Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Army wants a harder hitting handgun

friend of mine locally owns a gun store. He had about ten boxes of m1carbine ammo, headstamped 1942, 30buck a box. I should have bought it all, as the carbine was one of my first collection addictions.
You trip accross it but have to look, cmp sometimes sells it.

It all comes down to everything being held to a strict specification. The 1911 of today suffers from the same issue that plagues a lot of IBM compaitble PC's, and that is; none of them (with the exception of the Taurus) are 100% built by one builder.

The original military 1911 actually required very little hand fitting of parts, and it was more than sufficiently reliable. That's because the US Military's requirements for holding spec bordered on oppressive.

When I worked on surplus 1911's, we had several thousand that needed re-finishing. All were stripped of parts, all the parts were thrown into bins with no concern about keeping the parts with the original gun (something I protested, but I lost that protest). Then guns were randomly assembled form bins of parts. The only part that gave us consistent problems was the safety; everything else just dropped in, and the guns worked perfectly. Really quite amazing when you think about it.

But we don't have that kind of uniformity today. That's why so many parts are made oversized and now require so much hand fitting.

So in some ways, the 1911 is better than ever, but in other ways the design has regressed.

So it's harder to be a military armorer for 1911's today than it was in WW II.

My cousin said he still would rather work in 1911's all day long than M9's. And he had a rather passionate hatred for the Sig 228. The 228 is a great pistol, unitl you tear the lower down; then you think it was designed by a mad man.

You guys must have spoken to different armorers than I have.



Travis

[/quote]My cousin was a Marine armorer who served in Iraq. He found the 1911 preferable to work on over the M9. [/quote]

I love my M9's. That said, they have a LOT of parts. If you've ever watched the video of one of Beretta's top armorers at Beretta Italy doing a complete disassembly and reassembly, you'd see what I mean. The process is something beautiful to watch, though.

I love my M9's. That said, they have a LOT of parts. If you've ever watched the video of one of Beretta's top armorers at Beretta Italy doing a complete disassembly and reassembly, you'd see what I mean. The process is something beautiful to watch, though. [/quote]

Things get real exciting when a locking block breaks. It's a two man job with the gun in a vise to get the slide to open. Chuck the gun in the vise, one guy takes a hammer and a pin punch to drive the locking lugs down out of the slide, while the other pulls back on the slide.

If one states differently IMHO and experience he doesn't completely understand the 1911 design criteria. There are certainly brands of 1911's that are POS

My non-expert answer: the 357 Sig was meant to replicate the 357 magnum ballistics with a 125-grain bullet with a rather fast burning powder. IOW, spit that pill at about 1400 fps. I believe that the heaviest bullet in in a commercial Sig loading is 147-grain at ~ 1200 fps. Heavier than that, I don't think the Sig can keep up with a 357 magnum and slower powders and a longer revolver barrel.

However, I can say with the light bullet loading, I can pick out a dinner plate-sized target at a hundred yards and scare it badly with my P226. For a pistol loading it's quite flat shooting. I haven't fired any of the 147-grain loads but they should be as good depending on the pistol.

She is a flat shooting little sucker, that's for sure.

The ones I have spoken to understand and appreciate the design.

They simply see them come across their bench more than other designs.



Travis

That could suggest a lot of operator error as well Travis

When I was in 2nd Armor Division
HELL ON WHEELS in 1974 we were issued a 45 caliber pistol.
The women WAC's were given 38 special revolvers.
Maybe the thinking was that the enemy soldiers the women might encounter would not be determined warriors?
whelennut

thought i would take a picture of this, off topic but the m1carbine has been mentioned in this thread:
Lake City 1942 head stamp m1carbine .30 ball, in the original unopened boxes. First year production i think as the carbine came into existence around then. Bet it still works


whats interesting is four boxes of this would fit in a small fanny pack/200rounds

Operator error is one of many realities a pistol faces.


Travis

I guess you didn't think about the queer and women soldiers and sailors who can't rack the slide let alone qualify with a 45.

Get shed of the non combat trash in the military and go back to the 45 ACP..

Out of curiosity, for what outfit did you serve?

My mileage does vary.

g

I was in the 501st CAB, a medic, radio operator.. I think my unit was across the road from Whelennut, but I might be wrong, don't remember.
I wish I'd had a 1911 then. Today it is my favorite hand gun.

I'd venture that those that come across their bench weren't correctly fitted to begin with. That is a curse of the 1911 they need proper fitting and usually that means a bit of hand fitting which drive the cost up. The marines claim that they stayed with the 1911 because of their trouble free ability through thousands of rounds.
I have my 1911's checked for proper fitting before I put many rounds through them and have zero issues that way.