I have been to the Browning museum where you can see first prototypes of so many of JMB's designs. Something you notice right off; JMB typically didn't bother with safeties. He left that for the manufacturer to work out.
The development of the 1911 is rather similar to the development of the Beretta 92 in the sense that the US tested several models, made various recommendations, and came up with a final design that was acceptable to the Army. It was a team endeavor, JMB would have never got all the way there without the Army, and the Army would have never got there without JMB. Most of the greatest military arms tend to follow this type of development.
Yes, as with the M1 Garand: Long in development, with contributions from many. Wasn’t the idea of drilling a hole into the bore to tap the energy of expanding powder gases first used by Browning in his “potato digger” 1895 machine gun?
