A History of the M1911 Pistol

The M1911 pistol is a legendary design that is still going strong well into the 21st century. We will study some of its history in this post.

Click on images to enlarge.

First, we go all the way back to 1884, when Hiram Maxim, an American inventor, was living in England. A couple of years before, he recalled that as a child, he had once tried to fire a rifle and was knocked over by the recoil. This gave him the idea that perhaps he could harness some of the recoil force to automatically extract the old cartridge and chamber a new one. He started work in 1882 and by October 1884, he had a prototype that he could demonstrate publicly.

While Hiram Maxim formed a company to manufacture machine guns, the principle he had demonstrated could also be used by pistols. By 1896, several companies began to manufacture pistols using the same concept of using recoil to automatically load subsequent cartridges.

Fast forward a few years and over in Asia, the Philippines-American war had broken out in 1899 and by 1904, Moro tribesmen in the southern Philippines had started a rebellion. US soldiers, who were then using the issued M1892 revolver, found to their horror, that the .38 Long Colt cartridge that it used was insufficient to stop charging Moro tribesmen, who were reportedly high and filled with religious fervor. Some servicemen found that the older M1873 revolver model, which used a bigger .45 Colt cartridge was much more effective at stopping the tribesmen. Word got back to higher ups and the Chief of Ordinance, General William Crozier, authorized some tests to determine a new sidearm for the US army.

Colonel (later General) John T. Thompson (of Thompson submachine gun fame) declared that among his requirements for the new firearm was that it should fire at least .45 caliber ammunition and should be capable of semi-automatic operation. In 1906, firearms from six different companies were submitted for trial and four were eliminated early on, leaving only designs manufactured by Savage and Colt for final trials. The Colt design was designed by the legendary firearms designer, John Browning. During the final tests conducted in 1910, the Colt design passed through the tests with reportedly no malfunctions, whereas the Savage design had 37 failures. Therefore, the Colt design was officially accepted in March 1911 and designated as the M1911 pistol.

While the military liked the Colt design, they suggested a number of improvements to it. Among them was the addition of the grip safety and the manual safety. After World War I, a number of minor changes were authorized and these were incorporated into the M1911A1 design in 1924. Among these changes were shorter trigger, wider front sight, longer grip safety spur, shorter hammer spur etc. These changes are relatively minor and people who are not very familiar with the design cannot really tell the differences.

Since then, the design has been manufactured by many other companies around the world, with a variety of different materials. Examples of manufacturers include Smith & Wesson, Taurus, Norinco, Wilson Arms, Les Baer etc. They can vary in prices from about $300 to over $5000 for custom made models.

The demand of this classic design is still going strong -- in July 2012, the US Marine Corps announced that they were looking to purchase 12,000 M1911 pistols for use by various personnel.

Safety Mechanisms: Carry Conditions

With all the discussion about safety mechanisms in the previous few posts, it is now time to discuss the subject of carry conditions, i.e. how to carry a firearm in various conditions of readiness. The various carry conditions were defined by the legendary Marine Lieutenant Colonel John Dean ("Jeff") Cooper, who did much to teach the modern techniques of handgun shooting.

Before discussing the various carry conditions, it must be noted that Lt. Col. Cooper was a big fan of the Colt M1911 and its variants. So when he defined his carrying conditions, it was with such a pistol in mind (i.e.) a semi-automatic with an exposed hammer. Therefore, some of the carry conditions may not apply to other firearm types. With that said, let us discuss the various carry conditions (from safest to readiest) and where they are used:

Condition 4: This is the safest of the carry conditions. In this condition, the firearm is completely unloaded. There is no cartridge in the chamber and the magazine is removed from the firearm. The hammer is lowered as well. Also, all safety devices on the firearm are turned on. In some firearm types (e.g. shotguns, rifles), the firearm may be partially disassembled as well (e.g. barrel separated from receiver), so that it will fit in a bag or case. In this condition, it will take a while to get the firearm ready to fire, because the user needs to load a magazine, insert it into the firearm, feed the first round into the firing chamber by operating the slide (which also cocks the hammer in pistols), disable all safety devices and then pull the trigger. Many people put their firearms in this condition, when they intend to store them for a long while in a gun vault (say, at the end of hunting season.)

Condition 3: In this condition, there is a loaded magazine inserted into the weapon, but there is no round in the chamber. The hammer is also down and all safety devices on the firearm are enabled. In this condition, the user needs to pull back the slide to feed the first round into the pistol's chamber (which also cocks it) and then disable all safety devices and then pull the trigger to fire. In case of a shotgun or a bolt action rifle, the user pulls on the lever to load the first round and cock the weapon.  This is the condition that many people preferred to carry single or double action revolvers in, back in the day when there were no other safety devices on them. The revolver is loaded in all chambers, except for the one that is rotated to be directly under the hammer. Any unintentional impact on the hammer will not do any harm because the chamber under the hammer is empty. When the user intends to use the revolver, they pull the hammer back first to cock it, which automatically rotates the cylinder as well and now the next chamber with a cartridge comes under the hammer, ready to be discharged.  The early Israeli weapons training in the 1940-60s also emphasized carrying firearms with no round in the chamber and hence this condition is also called the "Israeli Carry" method. The reason the Israelis taught this method is because when the new state of Israel was founded, most of its weaponry was old, second-hand goods. This meant that quite a few of their firearms had worn or malfunctioning safety devices and therefore new soldiers were taught to use condition 3 carry in order to prevent accidents. Since then, Israel has started manufacturing her own firearms and also can purchase quality firearms from other countries now, hence they no longer teach this method to new soldiers. Other people who carry in condition 3 are usually owners of older revolvers with no firing pin safety, or those who own a firearm with no external hammer (such as a Glock, Springfield XD, many pocket pistols from Browning, FN, Colt, Astra etc.) and wish to be extra safe.

Condition 2: In this condition, there is a loaded magazine inserted into the firearm and one round is loaded in the chamber already. However, the hammer is decocked. Therefore, to fire a weapon in this condition, one needs to pull the hammer back to cock it and then pull the trigger. This condition only applies to firearms with external hammers. Therefore it is not possible to carry a firearm with an internal striker (such as a Glock or a Springfield Armory XD pistol) in this condition. Also, it is recommended that the firearm have some kind of firing pin safety enabled, if carrying in this condition and preferably a decocking lever to safely decock the weapon. A double action (DA) revolver or pistol may be carried in this condition because the first pull of the trigger is much heavier (because it cocks the hammer first before firing it). Subsequent shots on a DA pistol are much easier because each shot now automatically re-cocks the pistol as well. A single action revolver with no firing pin safety (or a pistol with no firing pin safety) should never be carried in condition 2.

Condition 1: In this condition, a loaded magazine is inserted into the firearm, there is a round in the chamber and the hammer is cocked. Only the safety device(s) is enabled. This is also called the "cocked-and-locked" condition. To fire a weapon in this condition, one merely disables the safety device and then pulls the trigger. On a pistol such as a M1911, the thumb safety is enabled and the user needs to merely flick it down with the thumb and pull the trigger. This is the condition recommended for concealed carry and also recommended for use by some militaries when soldiers are travelling through a potentially hazardous zone with no visible danger apparent.

Condition 0: This is the condition where the firearm is in its most ready state. A loaded magazine is inserted into the firearm, there is a round in the chamber, the hammer is cocked and all safety devices are disabled. The user only needs to aim and pull the trigger to discharge it. This is the condition that police and soldiers carry their weapons in, if they are in a danger area with known enemies in the vicinity.

Some people consider a loaded Glock or Springfield XD pistol with no separate external safety, to be in Condition 0.5 (i.e. between conditions 0 and 1). This is because the built in safeties are enabled, but they are all connected to the trigger and once the trigger is pulled, it automatically disables all the safeties as part of the action. How this mechanism works was explained earlier in our discussion about integrated trigger safeties.

Organizations that issue M1911 style pistols usually specify the condition it is to be carried in, as part of their training doctrine.

While the carry conditions were originally written for M1911 type pistols, they generally apply to other firearms as well. While military doctrines clearly define what carry condition should be used in what situation, the same is not true in the civilian sector. Therefore, one invariably sees many arguments about which condition is best on various internet boards :).

Safety Mechanisms: Grip safety

In the last couple of posts, we studied the basics of firearm safety mechanisms as well as some manual safety mechanisms. In this post, we will study a particular type of safety mechanism called the Grip Safety. This is a popular mechanism that was first seen on the classic John Browning designed Colt M1911 pistol and later seen on other pistol models as well. It is also found in the Israeli Uzi submachine gun.

Like the name implies, a grip safety device is a lever located in the grip of the firearm. The user's hand naturally depresses the safety lever when he or she grips the firearm and this disables the safety device, thus enabling the user to pull the trigger and operate the firearm. When the user releases their grip on the firearm, the safety lever automatically pops out again and is re-enabled.

Public domain image. Click on image to enlarge.

The above image shows a Colt M1911A1 pistol. The grip safety lever is at the back of the hand grip and is automatically depressed when the user holds the pistol. There is also a manual safety lever on the firearm, at the rear of the slide, which you ought to be able to spot easily, if you've read the previous post.

Believe it or not, the original John Browning design didn't actually have a safety device, but the US Army insisted on adding a grip safety and a manual safety for the original M1911 pistol design, before they would accept it.  Hence, John Browning added them for the M1911, which stayed in service from 1911-1924. The changes made to the M1911A1 model (which has been manufactured from 1924 to the present day) were relatively minor: Longer grip, wider front sight, shorter spur on the hammer etc., so it still has a grip safety and manual safety.

Public domain image. Click on image to enlarge.

The firearm depicted above is the Israeli made Uzi submachine gun. The grip safety is labelled in the above image and is pretty easy to see.

The nice thing about this design is that it is automatically enabled or disabled as the user holds or releases the firearm's grips. Therefore, a firearm with this safety device will only fire if the user is actually holding the firearm and intending to discharge it. Thus, if the user were to accidentally drop the firearm, the safety automatically enables and prevents the firearm from discharging accidentally.

Pistols: Semi-automatic Pistols

During the early and mid 1800s, single-shot pistols began to lose popularity as revolvers became more common. It was only close to the end of the 1890s, when they began to regain popularity, due to the invention of semi-automatic pistols. We've already covered the actions that these weapons use, such as toggle lock recoil action, blowback action, short recoil action, gas operated action etc.

Semi-automatic pistols use some of the energy generated by a fired cartridge to automatically extract the fired cartridge case, cock the pistol and insert a new cartridge into the firing chamber. The user needs to pull the trigger each time to fire a new bullet.

Most semi-automatic pistols use either blowback action or recoil action, as these are more suited for smaller weapons. However, there are a few larger pistol models, such as the Desert Eagle, that use the gas operated action.

All semi-automatic pistols come with a magazine to hold multiple cartridges. In semi-automatic pistols, the magazine is located inside the handgrip. The magazine has a spring inside it and cartridges are loaded by pushing against this spring pressure.

Image licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license by user Scoo on wikpedia.org.

After the magazine is loaded, it is slid into the handgrip of the magazine and then the slide is manipulated to chamber the first cartridge into the firing chamber.

There are different types of pistol actions (similar to what we already studied about revolver basics). In the single action type, the hammer needs to be initially cocked manually. This is usually done on most pistols by pulling the slide backwards, which also pulls the hammer back and cocks it. On some pistols with external hammers, such as the M1911, the pistol can not only be cocked by pulling back the slide, but it can also be cocked by pulling the hammer back separately.

Pulling on the trigger then releases the hammer, which strikes the firing pin and detonates the cartridge. The bullet is fired out of the front of the barrel. Meanwhile, the action of the pistol extracts the old cartridge and pushes the slide backwards, which cocks the hammer again. The old cartridge is ejected via a port on the side of the slide and the new cartridge is pulled from the magazine and shoved into the firing chamber and the pistol is now ready to fire again.

In a double action pistol, pulling back on the trigger cocks and releases the hammer in the same motion. In some double actions, the pistol is double-action only (DAO) and there are some where the pistol can either work in single action or double action mode (DA/SA type). In this type, the hammer can be cocked manually and then released by the trigger, or pulling the trigger cocks and releases in the same action.

The first semi-automatic pistol adopted into service was the Hugo Borchardt designed C-93, which was shortly followed by the Mauser C-96. The US military adopted the John Browning designed .45 caliber Colt M1911 (which was adopted into service in 1911, hence the name). The M1911 remained in mainstream US military service for over 70 years and is still used by some Special Forces and Marine Corps units. Most of the world's other military forces started to switch back from revolvers to pistols after World War II, followed by police and civilians as well.

These days, modern semi-automatic pistols come in a variety of calibers and sizes, with a wide variety of options.

Actions: Recoil Action: Short Recoil Operation - II

In our last post, we studied the basics of a Short Recoil Operated Action, as well as some different weapons that use it. In this post, we will study one more variant of the short recoil operated action, the toggle lock recoil action. This variant of the short recoil operated action was originally used by the world's first machine gun, the Maxim. It was later used in some small arms, notably the Hugo Borchardt designed C93 pistol and later on by the Luger pistol.

The C93 pistol was one of the first successful commercial semi-automatic pistols. Hugo Borchardt was a German born inventor, who later emigrated to the United States, became an American citizen and worked for several well known American firearms manufacturers, including Colt, Winchester and Remington. He later emigrated back to Europe and was employed by the Ludwig Loewe company when he invented his pistol in 1893.

Source: http://www.adamsguns.com

The copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use this image for any purpose, provided the copyright holder is properly attributed.

The pistol was fairly successful, despite the fact that it was mechanically complicated, expensive to produce and hard to handle. Note the almost vertical grip and the big, ugly, semi-circular mainspring hanging out of the back of the weapon. These two features make it harder to aim the pistol quickly and affect the overall balance.

Hugo Borchardt was an easily offended man by nature and he believed that his design was perfect and couldn't be improved. As a result, another employee of the Loewe company, Georg Luger, was tasked with improving the design, which he succeeded in doing in 1896. The Luger design started with the basic Borchardt designed mechanism, but had an angled grip that made it easier to point, added a new grip safety, removed the C93's mainspring and replaced with a leaf spring, improved the balance, redesigned the cartridges used etc. The new pistol was originally adopted by the Swiss army in 1900 and was later adopted by the Germans in 1908. Since the Germans adopted it in 1908, they named it as Pistole-08 or P-08 for short. The words for "zero eight" in German are "null acht", hence this pistol was also known in Germany as the "null acht". The pistols originally used 7.65x22 mm. cartridges, but Luger invented a different sized cartridge for the German army and redesigned the pistol to use this new cartridge: the famous 9x19 mm. parabellum cartridge, also popularly known as the "9 mm. Luger" cartridge. The 9x19 mm. cartridge is still with us today and is the most common military handgun cartridge in use currently.

The Luger was used heavily by the Germans in World War I, produced by both Erfurt Arsenal and DWM (the Loewe company had been renamed to Deutsche Waffen und Munitions Fabriken (DWM) by this time). After the war, the allies restricted production of most weapons for a while, until a German company called Simson was allowed to manufacture Lugers after 1925. Ironically, the Nazis later forced the Simson company to close before World War II, because the owners happened to be Jewish! The Mauser company continued to manufacture Lugers until the end of World War II. Lugers were later replaced in military service by more modern designs, but there are still some private manufacturers making Lugers to this day.

The most distinctive feature of a Luger (and its C93 predecessor) is its toggle lock mechanism. It works similar to the principle of a human knee. Note that a human leg can withstand a lot more pressure when the knee is straight and locked, but once the knee is bent, the leg suddenly becomes much easier to bend after that. The toggle lock mechanism works very similarly. When the weapon is initially fired, the toggle lock mechanism is straight. The recoil causes the barrel and toggle lock initially move back together on rails. Due to the toggle being straight, it doesn't move backwards easily initally. After a little bit of movement, the toggle part begins to ride over a pair of cams that bend the toggle at the joint. Once the toggle lock is no longer straight, it bends much more freely, allowing the bolt to accelerate backwards and recock the weapon. An extractor at the end of the toggle pulls out the old cartridge and ejects it. A recoil spring then pushes the bolt forwards again, whereupon it strips a new round from the magazine and pushes it in the chamber, ready to fire. The movies below show how this works:

This design had a few disadvantages though. For one, it was a fairly complicated mechanism and required precisely fitted parts to work properly. The tolerances required for this design are very tight and parts often had to be hand-fitted for it to work right. These tolerances contributed greatly to the accuracy of the weapon, but took away the reliability. In fact, small amounts of dirt on the exposed firing mechanism parts, especially on the left hand side, could cause the weapon to jam. The Luger was expensive to produce, even for its time, and it was competing in the civilian market with the Colt M1911, which was cheaper to produce and more reliable in operation.

This is why there are no other modern weapons that use this particular variant of the short recoil action mechanism.

Actions: Recoil Action: Short Recoil Operation

In our previous post, we studied the basics of recoil operated actions. In this particular post, we will study one of the types of recoil operated actions, i.e. the short recoil operation.

This action type has a long history, being the action that was used in the first machine gun ever invented, i.e. the Maxim machine gun. It is also the action of choice for most semi-automatic and automatic pixels that use 9 mm. Luger (9x19 mm.) cartridges or bigger. Smaller and lower powered cartridges are used with blowback actions that we studied last month, but once the cartridges get beyond a certain size and power, a blowback action cannot be used any more and most modern pistols therefore use a short recoil operation.

As we noted in our previous post, one of the key differences between a blowback action and a recoil operated action is that a recoil operated action has the bolt (i.e. the metal block that holds the cartridge in the chamber before firing) is locked at the point of firing, whereas a blowback action merely has it held under spring pressure. This enables the recoil operated action to fire heavier cartridges. Also, as we noted previously, in a recoil operated action, some parts of the weapon are allowed to recoil backwards, whereas other parts are held stationary relative to the recoiling parts. In a short recoil action, the parts that are allowed to recoil are the barrel and the bolt.

At the point when the bullet is fired, the barrel and the bolt are locked together and move backwards due to recoil. After a short distance of travel (a few mm. in the case of pistols and a few caliber lengths in the case of machine guns), the bolt and the barrel disengage from each other. How this is achieved is what differentiates various short recoil operation systems. In some cases, the barrel is slowed down, in other cases, the bolt is accelerated. In either case, the barrel stops moving, whereas the bolt continues to move backwards and compresses a recoil spring and also extracts the old cartridge case at the same time, which is ejected via a side port. The recoil spring then pushes the bolt forwards and as the bolt moves forwards, it picks up the new cartridge from the magazine and pushes it and the barrel forwards. When the barrel reaches its forward position again, the bolt and barrel lock again and the weapon is ready to be fired.

As was mentioned above, in some systems, the barrel is slowed down to separate the barrel from the bolt. Weapons that use this include the classic Colt M1911 pistol designed by John Browning, all Glock pistols, Smith & Wesson, FN Browning, SIG Sauer etc.

In the case of the Browning designed Colt M1911, the bolt, barrel and slide all move backwards together initially, but then a barrel link tilts the barrel downwards. As the barrel tilts, the barrel locking lugs unlock themselves from the slide recesses. The bolt and slide continue to move backwards and an extraction claw on the slide also pulls the spent cartridge out of the chamber.

An ejector strikes the back of the spent cartridge and pushes it out of the extraction port, as the slide and bolt continue to move backwards. When the slide and bolt reach the back of the pistol, the recoil spring pushes them forward and during the forward motion, the slide locks back into the barrel and the three pieces then move back together. The two animated movies below show how this works.

In the case of Glock, SIG Sauer and most recently designed automatic pistols, this mechanism is even more simplified. There is a downward inclined ramp attached to the back of the barrel. As the barrel and slide move backwards, the ramp contacts a fixed stud on the pistol's frame. This causes the back of the barrel to move down (and the front to tilt up), which moves it out of engagement with the slide. The rest of the action is similar to what was described earlier. The animation below shows exactly how this works:

In the above three animations, the one thing is common is that the bolt and barrel initially move backward together and are then separated by slowing down the barrel while leaving the bolt and slide free to continue moving backwards.

Another way to achieve this separation is by accelerating the bolt after they both move back together. This mechanism is most commonly used today in the 7.62 mm. and 12.7 mm. M2 machine guns invented by (surprise, surprise) John Browning! The 12.7 mm. M2 is still used in the famous Abrams tank, as well as most other western tanks, which shows the reliability and timelessness of this design. In the M2 machine gun, the barrel and bolt initially recoil together about 10 mm. backwards and then a rotating cam in the receiver disconnects the bolt from the barrel. The barrel has an extension in the back and bottom of the barrel. After the bolt and barrel are disconnected, this extension then strikes a short, curved lever. The lever is pivoted so that it has a mechanical advantage and therefore it pushes and accelerates the bolt rearward. A fixed stud stops the barrel extension, which also halts the barrel, while the bolt continues rearward. As before, we have an animation to show how it works:

We will continue studying short recoil operations tomorrow, where we will deal with some more historical short-recoil operated weapons such as toggle-bolt short recoil actions. It'll be interesting reading!