Evolution of the 1911 in Pictures The evolution of the 1911 started in 1898 with the pistol that became the Colt Model 1900. Chambered in .38 Auto, it was a locked breech, short recoil operated pistol that sported a twin linked barrel…one fore and one aft…and a non-tilting barrel. The Colt Model 1900 The next […]
During one of my rare sojourns away from Castle Doghair, I was privileged to encounter an old First Model Iver Johnson Owl Head revolver in caliber .38 S&W that was still actually functional…which means that it wasn’t fired very much in the last hundred or so years. With wrought iron frames and low carbon steel […]
In response to the flak that Colt has been catching over their failure to use a barrel with an integral feed ramp on their new Delta Elite so as to provide a fully supported chamber, I’ve been asked to weigh in. First, a little history of the ramped barrel with the fully supported chamber. […]
M1911 Locked breech/Short Recoil basic function Caliber .45 Auto firing a 230 grain bullet at 830 fps: Bang! Assuming a condition of zero headspace, both bullet and slide start to accelerate at the same instant. The slide grabs the barrel upper lugs and hauls the barrel backward with it. At nominally 1/10th inch of rearward […]
Many have come to know me through my technical posts on the 1911 pistol, but what most don’t know is that I don’t love the 1911, even though I shoot it a little better than other pistols. I’ve just got a lot of experience with it and I understand it well…but I don’t love it. […]
Since the subject of magazines comes up a lot… There is only one magazine design that presents the cartridge to the 1911’s chamber correctly and guarantees full controlled feed…as designed and intended. That would be the original or “GI” design that allows the rear of the cartridge to rise at close to the same angle […]
1911 School. Subject: Cocked and locked and ready to rock…the way that JMB intended! Right? Well, no. Not really. John Browning didn’t have a free hand with the 1911 and he didn’t do it alone. The 1911 was designed by a committee. Browning was hired to guide and direct as he worked on past designs […]
The slide stop actually performs five functions if we don’t count the takedown feature. If all it’s meant to do is act as a slide stop, then why go to the trouble of machining it to protrude from the frame and then go to even more trouble to cut a non-skid surface on it? […]
So, why does the Commander’s spring run a little heavier? It’s simple physics. A moving object is subject to outside forces fighting to decelerate it and bring it to a stop the instant that it starts moving. At least here on terra firma. The two main forces are friction and gravity. In the case of […]
Loading the 1911 without magazine Loading a 1911 with the slide open, dropping a round in the chamber and allowing the slide to slam shut? Extractor problems? There was a big debate so what is the answer. The 1911 wasn’t designed to chamber rounds that way, and it’s hard on extractors. But, Browning wasn’t an […]
