Been reading Hilton Yam skewering the 1911 lately.
He definitely knows them intimately.
Something that's lost, again, in these "1911 has been rendered obsolete" discussions is the needs of a department aren't the needs of the individual.
My single gun is not being treated like an issue gun and the attention I need to apply to the quirks of the 1911 aren't onerous to me. I can see those needs being too much for a department armorer to want to deal with.
It's a small price to pay for a gun I shoot very well. Not that I've needed to address any idiosyncrasy of the gun yet. I've been lucky that way. I've yet to encounter a single one of the "routine" failures associated with one.
It makes me wonder. I harken back to my Army days and I recall how we abused the snot out of every single item we were allowed to touch; and I wonder if abusing the gun is now the norm in people's minds.
Gun X can be beaten like a red headed step-child and sits there and asks for more like a puppy! OK.
When did we decide that's how the gun SHOULD be treated?
It's like cars. My Biscayne CAN sling along at 155 miles per hour; SHOULD I?
No gun is truly obsolete, because what killed a man in 1500 or later is still deadly today.
ReplyDeleteYes the Mosin nagant is a crude bolt-action, but if you put your sights on the target and squeeze the mushy trigger the results will be no different than when the Finns were shooting at the Ruskies and vice-versa.
I remember being on a forum where one person only had a S&W model 10 for a carry gun, and was concerned about only having a standard-pressure .38 Special.
I pointed out that the military issued this gun because it would kill a man dead if you did your part. Hell same goes for somebody who has a top-break .38 S&W.
You can argue that the M1911 pattern has been surpassed by more modern plastic double-stack pistols, but its hardly obsolete.
Further I'd add that as a person who has spent time and money making his carry 1911 as thin as possible for concealment and comfort, it is DAMN hard to find a gun that can be 0.91" wide and still fire a major caliber.
Even my crazy modern plastic Kahr is thicker than that!