Why is the 1911 more popular than ever?

[Trooper224]

I've been shooting mostly .45 since the Coronavirus uprising ammo famine began. This is due to having both large and small primer brass on hand in large quantities. This has allowed me to extend my reloading ability. Especially after finding thousands of large rifle primers from my competition days that I'd forgotten about.

The 4506 I'd been carrying wouldn't set off the harder rifle primers with one hundred percent reliability, so I went back to carrying the 1911. I'm on the range once a week and I hardly ever see another shooter with a 1911, let alone a .45. It does make identifying my brass easy. Single stack .45 1911s might be increasing in sales at Wilson, for whatever reason, but I certainly don't see a general trend in the market.

[okie john]

Bill says the pendulum is swinging back to Wilson Combat building more .45 1911s than 9mm 1911s:

That might be a trend for him, but I'm not sure it's a trend for the rest of us.


Okie John

[Joe in PNG]

A 1911 is ridiculously easy to shoot well, it's a super easy gun to carry concealed, it's got lots of safety stuff built in, and it's one of the most passionate of passion guns.

Of course, there's all the potential flaws, especially in 9mm... but still, my Colt is my standby CCW gun.

[Stephanie B]

I’m waiting for the resurgence of .38 super....

I could get behind that parade.

[Joe in PNG]

I could get behind that parade.

I'm actually thinking about building a .38 Super next summer- well, throwing some parts on each other, and seeing if it works at least.

[Stephanie B]

No idea who else is actually carrying them, but I'm carrying them in part because they're fun guns. I like them and I'll never be without them, but I don't have the time or ammo budget to both shoot "fun" guns as much as I want to and keep up on proficiency with "serious" guns. So instead of half-assing each or either of those things, I just carry 1911s so fun shooting time is also practical practice shooting time. I figure I'm better off carrying a 1911 I'm proficient with than carrying a Glock 19 I'm less proficient with and leaving the 1911 I shoot well in the safe.

I'll also stump for single stack 1911s as still-relevant carry guns, if a few parameters apply. One is being a 1911 enthusiast, another is not being bothered by 8 to 10 round capacity, and the big one for me is that I conceal them much better than any double stack full size gun. So I'm carrying a gun I shoot well, but I can conceal it in clothing that wouldn't allow me to carry a Staccato.

For those of us in hi-cap ban states, .45 makes more sense for full-sized guns. One isn't carrying a gun that is only at 58% of full capacity and, if one is going to be limited in the number of rounds, why not carry bigger ones?

[JRB]

It's a timeless classic, an anchor to the past and great Americans who carried that pistol in 6+ major wars and countless other military duties on every continent.

It's always evolving, somehow there's always a little more room to improve it as a whole or improve it in small ways for a particular shooter. It's astonishing that such a comfortable and easy to shoot pistol was developed so long ago.
That evolution and generational improvement as 1911's got more modern hasn't yet been stymied or complicated by bans or availability. With few exceptions, you can basically enjoy 1911's and not even think about gun laws in the U.S.

There's so many variables to enjoy in a 1911 - historical value, military history, custom changes and optimization, generational changes through decades of production, and it's surprisingly easy to carry with a quality holster, and it's simply sublime to shoot.

Is it the ideal duty or defensive pistol in 2022, for an institution or an individual? Absolutely not. Modern manufacturing and materials and safety features and advancements in sights and ammo and magazines have gone far beyond what even a high quality 1911 can hope to achieve and at insanely lower prices.

But where guys like us only *need* perhaps 2-3 examples of a modern semiauto, there's no 'need' with a 1911. It's all just a powerful, aching case of the wantsies. Combined with the myriad of possible variants and models it's easy to end up buying 6-10 1911's before you even think about 'need'.

At any given moment, I can rationally explain why I want a second BCM AR or a second squared away pump shotgun or almost any other gap in my 'collection'. I can't rationally explain why I could delightedly spend $10-20k on a dozen different 1911's in about 2 hours given the means and the opportunity. I can't rationally explain a need for any of them. But I sure as hell want them!

I think a similar thing happens with most 1911 collectors and accumulators. There's no explainable need or requirement, there's just a love for them.

A high school friend of mine's Dad was an avid 1911 collector, to the point of having 3-4 safes full of them. He was an Anesthesiologist and worked a lot of hours and was usually kind of grumpy and irritable. But if you asked him to show you a few of his 1911's he'd grin like a kid and excitedly open a safe and he'd spend hours telling us stories and explaining the nuanced differences, if we let him. Never met or heard of anyone that was like that with Glocks or M&P's, as good as those pistols are....

[Elwin]

For those of us in hi-cap ban states, .45 makes more sense for full-sized guns. One isn't carrying a gun that is only at 58% of full capacity and, if one is going to be limited in the number of rounds, why not carry bigger ones?

Also that. I’m not in a state that’s about to pass such laws and I see federal odds of them as slim, but I’ll admit that I do view native 9, 8, and 7 round capacity as one less thing I have to worry about since I’m here already.

I’m on the 9 train for a few reasons but I’m not going to say that a .45 doesn’t make sense. I’m fine carrying one when the main carry gun is down.

[spinmove_]

For those of us in hi-cap ban states, .45 makes more sense for full-sized guns. One isn't carrying a gun that is only at 58% of full capacity and, if one is going to be limited in the number of rounds, why not carry bigger ones?

I don’t live in a capacity ban state, but MI feels like it wants to be half the time and/or my wife threatens to want to move to a capacity ban state every 6 months or so. Given I’m more of a J-frame carrier more often than not and I love my Springfield to death, I could get behind just sucking it up and embracing the 8-round .45 Auto lifestyle. If examples in .38 Super Comp became the bee’s knee’s, I’d not complain in the slightest. Hell, I’ve thought more than a couple times of wanting to do USPSA Single Stack just as an excuse to shoot 1911s in competition.

Sure, Staccatos are the tits, but they’re also like $2,500 a pop. I can get one and a half to two Springfields for that price and still be legal in just about any state in the union.

[Mark D]

@Clusterfrack posted this video in the Competition Will Get You Killed thread.

Seems like it might have some relevance in this thread, particularly regarding capacity. Apparently the good guy fires 18 rounds while fighting two armed robbers.

Requires logging into youtube to view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ozqd9Mv_cg



(Edited to remove Boomer joke)