Gun Talk – The Colt M1911

We love guns here at Casual Tactical. New, used, cutting edge, or old school, if it shoots we want to give it a go. Some firearms end up being novelty and disappear over a short time, but others stand their ground and are found to be up to the test. Being a proud, Utah based company, we thought we should talk about a classic with a Utah connection: the Colt M1911, designed John M. Browning native son of Ogden Utah.

The M1911 is a single-action, semi-automatic pistol. It is magazine fed and recoil-operated. Though, not all built by Colt, the U.S alone had over 2.7 million of these guns manufactured over the span of it's service as the standard issue sidearm for all U.S. Armed Forces from 1911 to 1986.

The development of the 1911 started in the late 1890s, as the U.S government was looking to replace the current revolvers that were in military service. They were looking for a semi-automatic pistol that had more stopping power than the current standard issue sidearm. Between 1899 and 1911 tests of various self-loading pistols took place. Handguns from Mauser, Mannlicher, DWM, Bergmann, Savage Arms Company, Knoble, Webley, White-Merril and Colt were tested. By 1907 that list had been whittled down to two designs, one by Colt/Browning and the other from Savage Arms Company. In the last trials of these two weapons, the Colt/Browning design stood out. It was reported during a 6000 round fire test that lasted two days the Colt/Browning design had no malfunctions. The prototype pistol would get hot, but the shooter simply dunked the gun in a bucket of water to cool it and went right back to firing. In March of 1911 the U.S Army officially adopted the pistol as it's standard sidearm. At the end of 1912 Springfield Armory and Colt were producing the gun for NRA members, and in 1913 the U.S Navy and Marine Corps had formally adopted the handgun as well.

As a standard issue service pistol this gun lasted 75 years and saw its way through four wars: World War I, World War II, The Korean War and the Vietnam War. In 1924, after its battlefield use in World War I the gun had a small external re-design. The new version was classified. M1911A1. And though there were external changes to the weapon, internally it stayed the same, meaning that parts between the M1911 and M1911A1 were interchangeable.

As a non-standard pistol it saw action Desert Storm, Afghanistan and Iraq with specialized military units. It is still used by many military and law enforcement organizations today including: Los Angeles PD SWAT, FBI Hostage Rescue, Delta Force and Marine Corps SOCOM, and that doesn't even include the foreign countries that use this firearm.

Very little has changed on this pistol over the decades and same design that is used by militaries is what is offered commercially. Though it was originally designed around the .45 ACP as designated by Colonel John T. Thompson back in 1904 you can get models for .38 Super, 9 mm Parabellum, and 7.65mm Parabellum, among others.

In March of 2011 Utah made the Browning M1911 the official firearm of Utah. We're proud of our native son John M. Browning and his design of this timeless handgun.