Post by goomba on Jan 30, 2011 21:50:11 GMT -5
The M1911: The Greatest Pistol in the World
When the Colt 1911 was adopted by the U.S. military for combat use, the precursor to American Rifleman dubbed it The Greatest Pistol in the World.
By NRA Staff
Excerpted from Arms and the Man, Vol. 50 No. 1, April 6, 1911.
Up to March 29, 1911, the official military hand arm of the United States was the Colt’s .38 caliber revolver. But on that day, as a result of the movement of powerful forces too strong to be resisted and which have been acting for very long, that good old revolver became obsolete and in its stead there was marked for the holsters of this Nation’s defenders the .45 Colt’s automatic; the latest, the most deadly, the finest and the best hand arm which had yet to be produced by man.
From the very beginning of those definite steps that the War Department people have taken to investigate the usefulness of the automatic pistol as a hand arm, the readers of Arms and the Man have been fully advised.
It is known to you that the present Chief of Ordnance, Brig. Gen. William Crozier, his chief assistant, Col. John T. Thompson and other officers of the Army have long had an abiding faith in the ultimate demonstration of the superiority of the automatic pistol over the revolver for military use. Perhaps Colonel Thompson was one of the earliest as well as the staunchest of these believers in ultimate automatic supremacy.
For a decision to be rendered it only remained that there should be developed an automatic pistol which should show a marked superiority over the present Service revolver and to any other known pistol. A pistol which should be reliable, full of endurance, and which should meet the essential requirements of a military hand arm.
www.americanrifleman.org/articles/greatest-pistol-in-the-world/
When the Colt 1911 was adopted by the U.S. military for combat use, the precursor to American Rifleman dubbed it The Greatest Pistol in the World.
By NRA Staff
Excerpted from Arms and the Man, Vol. 50 No. 1, April 6, 1911.
Up to March 29, 1911, the official military hand arm of the United States was the Colt’s .38 caliber revolver. But on that day, as a result of the movement of powerful forces too strong to be resisted and which have been acting for very long, that good old revolver became obsolete and in its stead there was marked for the holsters of this Nation’s defenders the .45 Colt’s automatic; the latest, the most deadly, the finest and the best hand arm which had yet to be produced by man.
From the very beginning of those definite steps that the War Department people have taken to investigate the usefulness of the automatic pistol as a hand arm, the readers of Arms and the Man have been fully advised.
It is known to you that the present Chief of Ordnance, Brig. Gen. William Crozier, his chief assistant, Col. John T. Thompson and other officers of the Army have long had an abiding faith in the ultimate demonstration of the superiority of the automatic pistol over the revolver for military use. Perhaps Colonel Thompson was one of the earliest as well as the staunchest of these believers in ultimate automatic supremacy.
For a decision to be rendered it only remained that there should be developed an automatic pistol which should show a marked superiority over the present Service revolver and to any other known pistol. A pistol which should be reliable, full of endurance, and which should meet the essential requirements of a military hand arm.
www.americanrifleman.org/articles/greatest-pistol-in-the-world/