING and hit the ground flat.

Two weeks later Jimmy asked me if he could borrow 40 bucks until payday, so I lent it to him. Come payday, he asked me if I would rather have a new 45 Colt instead of the 40 bucks and I said yes. When we got off work, we went to his apartment. He pulled a gray 5 gallon bucket with black stenciling on it out of a closet and pulled the top off. Then he and I dug in it for about 30 minutes trying to get a pistol out of the bucket. The bucket was full of 1911 A-1 45 Colts all packed in cosmoline and that stuff is TUFF. So we finally get one out and Jimmy sez, take it and clean it up and if it doesn't shoot good, bring it back and we'll dig out another one or I'll give you the 40 bucks.

So I took it home and soaked it in a pan of gasoline and cleaned on it with a tooth brush until it was clean. It was blued but it had a set of brown plastic military grips on it. I told Jimmy about that next day and he said, huh. Must have been an officer's pistol. I asked where he got those guns and he just said, you don't want to know, but nobody will ever come looking for it. All those guns are marked off as lost in combat.

Later I learned Jimmy had been an Army Ranger and had been in forward recon and got shot up pretty bad. The Army gave him a disability discharge. Jimmy told me one day right out of the blue that he was going to go back when the war ended because he had a half million dollars buried over there. Soon after that, I went off to the Great Lakes Naval Traing Center and never saw Jimmy again. But before I did go, I bought a set of ivory micarta grips and put on the Colt to replace the brown plastic ones on it. I gave it to my dad when I shipped out. He made a neat mahogany case for it. It stayed on his dresser top in his bedroom for the next 16 years until he died. Then my mom called me and told me to come get it.

I looked it up and according to Colt serial numbers, it was made in 1942, which is the year I was born. So if I figure right, it is 74 years old and I have had it, or it has been in my family for the last 56 years. I have been married for 50 years as of last November. I nor my dad ever shot it much. I didn't because I had a Colt Gold Cup after I got out of the navy. He didn't because there were no bad guys out there in the country where he lived.

I sure wish I knew more about its history, but Jimmy didn't say any more about it and I haven't wanted to go digging too much because it may have more history than the government needs to know about. As far as they are concerned, it was lost in combat and it needs to stay lost.

Here is a photo of that 1911 A1 in the case my dad made for it. This photo does not show it, but there is a gold Rampant Colt medalion in the middle of those grip pannels. I'm not such a good photographer.

Another very cool story. Thanks for posting it.

Gentlemen, I thank both of you for sharing your stories. I have enjoyed them a great deal.

Thanks for the storys, got a heck of a deal for 40 bucks!, I hope Jimmy got his loot!

What a cool thread! Lots of great stories and it reminded me that one of mine is also 100 years old this year. It's a 1916 Erfurt made German Luger that I inherited from an uncle in late 2001. He acquired it in 1945 right out of Germany's V-2 rocket factory when uncle Sam went in and cleaned the place out after the German surrender. He was a young air force ground crewman who also spoke German and they needed guys who spoke German to communicate with all the German civilians they hired to help pack everything up. The Luger was in a display case in an office area of the factory just ripe for the picking. I rarely fire it but it works good and maybe come V-E day in May I'll put a few rounds through it just for V-E day and just to celebrate the Luger turning 100.

The Colt I inherited in the mid seventies, a little over 40 years ago. It has seen action in the great war. It had dried blood still stuck in the grips when I got it.
The picture of me and my number one Greatgrand son in the reloading room. A smart youngster that reloaded his first rifle round at age three. He loves spending time there with me and is a quick learner.
The target of my grand daughter was only her second time behind the trigger and she did real well. she likes that old colt.
The last picture is of the last time out with the colt. Seven shots at seven yards. Not too bad for a one hundred year old gun eh.

No sir, not bad at all. In fact, you did good. Wish I had a reloading helper like that great grandson. Good looking boy. He must have taken after his great grand father.

I was given a box of remington umc 45acp a few years ago, lead bullets manuf date somewhere around 19 17 or 1918.
the interesting part was the box was marked (without looking) 650fps .
I have often wondered if they were for the 45acp revolvers.

Here is a better photo of the gold medalion on the grips of that 1911 A1 up above. Sometimes I wonder about how that pistol came to be in that bucket and where it had been before that. And I have tried to remember what Jimmy's last name was, but I was young and thought everyone was going to live forever.

Next thing I know I get orders to report to the Naval Marine Squadron in the beautiful People's Paradice of Viet Nam. There were many nights I went to sleep over there wondering where Jimmy might have burried a half million bucks. I told one of my offficers about it and he said way back before anyone in the USA had ever heard of Viet Nam, the US government had agents over there trying to keep tabs on what was going on because they knew something was. They bribed local officials to spy and they kidnapped others and questioned them and they paid cash rewards for information. Also locals used US currency to buy and sell guns and other supplies so there was a lot of cash US dollars over there and there was a lot of opportunity for someone in Jimmy's position to get it. He guessed that what probably happened was ole Jim got shot up and shipped out of the country to a US medical facility before he had a chance to go get his money. The US government didn't want any news geting out about any of their agents getting shot or killed because they were not supposed to even be there. Sure would like to know if he ever went back and got his money. Can you just imagine knowing where a half million dollars was but you couldn't go get it because there was a war going on?

I'm an old man now and most of my friends are dead, or have alzhimer's, or they are in a nursing home or in a wheel chair and move around with walker's. I'm still okay enough to split and haul fire wood to the wood stoves in the house and to hunt turkeys in the mountains. (The low, easy mountains anyway.) Life is short fellas. Pay attention while you can.