Rockwall Gun Club Presents Famous Guns Throughout History: Colt Model 1911

An American soldier was in the fight of his life with dozens of Germans.  He ran out of ammo for his rifle and the Corporal from Tennessee had already killed a good number of the enemy and more were charging toward him.  He reached for his trusty M1911 and used the .45 to shoot four quickly. 

 The remaining Germans stopped in their tracks and surrendered along with 131 more Germans.  It was hailed as the greatest event accomplished by any solider in World War One.  Of course, we are talking about soon to be Sgt. Alvin C. York.  He turned in his efficient and very effective M1911 to the Army when he left the service months later.  The friendly folks at Rockwall Gun Club would love to have that gun on display for its members. It will not happen as York's 45 whereabouts are unknown.  But, the popularity of this famous handgun is still strong after eight decades with gun owners and you will see it in use at the Gun Club. 

The Colt Model 1911 was the invention of John Browning, a renowned gun maker working for Colt; he is also the inventor of many modern firearms.  Browning knew, along with the Army, that the handgun the Army was using in the form of a 38 revolver didn't really do the job of stopping attackers in their tracks.  So an Army Ordnance Board chaired by Col. John Thompson (remember the Thompson machine gun) felt they needed a handgun with a .45' cartridge. 

Browning engineered a pistol that could accommodate such a cartridge.  The testing period began in 1906 with firearms submitted by Savage, Colt, Luger and others.  In 1907, Browning's pistol was selected for tests along with a handgun from Savage.  These tests were grueling and neither pistol had satisfied the evaluators and another Selection Committee took over the task in 1911.  So back to the drawing board went Browning and his crew to fine tune one of the best handguns in history. 

Then another tortuous test was conducted in March of 1911.  This test consisted of having each handgun go through 6,000 rounds.  As you guessed, the Colt M1911 45 won and quickly went into production for use by our troops in the First World War.   During WW11, several thousand of these 45s were used by our military around the world.  The M1911 was highly cherished by our troops and many found their way home.  Shortly after WW11, Colt introduced a new shorter version with the 4.25” barrel and an aluminum frame and was highly received by the American public. 

Colt later shortened the barrel again to 3.50” with a shorter frame that targeted the concealed carry users.   Then Colt focused on safety in the 1980's with a firing pin safety feature, which didn't let the gun fire until its trigger was pulled to the end of its travel.  In the 90's Colt designed a beaver-tail grip safety, flared ejection port and more.  John Browning's design, after so many years, is much alive and coveted by many of America's gun owners.  Stay tuned for another famous guns in history story courtesy of Rockwall Gun Club, and learn more about their state-of-the-art facilities and ranges by visiting http://rockwallgunclub.com/ today!