Just a point of curiosity, what was the shortest handgun service life in the US Military? I'm thinking the Colt .38 revolver just prior to the adoption of the 1911 but I could be wrong. The mil was so unhappy with it they dragged out some old SAA's in .45LC from stores.
My guess is the Colt 1860, while it was a top of the heap percussion design, it was supplanted by first the Schoefield and then the SAA in 1873 as fast as Colt could produce them because of the shift to cartridges, so 13 years "front line service" at most. The 1892 Colt was documented to be in service by '93 as best I can tell and it certainly remained in inventory until general issue of the 1911, about 17-18 years.Originally Posted by 19852+
My answer would be the M13 Aircrewman revolvers produced by S&W and Colt in the 50's. Only 6 years in service before being pulled and destroyed(not held in reserve) I believe....even shorter than @fatdog 's Model 1860.
Of course, we can really only view it through the lens of curiosities sake as you're coming from. The 50s was nuts.....military spending was like nothing the US has ever seen. We were coming out with new aircraft designs and replacing our fighter jet fleet every couple years.....orders placed in the thousands......we would lose more naval aviators in one year during the 1950s than we've lost from the end of Vietnam to current day, combined. So, if a handgun wasn't exactly tip-top, it was truly a drop in the bucket to destroy 40,000 of them and just buy something else....probably didn't even register as an abnormality on budget tracking.
If the US military designed and issued the M13 today and found the same frame cracking issues, the answer would probably be, "Okay, it's even cracking with the low pressure ammo? Not a problem. Prohibit airmen from conducting training with it, and put a breakaway security seal on it so we know if the trigger has been pulled." Thus, what in one era ended up being the shortest serving pistol in US military history, in another era could end up being one of the longest serving. I'm actually kind of surprised that wasn't the answer, given that the USAF was already issuing revolvers as their standard sidearm during that time and could've just used such as a facsimilie for training purposes.
Last edited by TGS; 02-23-2021 at 08:56 AM.
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How about the M1909 Colt New Service in .45 Colt? I have no idea how long it stayed in service.
My understanding is they stayed in service until the 1920s. But it's so hard to know, since the Army and Marine Corps had M1909s, M1911s, and M1917s in inventory during that time and things were so fluid. I ASSume that there was more than one or two 1909s present during WW1.
I suspect Curtis LeMay had a say in that.
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Yep, if you get down to the limited issue and branch specific guns there are lots of short timers I guess. Colt Commando and S&W K frame Victory Model in WW II were both less than 4 years.
The Victory model might need to come off the list. Read an article somewhere the last couple years that some of the Navy Victory models were still in active service with the Air Force as late as the early seventies.
My question regarding the shortest lived US service pistol was obvious and my way of wondering if history will repeat itself..
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