M-1911 Handgun

The M-1911 Handgun is a .45 Automatic Pistol. After the end of the Second World War the military was awash in .45 pistols, and many were given away as part of foreign-aid packages to other countries. Still others were sold through the Director of Civilian Marksmanship in the 1950's to civilians wishing to participate in Service Pistol Matches being held across the country. And yet more were smuggled back home inside duffel bags, though not nearly as many since the government was wise to it this time around.

The remaining pistols stayed on active duty throughout the next several decades, being used in Korea, Vietnam, and countless other Cold-War military involvements. Once again during the war in Korea many a soldier had to fall back on his .45 when his primary weapon froze in the extreme cold of the Korean winter. During Vietnam it was the weapon to use while crawling through Viet Cong underground caves, a .45 in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

Throughout all this time the M1911A1s did their part well, but as time went on many more were lost due to combat or attrition and the survivors began to show their age. Large numbers of .45s had to be sent in to be rebuilt at military arsenals (the average pistol was rebuilt twice in its service life), and many of those became mismatched when large numbers were disassembled at once, rebuilt, then put back together from the pile of parts.

For example a Colt slide would be placed on an Ithaca frame, the remaining parts fished out of the pile to build a complete pistol, and in the end there would be a pile of parts left from guns that couldn't be fitted back together properly. By the late 1970's the military's supply of serviceable .45 handguns had been pared down significantly, as no new ones had been purchased since 1945 and attrition was taking its toll. In addition there were scores of .38 and .45 revolvers of countless variations being used by the Air Force and other units, adding to the problem of logistics.

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