"The Colt 1911 pistols made today are some of the best 1911s Colt has ever made. Maybe not up to prewar standards..." -Ken Hackathorn
The "prewar standards" part is what I'm curious about. Who am I to doubt KH's statements? But, how can we send guys into space, but not be able to get a current factory Colt 1911 that at the very least equals "prewar standards" in reliability? Help me understand, guys and gals.
I'm assuming he's refering to overall fit and finish, ie. the beauty aspect of the era. The levels of fit and finish then considered normal would be seen as custom level work today. The pistols Colt turns out today aren't up to that level, but they're made with better materials and more consistent manufacturing at a production level.Originally Posted by Mino
We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.......
The same statement has been made by Steve Morrison at MARS armament and also by Wayne Dobbs, who both see an extensive number of these guns and have a deep 1911 knowledge base. That is from a manufacturing tolerance consistency and function point of view and not aesthetics.
Just a Hairy Special Snowflake supply clerk with no field experience, shooting an Asymetric carbine as a Try Hard. Snarky and easily butt hurt. Favorite animal is the Cape Buffalo....likely indicative of a personality disorder.
"If I had a grandpa, he would look like Delbert Belton".
I suspect there is less "skilled" labor at the current Colt factory than in the Pre-War era. However, the CNC machines producing the parts, get the starting point of the parts closer to "just right", than what they had in the old days, which requires less skill at the assembly end. As good as CNC is, the skilled human hand fitting parts together is still better.
One of the smart guys on another forum (I believe he was a former gun company employee, and now a gun smith) commented the 1911 design is functionally as good as any of the modern guns. The advantage the new designs have over the 1911 is in manufacture and assembly. The new designs snap together like Lego's while the 1911 requires a little more skill. Generally speaking, the advantage Wilson, Brown, and Baer, have over Colt, etc., is the skill of the guys putting the guns together.
Very few pistols are as nice as a pre-war National Match Colt. Fit and finish on those guns was really terrific. But I'm told (I personally don't know one way or the other) that the metallurgy wasn't up to current standards.
Steel alloys are more refined and consistent today and components were only spot heat treated in high stress areas back then, whereas today components like slides and frames are through treated, just to name two areas. Beautiful yes, but guns today are stronger and more precise in their fine dimensions.
We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.......
Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I always thought there were essentially only two ways to make a quality gun; make ALL the critical parts to a very tight and correct specification or fit each individual critical part by a skilled hand.
I’ve seen some old pre-war handguns (S&W revolvers specifically) that were obviously put together by skilled craftsmen, but many of the parts wouldn’t interchange with any other gun on the planet.
Again, I always thought that making ALL the parts to a tight spec meant you could forgo all or most of the fitting .... if that was an operational necessity for the end-user. I also assumed that this process was more expensive than fitment during assembly at the bench, which is why the former production model was abandoned.
The path of least resistance will seldom get you where you need to be.
In the past human labor was cheap relative to today compared to the material cost. 1911's require a high level of skill and experience to fit. The old workers at colt had it down and made beautiful guns. Mil spec does not mean drop in parts. Just made to military specifications. 1911's are very susceptible to tolerance stacking. A plus sized part with a minus sized part often works okay; plus sized added to another plus sized- not so good. Loose is not good either. It just means it can malfunction several different ways. Today the 1911's they make have modern metals; are made on CNC machines and have very little hand fitting. I suspect when assembled they have a large bin of small parts and try to swap them out a few times to get acceptable fit. I know when I work on 1911's at work it helps to have a lot of spare parts. But even then they require a little filing or stoning. Our last batch of colt 1911's for duty were really nice. Had ridiculously sharp edges and don't ask me about the front sight dovetail. (Arghh!!) but we still broke them all down and massaged them a wee bit. We had a fast way to shake them out. I broke them all the way down, my partner massaged them, I reassembled them and I test fired them. They all shot well. Currently I am trying to come up with the money to buy a pair of Wiley Clapp government models. 1911's and smith and Wesson revolvers are just like beautiful women; when God put them together right; they make you stand up straight and take notice.
Last edited by Poconnor; 07-26-2015 at 08:01 AM.
This brings to mind an amusing and intriguing situation that group of engineering students(I think I remember that they were students) encountered while building an exact replica of the Wright Flyer. They built the engine to the exact specs of the original and could not make it run. It turns out that today's machining tolerances made the original specs too tight. They built a second engine to the same specs with period correct tooling and measuring technology and it ran perfectly.
TANSTAAFL
Managing Partner, Custom Carry Concepts, LLC
interesting, thanks for sharing.
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