Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The 1911 Doesn't Suck.

But neither is it the uniquely inspired gift of God.


In this morning's blog-crawling, I was directed by Robb to this anti-1911 screed titled, appropriately, "The 1911 Sucks." The writer says, in part,
It’s a 100-year old design. It needs tools to disassemble. It has unreliable magazines. It is finicky about ammo. And, as a single-action pistol, it is unsafe for 95% of its users to carry.
...
Why does a reliable 1911 cost so much, and need so much gunsmithing?
Since this is my blog, here I go with my retort. It's an excellent 100-year-old design. The tool thing is true, but so what? If your magazines are unreliable, you should get better ones because mine work fine. I don't get the unsafe-to-carry thing at all.

But the last question is absolutely spot on. Why, indeed?

When I was young, there were 1911 detractors. We chipped them out of stone back then, but they did exist. Their two main complaints were thus: The 1911 is laughably inaccurate, and its recoil is unmanageable. Seriously. Stop laughing. The first statement may have had some basis in truth, since there were a great many surplus pistols out there and some of them had been shot to death, but I think any claims about inherent inaccuracy have pretty much been put to bed. As to the recoil thing - get serious. People must have been wimpier back then, because these days recoil from a full-size 1911 is considered quite moderate. These days before you're even allowed to complain about recoil, you pretty much have to rechamber an NAA mini-revolver for .44 mag.

But along about the time I started shooting centerfire pistols, conventional wisdom held that an unaltered 1911 was, in fact, inherently inaccurate. The path to accuracy, it was preached, was to tighten up the whole action. Some others argued that this was a terrible mistake - the pistol isn't made for bullseye shooting, it's made for blasting large, bloody holes in people at dangerously close range. They argued that tightening the action might improve accuracy, but it was bound to do horrible things to the one essential thing a defensive pistol must do, which is reliably go bang.

The first group got its way. History has vindicated the warnings of the second group.

My first 1911 was an appalling frankenpistol build on an ancient Remington frame. God, I wish I still had it. Accurate? Not in the least. That pistol never jammed, never failed to fire for any reason but an empty magazine. Picky about ammo? It would feed empty cases as reliably as hardball. I know this because I did a lot of holster drills with primer-only loads and wax bullets. I did a lot of handloading back then, because I did a lot of shooting. Hollow points? Pick a style - no problem.

When I got into IPSC shooting, I threw the FrankenRemmy in on a complex trade to acquire my first Gold Cup. In a lifetime of idiotic gun trades, that's the one I regret most bitterly. Oh, the GC was more accurate - very much so. I once won a bet at a Hunter Pistol Silhouette match with a guy who was bad-mouthing the 1911. I bet him I could beat his score at our next match, me with a 1911 and him with his target-grade single-shot .44. (granted that I was a much better shot at the time, routinely trouncing him with my TC Contender, and that I expected to get skunked on the Rams.) Reliable, it was not. It would not feed any form of hollowpoint ever, was very sensitive to lubrication, picky about magazines, and just generally not a good carry piece.

I gather they've gone downhill since then. When I got back into shooting after a lengthy and disastrous marriage ("Oh, no, I don't mind guns!") I bought my current 4-inch SA and had nothing but trouble with it at first. After my third or fourth trip to a gunsmith I bewailed my fate aloud, and the smith rather dismissively told me I could never expect a 1911 to work reliably out of the box - they all, every one of them, needed to be ported and polished, hung with gingerbread and gimcrackery, and perhaps - perhaps! - then with the proper sacrifices to the proper gods you could get reliability out of one, for that was the way decreed by the Great Prophet Browning. Which is ... such ... BULLSHIT! ... that I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

So like I said, the writer's last question is perfectly valid. And I know the answer. A reliable 1911 costs a lot of money and needs a lot of gunsmithing because they typically come from the factory unreliable. And they're unreliable because the current fashion in 1911s misses the whole point of the pistol's original design. Which is NOT bullseye accuracy.

Still, like the man said, it's a 100-year-old design and time has not stood still. Are there better pistols out there? Yes, there are - and I say that as a guy who carries a 1911. I use a 1911 because I always have, and that is really the only reason. If I were starting out now I'd probably have a Glock. Frankly, most new 1911s really do suck. But the original 1911 did NOT suck. It needed better sights, but all pistols did back then. That business with the hammer biting chunks out of the web of your hand - okay, that wasn't great design but a minor modification of the grip safety fixed that a long time ago. It was a good pistol and it would still be a good pistol if later, lesser designers hadn't screwed it up to the point where now you have to spend hundreds on gunsmiths to unscrew it. There is absolutely no excuse for that, and anybody who shrugs and tells you to suck it up because that's just the way 1911s are, is selling something you shouldn't buy.

But even if it hadn't been screwed up, it still would have been superseded by later, better designs. JMB was good, but he wasn't a god.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Joel,

I'd love to have that unreliable old 1911. Is the guy selling it cheap since it is such a rag?

John

Anonymous said...

JMB was a genius. The nearest he got to God was in SLC. They got lots of gods there.

Anonymous said...

I bought a Norinco 1911 many moons ago and have been very happy with the $250 spent. Still can get them in Canada, but thanks to 'ol Billy Jeff Clinton, not here. M1A still in Canada too.

http://www.marstar.ca/gf-norinco/index-hg-1911A1.shtm

http://www.marstar.ca/gf-norinco/M-14S.shtm

Kevin Wilmeth said...

Actually, Joel, the "tool thing" is not true. Original design can be completely stripped without tools--or, rather, using its own parts, and the rim of a .45 cartridge case, as tools. See here. Sure, a lot of people put ill-advised plumbing all over the gun that negates this, but that is not a fault of the design. And no, it doesn't break down as fast as a Glock or even a P35, but somehow I have never been bothered by this.

Linked article is pretty standard chip-on-the-shoulder output. I've read hundreds of 'em over my own lifetime, and I'm sure I missed a few even then. Not an original thought in the mix, and a couple of patently ridiculous statements to boot. (If the 1911 is "too big to conceal", then I've been wasting my time for about a generation now--and I am pretty sure that my standard for "hidden" is a bit tighter than most, BTW. And, to say that "Jeff Cooper has a reputation that exceeds his accomplishments" simply declares, for all the world to hear, that the author has absolutely no idea what it is that Jeff Cooper accomplished.)

Me, I kinda thought that the continued supremacy of the 1911 design, by people who want absolute maximum performance, here 100 years after its introduction, is just about as cool an anecdote as there is. I carry mine because it feeds what I load in it, goes bang when I press the trigger, hits what's on the front sight out as far as I can and as fast as I can, carries flatter and more comfortably than any serious pistol other than the Kahr (which is impressive in its own right), and in general gives me the confidence that (to use a thought from that reputationally overblown character) "if I can see it, I can hit it".

What I don't get is why some people get so bent outta shape over whether the design is "the best" or not. In my world, everyone carries what suits 'em best, and viva la difference. For me, if I know I'm walkin' into trouble, my 1911 will be the gun on my belt...backing up the Steyr Scout.

It is, after all, just a pistol. :-)

MamaLiberty said...

The big problem, Kevin, is that we will seldom know when we're walking into trouble... and the handgun is the one thing we are mostly likely to have with us at the time.

I like rifles just fine. They are a little awkward in the grocery store... :)

Just one of the reasons I carry. Mine is a .357M snubby. Very good at close range. :)

Kevin Wilmeth said...

ML, you are of course correct.

A certain reputationally-engorged writer often said that the purpose of a pistol is to stop unexpected fights, because "it is there on your belt. You do not have to go fetch it." That sunk in years ago.

Does this mean you have moved to the SP from the XD? If so, do tell why--I'd love to know! :-)

___________________
"You cannot make an appointment with an emergency."
- Some underachieving reputation-grabber

(Sorry, I can't help that. Sarcasm just happens spontaneously sometimes. :-)

wrm said...

My 1911 cost me R500. Which is less than $50, or about (at the time) five x 24 cans of beer.

It was made in 1945 and sent to Blighty as part of the lend-lease thing. Got there after the end of that part of the war, spent some time in storage, and was sold off to the civilian market in the fifties or sixties or something.

I can put a magazine load into less than an inch at 10 meters, offhand, using LRN cast bullets and some random assortment of many times fired brass. The best I can do at the same distance with two different CZ 75s is around two and a half inches.

The only problem I have is with the sights, they're too narrow, it takes me too much time to acquire sight picture. Damn thing is still accurate enough for IDPA just snap sighting over the top of my thumbs -- I never understood "extension of my arm" 'till I got this gun.

But then again, it was made as JMB intended, before they started bolting stuff on all over the place.

"1911" = good.
"1911 platform" = opportunity to spend $LOTS

Gunnutmegger said...

Kevin,

Actually, Joel, the "tool thing" is not true."

The manuals for the ParaOrd GI Expert and Springfield GI.45 both say that tools are required.

The underlying problem isn't that some 1911s need tools and some don't. The issue is that there is no such thing as a "standard 1911", just dozens of companies with dozens of their own iterations of the theme, most of which don't work out of the box and cost way too much money to get working. That's bad for the consumer. Maybe even fatal.

"Linked article is pretty standard chip-on-the-shoulder output."

Actually, it was a reaction to the knee-jerk 1911 worship and "gun store attitude" that turns off so many shooters. And the Ostrich Principle that 1911 fans engage in.

"And, to say that "Jeff Cooper has a reputation that exceeds his accomplishments" simply declares, for all the world to hear, that the author has absolutely no idea what it is that Jeff Cooper accomplished.)"

The man never heard a shot fired in anger in his life.

I don't doubt that he was good on a range, since that's the only place he ever used a gun.

But outside of shooting on a range, what are his qualifications to teach a course on combat shooting?

(That's not a rhetorical question; I want to know. I have been asking and none of the CooperCult will provide info. If I get some facts I will post a correction & apology.)

Incidentally...I did a follow-up post and tracked every full size 1911, every Glock, and every Taurus ever reviewed by Gun Tests magazine from 1996 to the present.

I even made a chart to tally the results. The 1911 fans don't like the facts, however.

http://www.yankeegunnuts.com/2010/12/28/quality-1911-glock-taurus/

Kevin Wilmeth said...

Actually, it was a reaction to the knee-jerk 1911 worship and "gun store attitude" that turns off so many shooters. And the Ostrich Principle that 1911 fans engage in.

Perhaps it was exactly what you say; I cannot speak for "1911 fans"...but that has no bearing on it being a chip-on-the-shoulder article, now does it?

The man never heard a shot fired in anger in his life.

Wow. Just...wow.

If you're right, you may want to contact his daughter, Lindy Cooper Wisdom, and let her know she's a liar in print. Her book The Soul and the Spirit goes over his four known personal lethal fights, as well as some of his wartime (WWII and Korea) and spook-op engagements. Cooper himself wrote of at least one of his personal engagements (I believe in Another Country), and of multiple others in which a fight was on but no shots were fired.

Cooper ruffled lots of feathers in his lifetime. Those books have been available for years. If their content were untrue, loud voices just itching for the chance would have let us know by now.

I don't doubt that he was good on a range, since that's the only place he ever used a gun.

This will come as a real surprise to the people who hunted with him over a lot of years. Totally aside from the aforementioned contact with people, Cooper's writings abound with vignettes about his hunting, and he loved dangerous game most of all. If you want to find out for yourself, it's not difficult. Just pick up Fireworks, To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth, Another Country, or even the biography The Soul and the Spirit...or any of dozens of gun-rag articles from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I am not aware of any credible source claiming that these things did not happen.

But outside of shooting on a range, what are his qualifications to teach a course on combat shooting?

Look, I'll try to be brief here, and focus just on one thing, but good grief: how about performance? I would not want to be the one to try and tell the legions of people out there who credit their lives to what Jeff Cooper taught them (disclosure: yes, I am one of them), that he was somehow "unqualified" for that task.

Let me reiterate my original point: whosoever evaluates Jeff Cooper's "accomplishments" based upon the quantity of his personal kills, engagements, or even, yes, his refinement of technique and hardware, has absolutely no idea what it is that Jeff Cooper accomplished.

That is: it weren't about the gunz, dude, nor even, primarily, the technique. (Great a man as he was, he'd get a little flaky about those details from time to time.) It was attitude. He made people capable of saving themselves, and lots of people are alive today who probably wouldn't be, without that.

I suspect that anyone who would make the above claims without checking up on them first, will certainly not take my word for all this, and that's fine. How about Massad Ayoob, instead? Just look up what Mas had to say about the man when he passed a few years ago. The opinion is in numerous articles of his, most notably in a rather touching eulogy appearing alongside ones from Barrett Tillman and Robbie Barrkman.


Look, I've no doubt that there are quite a few 1911 and/or Cooper fanboys out there who have no idea what they're talking about, or who simply accept dogma without being persuaded rationally. These can be engaged on their own faults, or better, ignored. But if the purpose is to go after Jeff Cooper or the 1911, at least do so with arguments that are not so easily refuted in widely available, published material. (Sure, they exist, and if it matters to you, they're not that hard to find either.)

Kevin Wilmeth said...

Actually, it was a reaction to the knee-jerk 1911 worship and "gun store attitude" that turns off so many shooters. And the Ostrich Principle that 1911 fans engage in.

Perhaps it was exactly what you say; I cannot speak for "1911 fans"...but that has no bearing on it being a chip-on-the-shoulder article, now does it?

The man never heard a shot fired in anger in his life.

Wow. Just...wow.

If you're right, you may want to contact his daughter, Lindy Cooper Wisdom, and let her know she's a liar in print. Her book The Soul and the Spirit goes over his four known personal lethal fights, as well as some of his wartime (WWII and Korea) and spook-op engagements. Cooper himself wrote of at least one of his personal engagements (I believe in Another Country), and of multiple others in which a fight was on but no shots were fired.

Cooper ruffled lots of feathers in his lifetime. Those books have been available for years. If their content were untrue, loud voices just itching for the chance would have let us know by now.

I don't doubt that he was good on a range, since that's the only place he ever used a gun.

This will come as a real surprise to the people who hunted with him over a lot of years. Totally aside from the aforementioned contact with people, Cooper's writings abound with vignettes about his hunting, and he loved dangerous game most of all. If you want to find out for yourself, it's not difficult. Just pick up Fireworks, To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth, Another Country, or even the biography The Soul and the Spirit...or any of dozens of gun-rag articles from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I am not aware of any credible source claiming that these things did not happen.

But outside of shooting on a range, what are his qualifications to teach a course on combat shooting?

Look, I'll try to be brief here, and focus just on one thing, but good grief: how about performance? I would not want to be the one to try and tell the legions of people out there who credit their lives to what Jeff Cooper taught them (disclosure: yes, I am one of them), that he was somehow "unqualified" for that task.

Let me reiterate my original point: whosoever evaluates Jeff Cooper's "accomplishments" based upon the quantity of his personal kills, engagements, or even, yes, his refinement of technique and hardware, has absolutely no idea what it is that Jeff Cooper accomplished.

That is: it weren't about the gunz, dude, nor even, primarily, the technique. (Great a man as he was, he'd get a little flaky about those details from time to time.) It was attitude. He made people capable of saving themselves, and lots of people are alive today who probably wouldn't be, without that.

I suspect that anyone who would make the above claims without checking up on them first, will certainly not take my word for all this, and that's fine. How about Massad Ayoob, instead? Just look up what Mas had to say about the man when he passed a few years ago. The opinion is in numerous articles of his, most notably in a rather touching eulogy appearing alongside ones from Barrett Tillman and Robbie Barrkman.


Look, I've no doubt that there are quite a few 1911 and/or Cooper fanboys out there who have no idea what they're talking about, or who simply accept dogma without being persuaded rationally. These can be engaged on their own faults, or better, ignored. But if the purpose is to go after Jeff Cooper or the 1911, at least do so with arguments that are not so easily refuted in widely available, published material. (Sure, they exist, and if it matters to you, they're not that hard to find either.)

Kevin Wilmeth said...

Actually, it was a reaction to the knee-jerk 1911 worship and "gun store attitude" that turns off so many shooters. And the Ostrich Principle that 1911 fans engage in.

Perhaps it was exactly what you say; I cannot speak for "1911 fans"...but that has no bearing on it being a chip-on-the-shoulder article, now does it?

Kevin Wilmeth said...

The man never heard a shot fired in anger in his life.

Wow. Just...wow.

If you're right, you may want to contact his daughter, Lindy Cooper Wisdom, and let her know she's a liar in print. Her book The Soul and the Spirit goes over his four known personal lethal fights, as well as some of his wartime (WWII and Korea) and spook-op engagements. Cooper himself wrote of at least one of his personal engagements (I believe in Another Country), and of multiple others in which a fight was on but no shots were fired.

Cooper ruffled lots of feathers in his lifetime. Those books have been available for years. If their content were untrue, loud voices just itching for the chance would have let us know by now.

I don't doubt that he was good on a range, since that's the only place he ever used a gun.

This will come as a real surprise to the people who hunted with him over a lot of years. Totally aside from the aforementioned contact with people, Cooper's writings abound with vignettes about his hunting, and he loved dangerous game most of all. If you want to find out for yourself, it's not difficult. Just pick up Fireworks, To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth, Another Country, or even the biography The Soul and the Spirit...or any of dozens of gun-rag articles from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I am not aware of any credible source claiming that these things did not happen.