I’m a Glock guy and that is pretty much that.
I carry a Glock 19; bone stock with the following exceptions: a 3.5lb trigger, a bullet forward slide stop (my monkey thumbs sit right on top of the stock one keeping the slide from locking back on an empty magazine… annoying), a Vickers Tactical magazine release (the stock one is too short and the competition one is too long), and sights from Dawson Precision that give me plain black in the rear and a red fiber optic in the front.
I don’t sand blast, JP Weld, solder, paint, sand, carve, or in any other way deface my pistol. I don’t get it refinished every 30 minutes because I am afraid of “holster wear” … for shit sake... it’s a pistol. It SHOULD have some holster wear! I digress.
The point I am making is that, while my relationship with cartridges is a bit more complex my relationships with pistols is not. Buy a Glock, make a few, minor, modifications, put it in your holster and carry it. To quote Tommy Lee Jones: “Get yourself a Glock and lose that nickel-plated sissy pistol.”
Having said all of that; there are some weapons systems that you simply cannot not love. The M1 Garand, the Colt Single Action Army, the M1903 Springfield, and the M1911A1.
The M1911A1 may be the most shootable pistol ever made. Designed over a century ago she represents what was then, and remained for a long time, the very pinnacle of handgun design.
The M1911A1 was designed by John Moses Browning in the 1890s as a replacement for the revolvers then being used by the military as every handgun adopted since the M1873 (Colt Single Action Army) was determined by the military and the end users to be unsatisfactory. Browning was originally designing the pistol to be a .41 caliber handgun but history intervened.
In 1898 the United States defeated Spain in the Spanish American War and claimed the Philippines as a territory. The Moros, the name given to Muslims living in the southern portion of the islands, had been resisting the Spanish and began to resist the United States. In a conflict that lasted from 1899 to 1913 the United States Army waged a counter insurgency action that would produce some of the biggest names of WWI and WWII, Black Jack Pershing, Leonard Wood, and George Marshall would all serve in the Philippines.
During their attacks the Moros would often not be brought down by the .38 caliber rounds from the revolvers that were issued to officers at the time and a new cartridge was sought. I have often wondered if the Army would have been so hot to find a new cartridge if it was the enlisted swine that were getting carved up rather than their precious officers… but I digress.
Enter Col. John T. Thompson (Infantry) and Maj. Louis A. LaGarde (Medical Corps) and the Thompson-LaGarde tests.
Their testing on cadavers, and live tissue at a Chicago stock yard convinced the Army that .45 was the caliber for the next generation of handgun. The Army approached Colt and the .45 ACP was born. Browning modified his design to accommodate the larger round and, after extensive testing, the pistol was adopted as the M1911.
After WWI, the pistol went through several modifications and became the M1911A1. Modern users have conducted their own modifications to suit their purposes making the M1911A1 one of the most customized firearms in history.
I wanted none of that. I already had a modernized custom M1911A1 combat commander (actually, a Springfield champion sized. The Combat Commander features a 4.25” barrel, the Champion has a 4” barrel). What I wanted was a pistol that shot and functioned like a modern combat gun but looked on the outside like a WWII issue gun.
Enter master pistolsmith Karl Sokol of Chestnut Mountain Sports.
Karl had built my other M1911A1. His work is brilliant and he was, and continues to be a friend. I contacted him and asked if he was going to do a modern combat pistol that looked like a WWII issue gun, how would he do it?
He suggested that, first and foremost, I get a frame and slide in the original gunmetal gray from Caspian. “They will roll stamp it with the original patent marks, US Army property etc.”
Perfect.
I ordered the slide and frame, roll stamps, original gunmetal gray color, and custom serial number and sent them to Karl. He took care of the rest. Fully modern internals, national match sights from 10-8 Performance, Kart match grade barrel, and she was good to go.
I stopped in on my way home from Virginia and picked her up… she is BEAUTIFUL! Exactly what I wanted! A real life modern, WWII combat gun.
For gunleather I went with the guy who designed the Gunsite Academy training holster, Dave Cox of the Davis Leather Company. Training Holster, magazine pouch and belt. Done.
Now all I have to do is get some range time with them…
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