Marines allow MARSOC Operators to choose Glock's over 1911's

Military.com ^ | February 19, 2015 | Matthew Cox

[riverrunner]

The 1911 has more parts then a Glock thus more complicated.

I owned and shot both taken both apart and put them back together.

1911 is a more complicated design.

Link less vs linked, barrel bushing vs no barrel bushing and could on.

[yarddog]

The 1911 is one of the easiest pistols to detail strip.

Field stripping is a bit of a bother tho. Getting that barrel link to line up just right before putting the slide stop back can be entertaining.

The most difficult pistol to field strip and reassemble has to be the Ruger .22 auto in it’s various forms.

[MasterGunner01]

Bottom line is that they both work. And the M1911 design is the benchmark against which the Glock is measured. That the plastic fantastic may be superior in certain respects, that is to be expected due to the intervening years between the introduction of both pistols. The fact remains, the M1911 style pistol, and clones of the original, are the most produced pistols of their type in the world. And they remain in production to this day.

To be sure, there are several manufacturers of polymer framed pistols similar to Glock and they work well. However, one should take a look at the list of M1911 style pistol manufacturers and be astounded. This is not bad for a basic design that originated in 1905 and was adopted for service by the U.S. military in 1911.

The following is a list of former and current producers of M1911 style pistols:

A.J. Savage (US gov’t contract 1919, made slides only)
American Classic
American Tactical
A&R Sales
AMT
Armi Dallera Custom (ADC)
Armscor
Astra
ATI
Australian Precision Arms
Auto Ordnance
Briley
Brolin Arms
Browning (reduced-size .22 and .380 copies)
Cabot
Caspian (slides and frames only)
Charles Daly
Christensen Arms
Cimarron
Citadel
CO Arms
Colt (commercial and US/foreign gov’t contract from 1911 to present day)
Chiappa (.22LR 1911 copy)
Crown City
Cylinder & Slide
CZ USA
Dan Wesson
Detonics
Devel
Dlask Arms
D&L Sports
Double Star
Ed Brown
EMF
Essex (slides and frames only)
Federal Ordnance
Falcon
Firestorm
Freedom Arms
Fusion
Gemini Custom
Girsan
Griffon Combat
GSG (.22LR 1911 copy)
Guncrafter Industries
Gunsite
Hero Guns
High Standard
Imbel
Imperial Defense
Infinity
Inland Manufacturing
Interstate Arms (Regent)
Irwindale Arms Industries (IAI)
Israeli Arms Industries (also called IAI)
Ithaca (new business located in Sandusky, OH)
Ithaca (old NY-based company, made pistols under US gov’t contract 1943-1945)
Iver Johnson
Karl Lippard
Kimber
Kongsberg (M/1914 pistol manufactured in Norway under Colt license)
LAR
Les Baer
Llama
Lone Star
Magnum Research
Maximus Custom
Metro Arms
Mitchell
MP Express
Nighthawk
Norinco
North American Arms Co. Ltd. (US gov’t contract in 1918, ~100 pistols assembled but not delivered)
Nowlin
Para Ordnance
Pistol Dynamics
Olympic Arms
Omega Defense
Peter Stahl
Randall
Ranger
Reeder Custom
Regent
Remington Arms (current business)
Remington Rand (made pistols under US gov’t contract 1942-1945, not affiliated with Remington Arms or Remington-UMC)
Remington-UMC (US gov’t contract 1918-1919) NOTE: ~1000 replicas were made by Remington Arms and Turnbull in 2014)
Roberts Defense
Rock Island Armory
Rock River Arms
Ruger
Safari Arms
S.A.M
Salient Arms
Sarco
Schroeder Bauman
Shooters Arms (Philippines)
Sig Sauer
Singer (US gov’t contract, 500 pistols produced in 1941)
Sistema (aka D.G.F.M.-F.M.A.P.) (M1927 pistol manufactured in Argentina under Colt license)
Smith & Wesson
South Fork Arms/Perkins Custom
Springfield Armory (former military arsenal in MA, made M1911s from 1914-1917 under US gov’t contract)
Springfield Armory (commercial business established in 1974, not associated with above)
STI
SVI
Tanfoglio
Taurus
Taylor & Co.
TISAS
Turnbull Mfg.
Unertl
Union Switch & Signal (US gov’t contract, 1943)
Uselton Arms
USFA
Walther/Umarex (.22LR 1911 copy)
Wilson Combat
Vega (frames only)
Valtro
Victory Arms
Volkman

[MasterGunner01]

Of the .22 pistols, I agree that the Ruger semi-auto Mk I, Mk II, or Mk III are the most difficult pistol to disassemble or assemble I know. My personal favorite .22 semi-auto pistol is the High Standard design, both old and new production models. I absolutely love the quick change barrel. The High Standards are accurate and reliable.

[riverrunner]

And a lot of them are out of business and some made some poor pistols for sure.

[MasterGunner01]

That statement is not pertinent: 1) neither was the quality of the product specified nor 2) was there a qualifier that the manufacturer was still in business. I did not say the former and I did note the latter list contained former and currentbmanufacturers in my statement. The central fact remains the M1911 and its clones far outnumber current producers of Glock-type polymer frame pistols in BOTH numbers of producers and totals manufactured.

[riverrunner]

I would respectfully disagree I would say that the total quantities of Polymer pistols far out strip the production of 1911 type pistols.

A lot of 1911 manufactures are small and will never come close to the rate of manufacture of the large ones.

It would be interesting to know how may 1911s say Springfield sells compared to their XD line or some one like S@W or Ruger who have many polymer pistols but only one 1911.

[MasterGunner01]

The fact is, M1911 type pistols have been in continuous production since 1911 and remain so. There were 2.5 million M1911A1 pistols delivered during WW2 alone. Then there is Colt's continued commercial production and those of the various clone makers. Polymer pistols became available in the 1977-1980 period. Logic dictates that the polymers have not been in series production long enough to approach the numbers of the 1911 military and commercial production plus foreign clone production plus its domestic production.

[Axenolith]

RE: the Argentine stuff, there was some Argentine surplus .308 that made it’s way on the market quite some time back that was insanely mis-loaded. I read some anecdotal instance of it blowing apart some guys new M1A, the pressures were in the 120-140 thousand psi range.

I wonder if they had some really bad streak of QA/QC?

[yarddog]

I don’t know what the problem actually was with that Argentine .45 ammo. My guess would be bad storage but it sure looked good. Bright and shiny.

I might mention that the most accurate 1911 I ever owned and by a good bit, was an Argentine made model 1927. I didn’t have a Ransom rest but wish I had as it seemed capable of nearly unbelievable accuracy.