In 2024 we noted this:
The Colt M1911 is a John Browning designed semi-automatic pistol that can legitimately be regarded s the greatest handgun ever made, although there are, or perhaps more accurately were, a few other contenders. Other than the mostly John Browning Designed Hi Power, none of the other contenders remain in service somewhere however and the M1911 has by far the longest period of service.
Adopted by the U.S. on March 29, 1911, in 1923 the handgun received some minor modifications, the most significant of which is a curved spring housing which changed the profile of the grip. The trigger was also shortened. In 1924 the modified design started to ship, this month, from Colt. The M1911A1 designation came in 1926.
When we posted this, we actually thought we might have noted the adoption of the M1911 when the centennial of the pistols adoption came up, in 2011, but we didn't. We covered a fair amount of ground regarding it in the thread above, but not really it's whole history.
Of course, that would require a book.
Given the ostensible purpose of this blog, however, we really ought to cover this.
Lex Anteinternet?
The Consolidated Royalty Building, where I work, back when it was new.What the heck is this blog about?The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book I've been pondering. And part of it is just because I'm curious. Hopefully it'll generate enough minor interest so that anyone who stops by might find something of interest, once it begins to develop a bit.
The 1911 is part of the history we're covering, and moreover, it was a brand new pistol in that period.
Vast amounts have been written about the M1911 over its century plus history. Most of that starts right around 1900, when the very first tests of semi automatic pistols took place. But in order to really grasp the M1911 you need to start earlier. . . in 1873.
1873 was the year that the Army officially adopted its first cartridge using revolver, the legendary Colt Single Action Army Revolver. The M1873 replaced a series of cap and ball revolvers that had been the standard sidearms dating back to 1846. We won't get into those, but Colt managed to pioneer really effective revolvers with this series which were widely used by civilians as well, and very well liked. When cartridges started to come in, particularly during the Civil War, it was obvious that soon revolvers would be adapted to take them, and very soon after the war Colt introduced what would become and remain the premier single action revolver, chambered in .44-40. The cartridge closely approximated the black powder load taken by the earlier cap and ball revolvers. The M1873 did have competitors, even in military service, with the primary one being the Smith & Wesson No. 3, which had the advantage of being a break open design allowing for more rapid reloading, but nothing really challenged the Cold Peacemaker for dominance in the U.S. Army, or for that matter, the civilian market.
What was a challenge, however, was that it became pretty clear in the last quarter of the 19th Century that double actions had arrived. Indeed, double action cap and ball revolvers had been produced and used during the Civil War, albeit not in large numbers. The fact that the Army didn't go straight to a double action revealed its real conservatism after the Civil War, which also showed itself in the long arms that it adopted.
By the 1890s black powder was being replaced by smokeless powder, which also yielded higher pressures and therefore higher velocities. As this occurred, a movement towards smaller projectiles occurred, with the thought that the same or better lethality could be achieved with a lighter cartridge. In rifles, this proved to be quite true. Pistols, however, are another matter.
This led to the military adopting the Colt M1892 "New Army" in that year, which was a very well designed double action revolver. The basic design would be used by Colt for decades. Slight improvements to the design would occur over time, leading to the Models 1892, 1894, 1896, 1901, and 1903 for the Army, the Model 1895 for the Navy and the Model 1905 for the Marine Corps, although they were all very similar. Manufacture of the basic design for civilian shooters as well as policemen, in various cartridges, would continue until at least the 1950s, although the original New Army pattern went out of production in 1908..
What the problem would prove to be was the cartridge.
The M1892 took the .38 Long Colt cartridge.
The new handgun was first used in the Spanish American War where there were no complaints regarding it. Soon thereafter, however, it was sent with U.S. troops to the Philippines where it proved to be pretty much completely inadequate. In the hardscrabble guerilla wars that followed U.S. troops landing there, the pistol simply lacked stopping power.
This lead to a series of emergency responses by the Army, part of which was to reissue M1873s, often with barrels refitted to the 5.5" length. The M1873s immediately proved successful, and as a result the Army adopted the Colt New Service civilian double action revolver, a massive .45 Long Colt, as the M1909. Like the New Army, the New Service was a very well designed modern double action revolver, and it was produced for military and civilian use over its long life, with production ceasing in 1946.
As good as the New Service revolver was, it was a stop gap when adopted. The Army was already looking for a semi automatic pistol. Trials had started in 1900 with John Browning's Model 1900, Mauser's C96, and Mannlicher's weird M1894 having been purchased for evaluation. The Browning design was by far the best, and in 1906 it came back in a new version, the Model 1905, to compete against submissions by Bergmann, Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM), Savage Arms, Knoble, Webley, and White-Merrill. Some of the new pistols, such as DWM's Luger and Savage's John Pederson designed automatic were very good indeed. The Colt 1905, hwoever, wa the best. Browning improved the M1905 and came out with the M1910, and the M1910 and the Savage went on to the final test.
The M1911, the final Colt design, was adopted on this day in 1911. The Navy, and hence the Marine Corps, would not adopt the pistol until 1913.
A fire broke out at the library of the New York State Capitol in Albany at 2:00 am, hours after legislators had adjourned for the night destroying more than 600,000 books, and manuscripts, many of them irreplaceable. A night watchman was killed in the fire.
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