Magnum's 1911

[Walks]

Thanks for the advice!
It's great to hear from an expert!

[ConchRepublican]

Thanks for the details MaxumRecoil!

I had fired a 9mm Beretta and Glock recently and found little kick. I fired a .44 magnum years ago and it scared the crap out of me!

I never fired a .45 but always understood it to be a powerful handgun and thought it's ease of use was misrepresented on TV.

[MaximRecoil]

Thanks for the details MaxumRecoil!

I had fired a 9mm Beretta and Glock recently and found little kick. I fired a .44 magnum years ago and it scared the crap out of me!

I never fired a .45 but always understood it to be a powerful handgun and thought it's ease of use was misrepresented on TV.

The 1911 .45 developed a reputation for having harsh recoil from GIs firing battered old M1911s and M1911A1s with worn out recoil springs. The M1911s and M1911A1s were standard issue until 1985, even though no new ones had been purchased since 1945, so eventually, most of them were quite beaten up. Each time you fire a 1911 with a worn out recoil spring, especially a particularly loose 1911 with a worn out recoil spring, the slide slams into the frame much harder than it should, and makes the recoil feel harsher than it should.

The recoil in a good-condition 1911 .45 ACP with a fresh 16-18 lb. recoil spring isn't bad at all. It fires a big bullet, but at relatively low velocity. The power and recoil is similar to standard .44 Special and .45 Colt loads.

[only looking]

Thanks for the details MaxumRecoil!

I had fired a 9mm Beretta and Glock recently and found little kick. I fired a .44 magnum years ago and it scared the crap out of me!

I never fired a .45 but always understood it to be a powerful handgun and thought it's ease of use was misrepresented on TV.

The 1911 .45 developed a reputation for having harsh recoil from GIs firing battered old M1911s and M1911A1s with worn out recoil springs. The M1911s and M1911A1s were standard issue until 1985, even though no new ones had been purchased since 1945, so eventually, most of them were quite beaten up. Each time you fire a 1911 with a worn out recoil spring, especially a particularly loose 1911 with a worn out recoil spring, the slide slams into the frame much harder than it should, and makes the recoil feel harsher than it should.

The recoil in a good-condition 1911 .45 ACP with a fresh 16-18 lb. recoil spring isn't bad at all. It fires a big bullet, but at relatively low velocity. The power and recoil is similar to standard .44 Special and .45 Colt loads.

My uncle was in VietNam and he mentioned exactly that...that the ones they got were pretty much beat up and ALOT of older 1911's from Korea and some even from WW2..lol But although he said the Beretta 9mm was a good gun, it just didnt have the knock down power when in combat, that the much faster 9mm would overpenetrate with it's fast velocity were the 45 would take down an enemy much easier, but the additional round per mag in the 9mm did come in handy.

[MaximRecoil]

My uncle was in VietNam and he mentioned exactly that...that the ones they got were pretty much beat up and ALOT of older 1911's from Korea and some even from WW2..

Yeah, in fact, the newest ones were from WWII. The ones used in Korea were already at least 5 years old at the time, since no new ones had been purchased by Uncle Sam since 1945.

Another problem with them, in addition to the wear and tear, was that some armorers were in the habit of completely disassembling a large amount of them at once, dumping all the parts into a bucket of cleaning solution, and then putting them back together with little-to-no regard for which parts originally went with which guns. This exacerbates the wear and tear issue because parts of a well-used machine will have developed mutual wear patterns, and when you start swapping those parts around with parts from other well-used machines, you get wear pattern mismatches (as well as mismatches with regard to original fit, because some parts are hand-fitted at the factory when new); it just makes a big mess of things.

There were however some M1911A1s in inventory with little or no use even decades after the last ones had been purchased in 1945. For example, this beautiful new-in-the-box Remington Rand M1911A1 (the typewriter company, no relation to Remington UMC the gun company, which made some M1911s, but no M1911A1s) was purchased by a civilian through the DCM in the 1960s:





Remington Rands were very nice (and very plentiful; they ended up making over a million of them, more than any other contractor, including Colt). They were built on the same machinery that was supplied by Uncle Sam to Singer (the sewing machine company) as a proof-of-concept for non gun companies manufacturing guns (Singer made 500 of them, and they are the most valuable ones out there). Remington Rand took the job very seriously, knowing that lives could depend on the quality of their product, and their quality was as good as, and sometimes better than, Colt's.

[only looking]

Saw one Singer at a gunshow in Louisville one time...$$$$$ and there's a few other oddballs out there as well. Amazing that after over 100 years the design is going strong.

[MaximRecoil]

Saw one Singer at a gunshow in Louisville one time...$$$$$ and there's a few other oddballs out there as well. Amazing that after over 100 years the design is going strong.

Yeah, over 100 years later and the 1911 is more popular now than it ever was. There are probably dozens of companies that manufacture them, including some companies that I never thought would ever make a 1911, such as Colt's longtime rival, Smith & Wesson. Then there are other big companies mostly known for having original designs, such as SIG, Remington, and Ruger that now make their own 1911. The 1911 in an industry unto itself (especially when you include the huge aftermarket parts industry for it). About the only other gun that compares to the 1911 phenomenon is the AR-15 (another Colt product which is now being manufactured in one form or another by the same companies mentioned above, and plenty of others).

Magnum was ahead of his time. In 1980, who carried a 1911 or any other type of full-size semi-automatic pistol? Nearly all cops at the time carried revolvers, and private investigators usually carried snub-nosed .38s, at least on TV and in the movies (I've never met a private investigator in real life). This made Magnum's pistol stand out to me as a kid, because it was so different than the usual revolver. Plus, it just looked plain awesome to me. As a kid I thought that revolvers looked "old-fashioned", and Magnum's pistol looked modern, futuristic even. I was shocked when I discovered it was introduced in 1911.

Nowadays, practically all cops carry semi-automatic pistols, in real life and on TV / in movies, as does pretty much everyone else; but that was far from the case in 1980. Back then on TV and in the movies, semi-automatic pistols were mostly only seen in the hands of soldiers or Al Capone-type gangsters.

[ConchRepublican]

In Starsky & Hutch, I believe Starsky carried a 1911. I remember liking him better than Hutch, but thinking Hutch had a much cooler gun, which I believe was similar to Dirty Harry's magnum. The Magnum was all the rage back them.

Funny how Tom Magum carried a 1911. Makes sense, but they knew what they were doing naming the character at that time.

[MaximRecoil]

I never saw Starsky & Hutch, it was canceled when I was 4 years old, and strangely, I never happened upon it later on in syndication (it may not have been widely syndicated).

This site (link) suggests that Starsky carried a 1911 in the pilot episode and then a Smith & Wesson Model 59 9mm in the regular episodes. There are decent screen shots showing the Model 59, but the one screenshot for the 1911 is ridiculous; the gun can't be identified at all in that image. I'd like to see a good screen shot of his 1911 to see what type it is exactly.

It says that Hutch carried a Colt Python (.357 Magnum). Dirty Harry's gun was a Smith & Wesson Model 29 (.44 Magnum), or at least it was supposed to be. I've read in a gun magazine that the prop was actually a Smith & Wesson Model 25 (.45 Colt) so that it would be compatible with cheap, readily available "5-in-1" blanks. The Model 25 is also an N-frame revolver, so it looks identical to the Model 29 aside from the .45 Colt having a slightly larger bore diameter (.025" larger) than a .44 Magnum, which would never be noticed on film anyway.

[only looking]

Plus Starsky had the cool brown leather jacket and that huge ass sweater...which I actually thought looked cool back in the day...still might wear one in private i a cold winter day sitting in a cabin in the pacific northwest...lol

[J.J. Walters]

Speaking of Magnum's guns, what is he carrying here? A Beretta 92 9mm??

From "The Jororo Kill"...

[MaximRecoil]

Speaking of Magnum's guns, what is he carrying here? A Beretta 92 9mm??

Exactly. If I remember right, he picked it up off the floor of the church, from one of the agents that was shot.

This was an original Model 92, produced until 1983 (before the 92S, 92F, 92FS, etc.) This is another case of the show being ahead of its time. In 1982, the Beretta 92 wasn't very common or well-known in the US, but just three years later it would replace the M1911A1 as the standard US Military sidearm (in the form of the 92F, and then 92FS; US Military designation: M9), which of course assured that it would explode in popularity. Then of course, Lethal Weapon came along in 1987, with Mel Gibson's character famously carrying one. Police departments started ditching their revolvers in favor of the Beretta in droves around this time as well; it is the gun that kicked off the "wonder nine" craze of the mid-1980s.

They are nice guns, but rather large/bulky. The best "wonder nine" is the CZ 75 in my opinion; much slimmer than the chunky Beretta, and it allows the option of "condition one" (AKA: "cocked and locked") carry, which the Beretta does not. But then, I care little for "wonder nines" to begin with; the 1911 is my cup of tea.

[308GUY]

Been looking at .22 semi-auto pistols for "plinkin/target" cause the ammo is allot cheaper than anything else I own. I do have an old Winchester, but am wanting a pistol that uses the LR ammo.

Have found a number of 1911 look-a-likes in .22 cal. but would like somebody's opinion that probably knows more than I do.

Have it narrowed down to basically two different units.
The Chiappa 1911 .22 that uses the LR and a GSG 1911 same cal..

The Chiappa is $60-$100 less than the GSG, but there are features of the GSG that, to me, would make it a better gun.

Anybody offer some suggestions/opinions? Am open to other pistols as well, just like the 1911 "look" in keeping with the MPI theme.

[only looking]

You could always buy you a nice 1911 in 45acp and then buy a 22 conversion kit that way you could still have it in 45acp and still be able to have the gun target pratice in 22.

[MaximRecoil]

Been looking at .22 semi-auto pistols for "plinkin/target" cause the ammo is allot cheaper than anything else I own. I do have an old Winchester, but am wanting a pistol that uses the LR ammo.

Have found a number of 1911 look-a-likes in .22 cal. but would like somebody's opinion that probably knows more than I do.

Have it narrowed down to basically two different units.
The Chiappa 1911 .22 that uses the LR and a GSG 1911 same cal..

The Chiappa is $60-$100 less than the GSG, but there are features of the GSG that, to me, would make it a better gun.

Anybody offer some suggestions/opinions? Am open to other pistols as well, just like the 1911 "look" in keeping with the MPI theme.

The ultimate would be a Colt Ace, which is long out of production and collectible. You'd probably be spending a thousand dollars at least for a decent example for one made when Colt started making them again in the '70s and '80s, and much more than that for one of the originals made in the '30s and '40s. It is all steel and it is a real Colt. Also, since it was originally designed for the military to train with inexpensive ammo, it had an internal "floating chamber" piston which simulated the recoil of firing a .45 ACP.

All of the 1911-style .22s made today are junk in comparison, made largely out of aluminum and/or pot metal. That doesn't necessarily mean they don't work, but it is yet another case of "they don't make 'em like they used to".

In terms of an MPI appearance, this one (link) is probably the closest you are going to get for a reasonable price, and as a bonus, it actually says "Colt" on it. It is made by Umarex/Walther under license from Colt.

There is a SIG which is the same as the GSG (both made by GSG). The SIG/GSG is generally considered to be better than the Chiappa.

You could always buy you a nice 1911 in 45acp and then buy a 22 conversion kit that way you could still have it in 45acp and still be able to have the gun target pratice in 22.

The main problem with doing that is wear pattern mismatch. Moving parts wear together (and to a point, this mutual wear between moving parts is beneficial, which is where the "breaking in" concept comes from), and when you put on new parts (a .22 conversion kit in this case), the wear pattern will start to change. Then when you go back to your old parts (back to .45 in this case), they will no longer fit in the same way that they used to. This difference in fit might be negligible or it might be significant, depending on how often the gun is fired with each set of parts.