Talk:M1911 pistol series

Additional Variants

Custom engraved nickel plated Colt MKIV Series 80 with pearl grips - .45 ACP. This is the screen used pistol for Robert De Niro playing Senator McLaughlin in the upcoming Robert Rodriguez film Machete (scheduled for release on April 16, 2010). Though this pistol is marked "Mk IV Series 80", this has a standard M1911A1 trigger.

This is the screen used Colt XSE M1911 Pistol, wielded, carried (and lost) by August Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) in the film XXX 2: State of the Union. This pistol has a customized slide with the initials "A G" etched (for "Augustus Gibbons") and also has the logo for SEAL TEAM 4 in the center - .45 ACP

The Colt/Detonics M1911A1 Series 70 hybrid pistol used in the film Terminator 2: Judgement Day - 9x19mm.

The real-life Dillinger's .38 Super M1911A1 Machine Pistol, for comparison purposes.

Springfield Armory M1911A1 mil-spec stainless - .45 ACP.

Springfield Armory M1911A1 "Mil-Spec" - .45 ACP

The stainless Springfield Armory M1911A1 used by Benico Del Toro as Detective Jack Rafferty in the film Sin City - .45 ACP.

A Nickel-Plated Titanic M1911 from Stembridge Gun Rentals - .45 ACP

Strayer Voigt Infinity 1911 - .45 ACP

AMT Hardballer Longslide - .45 ACP with laserlock sight as used in the film The Terminator.

Actual movie props used by the Comedian Jeffrey Dean Morgan in Watchmen.

The Safari Arms Matchmaster used by Angelina Jolie in the film Wanted - .45 ACP. Note Safari Arms Lion logo.

Springfield Armory Mil-spec M1911A1 - .45 ACP. This was one of the most commonly seen .45s used by LAPD SWAT before the Kimber Custom TLE II.

File:0862731R.jpg

M1911A1 Commercial (Same marks of the movie's pistol) - .45 ACP.

A Strayer Voight Infinity - .45 ACP. This is one of the actual guns that has been used by The Company henchmen on Heroes; this weapon was supplied to the show by Independent Studio Services and has been used on every season.

Video game appearances of this pistol series

Why is it that the "Video Game appearances" tables have a column named "Passwords"? I don't think it's for passwords to unlock them, because to my knowledge very few video games actually have a password system to unlock weapons. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a "Notes" after the "Mods" section where certain pertinent but miscellaneous information can be written, such as what copyright-infringement-avoiding name it goes under in the game, or whether it is chambered in a non-standard caliber?

I'd like this cleared up. Oh, and someone needs to include a note saying that "mods" is short for "modifications/customizations for the weapon," not "downloadable modifications to the game itself."--Mazryonh 06:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Frankly I think both the "Mods" and "Passwords" sections can go, since the latter is pointless and the former's purpose can be adequately served by "Notes". --MattyDienhoff 15:17, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Colt Government Model Section

With regard to the following sentence:

"Aside from Colt selling the M1911A1 to the US military, the gun was also sold under the name "Colt Government Model" to the civilian market, and called the "Pre-Series 70" guns today."

First, the Colt Government Model was introduced in 1912, and as such, it was originally in the M1911 configuration. When the U.S. Military switched to the M1911A1 configuration in the mid 1920s, Colt began manufacturing their Government Models in the M1911A1 configuration as well. So early Government Models parallel the military's M1911 configuration, while later Government Models (after the mid 1920s) parallel the military's M1911A1 configuration. Additionally, not only pre-Series 70 guns are Government Models. Series 70 and Series 80 guns are both Government Models. In fact, Colt still makes the Government Model to this day in various configurations.

With regard to the following sentence:

"For IMFDB purposes, this can also be referred to as an M1911A1. In this manner, there is no need to list film, television, anime, video games in this section."

It is sloppy to refer to a Colt Government Model as an M1911A1. "M1911A1" is the U.S. Military designation for a particular type of gun, and most of them were not even made by Colt (Remington Rand [the typewriter company] made most of them). I can see referring to a gun as an "M1911 type" or "M1911A1 type" if the manufacturer can't be determined, but when you simply type "M1911" or "M1911A1" you are referring to a U.S. Military contract pistol.

On top of that, the pictured gun in the Colt Government Model section is not even a "Pre-Series 70", it is a pre-enhanced Series 80 Government Model.

--MaximRecoil 21:44, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

So it's like how we don't call it the Beretta M9, we call it the Beretta 92FS. -Gunman69 03:52, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

With the M9 vs. 92FS situation, it is next to impossible to tell the difference between the two onscreen, unless there is a closeup allowing one to read the markings. In such cases I would say, if a civilian character is using the gun, it is probably intended to be a 92F or 92FS. If a military character is using it, it is probably intended to be an M9, regardless of what the actual prop is. I would assume that most—if not all—movie and TV props are actually 92Fs or 92FSs, because I don't believe that actual M9s have ever been made available for civilian sale.

With the M1911 or M1911A1 vs. the Colt Government Model (or other brands of 1911-type guns), it is usually possible to tell the difference onscreen without being able to read the markings. For example, the Colt Government Model does not have a lanyard loop. Most M1911A1s were parkerized, while no Government Models were parkerized. When dealing with more modern Government Models, there are even more differences. For example, starting in 1950, Government Models started coming with a full-shelf thumb safety; while all M1911[A1]s had partial-shelf thumb safeties. Also at this time, Government Models started being given a finish with polished flats and matte radiuses, while blued and Du-Lite (similar to bluing in appearance) M1911A1s had polished radiuses and brushed flats or entirely polished (depending on the manufacturer and/or time of manufacture); and of course the more common parkerized M1911A1s were simply all matte.

Additionally, the newer Government Models as mentioned above have narrow hammers with polished sides left "in the white", and polished chamber hoods also left "in the white". Many M1911A1s had wide-spur hammers, and the ones that had narrow hammers were fully finished (no polished "in the white" sides) and they all had fully blued barrels, including the otherwise parkerized ones (no polished "in the white" chamber hoods).

Most of the Government Models you see onscreen from the early 70s to the mid-to-late '80s were actually 9mm versions, though they were usually representing a "forty-five" onscreen. This had to do with reliable functioning with readily available 9mm blanks. Colt introduced the 9mm version of the Government Model when they introduced the Series 70 in the early 1970s, and the 9mm version of the CGM had a lowered ejection port (while the .45 ACP version still had the standard military style ejection port). With the introduction of the Series 80 Government Model in 1983, the .45 ACP version also got a lowered ejection port. No M1911[A1] had a lowered ejection port.

I'll give an example. In the show Magnum, P.I., his gun is blued with polished flats and matte radiuses; polished "in the white" chamber hood and hammer sides, and a lowered ejection port. It is clear from looking that the gun is a Series 70 Colt Government Model chambered for 9mm (though it was always addressed as a "forty-five" in the show's dialogue); and is definitely not an M1911A1. Recently the gun came up for auction and is now in the NRA's National Firearms Museum, and it has been confirmed that that is exactly what the main prop gun was (serial # 70L33101 to be exact).

--MaximRecoil 21:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Primary M1911 description

Who wrote this? The historical paragraph (on the background of the M1911) implies that the M1911 was replaced by the U.S. Military AFTER Operation Desert Storm (1991) which is not true. The Beretta M92 (M9) was already approved and adopted by 1985.

Image Sizes

The dimensions on a lot of the images are rather large. I'm tinkering with reducing them by 100 pixels each for the sake of conserving page length. Since a lot of people here are familiar with the wiki technology, they know they can click on the images to enlarge the images if they wish.

68.167.206.53 04:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Please don't change the page format. Everything works together now and it took me a long time to fix. - Gunmaster45 02:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Uh sorry, but it's FUBARed again. I am going to try a weird little formatting trick, please bear with me MoviePropMaster2008 04:30, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Hold on, I'm gonna see if I can make this work out better... -MT2008 00:49, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, I have fixed it. From now on, it won't matter if anyone hits "Edit" to one pistol (instead of the whole page); the edit won't remove all the other paragraph spaces automatically (which is what was causing the problem). -MT2008 01:32, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Para-Ordance

Shouldnt these guns get their own page? Sure they are a 1911 varients, but their made by a totally different company.The Winchester 00:38, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but they're 1911 variants. This is the M1911 pistol series page, and they are 1911s. That's why they are on here. - Gunmaster45

I would prefer the Para Ordnance series of pistols have their own page due PRIMARILY to the fact that the Paras have a whole slew of different calibers that other M1911 makes and models don't have MoviePropMaster2008 06:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The M in the page title

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the M in the page title incorrect? These are Colt 1911s (or 1911a1s, etc.), not Colt M1911s, unless referred to by US military nomenclature, just the same way that a Beretta 92f is an M9 only to the US Army and a SIG Sauer P228 is an M11 only in USAF terms. Just because it's the model of 1911 doesn't make it an M1911, any more than a '67 Shelby GT500 is an M67 Shelby GT500.YourMessageHere 08:09, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

No. The Colt pistol was formally adopted by the Army on March 29, 1911, thus gaining its designation, M1911 (Model of 1911). Only examples or prototypes prior to the year 1911 would NOT have the M designation (which is extremely rare). Between the years of 1907 and 1910 the Colt pistol was constantly being modified and re-designed to win the Army's trials for adoption of a new handgun. The gun was only mass produced AFTER winning the Army's pistol trials. The Beretta 92FS was already famous world wide and was commercially available as the 92F/FS for YEARS before the Army adopted it. Every 1911 design came AFTER the M1911 (aka Model of 1911) so it is the correct nomenclature. MoviePropMaster2008 07:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Using "1911" to refer to any and all pistols based on the M1911 design has only been popular for about fifteen years. Prior to that, the vast majority of such pistols were Colts, and were usually called "Colt .45s", even if they were pistols made by wartime contractors like Remington Rand. Those commercial guns that weren't made by Colt, as made by Vega, Randall, Federal Ordnance, Essex, etc., were called "clones", as they were generally close copies of the Colt. When makers started adding previously "custom" features to production-line guns, and branching into areas that Colt hadn't, a new name was needed, and "1911" became popular. The problem that I have with the various names on the site is the mixing of military and commercial designations; a gun cannot be a "M1911A1 Government Model", as M1911A1 is a military designation, and Government Model is what Colt has always called the civilian version of the "M" military pistols. Colt has made M1911s (1912-circa 1924), M1911A1s (circa 1926-1945), and Government Models (1912-date), but you can't mix or combine those names without confusing the issue.

WHO KEEPS ON F#$%KING WITH THE FORMAT?

I noticed yet AGAIN, the pictures are not aligning with their sections. We need to tell these anonymous members not to mess with a page's format if they don't know what they are doing!!!!!!! MoviePropMaster2008 07:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I've added a new category (Imbel 1911), but I'm not able to properly aling the picture of the gun with its section. Can anyone tell me what am I doing wrong? (and help me to fix it, please)

Sign your posts. Also, what you did isn't a category. It's a Section.--Oliveira 17:28, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the section, the picture is alinged. I don't see anything wrong.--Oliveira 17:29, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually I aligned it later.-SB2296

Caliber question

I thought I would ask permission before making this change considering how important this article is: in the specifications category the caliber is listed solely as .45 ACP. I was wondering whether or not that should be changed to include .380 ACP, .38 Super, 9mm, and .40 S&W?

-Anonymous

No, since the ORIGINAL Colt M1911 is .45 ACP Caliber, it should stay like that, since copies of the M1911 maybe have different calibers those should be put on the "copy" section

M1991 Series

I was wondering: what exactly is the difference between the 1911 series and the 1991 series? -Gunman69 17:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Colt introduced (announced) the M1991A1 in 1991 as a sort of economy version of the Government Model, resembling the military M1911A1, and with the serial numbers picking up where the military gun left off after WWII. The gun was made in that form until about 2003, at which time the finish was changed to polished blue rather than matte blue, and the black rubber grips replaced with checkered wood.

I heard a guy explain on youtube that 1991 got "extra safety feature" which blocked firing pin movement entirely when trigger was not pressed; allegedly this modification appeared after a incident involving police officer accidentally killing suspect while snapping him with the gun. However, this modification somehow managed to eject firing pin from the slide during decocking so only few people liked it --Cover72 21:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Terminator 2

It was my understanding that the 1911 used in the film was a custom Colt frame with a fitted Detonic slide. Was it a combatmaster slide? 65.29.239.251 09:33, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

blank firers / K911

I've added/moved blank firing Kimar 911 to the bottom of page as told by MoviePropMaster2008 ("Non-firing replicas of the M1911 belong on the bottom of the M1911 page. Thanks.")
But I wonder, shouldn't there be an entire sub-category of blank firers (with K911 being sub-section of this) in order to distinguish blanks from the real ones? It might look confusing this way. And also, I made multiple photos of K911 for what I thought would be it's page here including disassembled weapon photo, so perhaps these unused ones might be deleted? --Cover72 21:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Strayer Voigt Infinity

This gun is using a frame from STI, they call that frame the 2011, it's double stacked. And is made from steel and polymer.

are Strayer Voigt Infinity custom built guns? or just have alot of models? Rex095

The modular frames look exactly like those used by STI. http://www.sviguns.com Don't know if they collaborate or something. They (SVI) have more optional grips than STI.

Both companies reside in Texas.

Read up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strayer_Voigt_Inc

Police service pistols

Before the 90s were American Police ever issued the M1911, or were they're only given to the FBI and SWAT team?

- Some regular state/county/municipal departments might have used a 1911 as a standard duty-weapon before semiautos came into heavy use following the eighties, but I imagine that's a very low number. I certainly don't know of any specific departments myself offhand. Not that many departments use 'em much today. As a 1911 generally was considered a large pistol with a fairly powerful round it wasn't considered easy to use and handle by regular officers. Same general reason why departments in older times stuck with .38s over .357s - The .357 was generally considered too powerful for standard-duty officers. As such, most police departments used 9mms when they first went to automatics in the eighties as there were few semiauto calibers with lower recoil impulse and power at the time than .45ACP.

Some other police units might have used 1911s when it suited them - Homicide detectives in our county's police dept. carried 1911 type pistols, though I don't think that was the county's standard sidearm for uniformed officers. StanTheMan 02:04, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

There's another reason, besides caliber, that the 1911 wouldn't have been too popular in the old days - it's a single-action. Before DA-only became more acceptable (i.e. Glocks), most LE departments preferred handguns that were SA/DA. Almost all police revolvers used prior to the 1980s, like the S&W Model 15 and 19, or the Colt Python, were single- or double-action. This bias continued into the 1980s when a lot of departments started adopting the Beretta 92F and the 3rd Generation Smith & Wesson autos. Now that Glocks have been around long enough, DA-only is finally becoming the standard. But SA-only is pretty much a no-go to any LE agency, and that's the way it was even before the 1980s. -MT2008 02:30, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Isn't Glocks SA-only? The firing pin is cocked by cambering a round?

Would a Smith and Wesson Model 39 or 639 or Colt Commander be more acceptable for police use back then?

- To MT, that's a good point as well. SA weapons do require a lot of training and familiarity to operate effectively and safely, and as such, again, weren't considered practical for regular police officers either. Very good to point out. If I'm not mistaken, that's one of the main reasons why the 1911 fell out of favor in the Armed Forces as well - the fact they required extensive training and familiarity to use and carry safely. DA weapons are easier to train and operate with. Very true.

As for the Glock question, no, Glocks are actually DA only.

As for actions - In a Single-Action (SA) firearm, the hammer must be manually cocked to a firing position prior to pulling the trigger. Just like revolvers of the old west. Double action firearms will both cock and release the hammer when the trigger is pulled. SA/DA firearms use double-action by default, but feature an externally accessible hammer to allow single-action style firing (by cocking the hammer back and then pulling the trigger). Modern revolvers are perhaps the simplest examples of this.

DAO (Double-Action-Only) firearms only fire by double-action as they don't have an accessible hammer for single-action cocking. Such as Glock and various other semiauto pistols.

So if you have empty casing in the chamber, an pull the trigger several times, you would hear a loud click every time because the firing pin would be cocked every time? That's what happens in a DAO gun. If not, it's a SAO.

And on the last question, yes the Smith 39/59 pistols were used by police departments back then. Illinois State Police used the 59 back in the 60s/70s if I remember my Jane's Gun Recognition book correctly. StanTheMan 05:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Versus modern pistols

One thing I've noticed about this pistol is that almost everyone loves it, as though it were the best, most versatile handgun ever made. But really, what makes this thing, almost 100 years old now, any better than any modern pistols? Really, modern pistols can fire the same rounds, bigger clips, better design, picatinny rails, etc.--Zblayde 21:54, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Familiarity, accuracy, ease of getting parts, feel, simplicity (yes I know there are designs that are simpler, but for what this pistol is, it is simple), many different makes and models of the 1911, modularity, traditionalism. There are many makes and models of the 1911 style that have the same features as many modern "wonder guns". Want more ammo? Get a Para Ord P14, ditto for DA, and DA/SA. Want a 9mm/ 10mm/ etc? there are many types of 1911 platform pistols ranging from .22lr to .44 Magnum. A quote I heard about the 1911 a few years ago is "It's like a '32 Ford Hotrod, its cheap, reliable, powerful, fun, and is easy to make it your own. Just don't think you'll get much mileage out of a tank of gas." Now tell me can you put custom grips, barrels, sights, slides, frames, triggers, hammers, finishes, safeties, slide releases magazines, etc etc etc on a Glock, XD, SIG, Beretta, etc? Maby a few of those, but at what price, and can you do it all? -Ranger01 08:51, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Really, modern pistols can fire the same rounds, bigger clips, better design, picatinny rails, etc.

- Funny, several pistols I can think of that fit that criteria are little more than updated 1911 pistols. StanTheMan 20:08, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

"bigger clips"

Fail. I believe you meant Magazines. The Wierd It 21:28, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

ya Unless your talkin about a Mauser broomhandle (which you're not) I would prefer if you said magazine instead of clip

Actually, that's another thing I'm questioning. Really, what is the difference between the detaachable box magazines and clips? I mean, clips hold bullets for easy loading, right? SO wouldn't modern detachable magazines be classified as clips too?--Zblayde 20:17, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Simplest way I can put this - a clip loads a magazine. The magazine is what the gun feeds from - NOT THE CLIP. It just so happens that on some guns, the magazine is affixed to the weapon (the M1 Garand and the Mauser, for example). Thus, users have to use clips to reload them. On, say, a M1911 or an M16, the magazine falls out, thus allowing the user to swap in a new one when needed. A magazine could hold a clip, if so designed...but that particular road is one-way only. --Clutch 20:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)