This video:
He says the Super outsold the .45 from its inception to the early '70's.
That's interesting.
Judging by the used guns available, I don't think so.
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Colt doesn't/didn't only sell in the US. The 38 Super is very popular where ownership of weapons chambered in military calibers is restricted/forbidden. Popular with lawmen and Prohibition era outlaws as well. I seem to remember that Clyde, Baby Face, and others had them in their arsenals. Carries an additional round also.
ReplyDeleteI got my Super Gov't Model because I was doing research on the prohibition era. It was exceedingly hard to find a plain one. Check the .38 Super tag on the sidebar!
DeleteI agree, .38 Super obviously did not sell much in the US at all compared to .45 ACP. Probably 100:1 in favor of .45 ACP, maybe more. However, the note about sales to other countries is true, however gun sales to private citizens where the restriction applies in any country that has them pales in comparison to sales to the US civilian market so much to be nearly insignificant. There are probably more handgun owners in just Texas or Florida than in any European country, possibly all of them put together.
ReplyDelete-swj
Before they changed it, .38 Super was VERY popular in Mexico. More than one company made guns in Super for the Mexican market.
DeleteThey didn't get too onerous with gun control until the early '70's and even then there was enough of a market for SIG to make a P220 in Super.
It's a valid point, but I can't imagine that civilian sales in Mexico would have made .38 Super surpass .45 ACP sales. Even if gun control didn't get super bad in Mexico until that late, it was a very poor country and legal handgun ownership probably was still nowhere near approaching levels in the US. Although I wouldn't doubt it was higher than in Europe which hasn't been free, basically forever.
Delete-swj
Mexico is my main example. South American nations, in general, had a ban on weapons that could use ammo their armies issued. That led to an earlier acceptance of semi-autos down there than here where the revolver was king until the wonder-nine revolution because .38 Special was a military round to those nations.
DeleteI could see all of South America buying enough pistols to surpass Colt's commercial sales domestically.
But I'd definitely need to see some numbers before accepting that argument.