Smith & Wesson Rebuilt a 100 Year Old Gun And Made Some Big History

Kyle Mizokami

Security,

Here's what happened. 

The company’s 1911 Performance Center line is the next model up and features a considerable amount of work typically considered custom in the world of 1911 handguns. The Performance Center pistol includes a ported slide, an action job performed by Smith & Wesson gunsmiths, throated barrel, a crowned muzzle, polished feed ramps, and an ambidextrous manual safety. The gun also features adjustable sights, a step up from those on the base E-Series 1911. Performance Center enhancements are rounded off by a finer, thirty line per inch checkering pattern on the pistol’s blue G10 laminate grips.

Smith & Wesson’s series of handguns based on the 1911 platform stays true to the gun’s roots while adding in a number of features desirable to modern firearms enthusiasts. The company produces a full line of 1911s, from traditional to contemporary, catering to collectors and duty carriers, in a full range of sizes.

(This first appeared last month.)

The 1911 pistol was invented by prolific small arms designer John Moses Browning in the early twentieth century. Browning paired the pistol with his new .45 Automatic Colt Pistol cartridge, a large, heavy subsonic cartridge that delivered upwards of 400 foot-pounds of energy on target. The pairing of a semi-automatic pistol capable of holding eight rounds with the .45 ACP manstopper round was in response to reports that U.S.-issue revolvers in .38 Long Colt often failed to stop Filipino insurgents in close quarters combat.

Although the 1911 missed the Philippine Insurrection, it was well positioned to enter World War I on the side of the U.S. military. The American Expeditionary Force issued the 1911 in large numbers where they fought in the trenches of World War I. Minor changes in the design resulted in the 1911A1 designation during the 1920s. More than a million pistols were produced for U.S. and allied forces during World War II, enough that the armed services kept the 1911 in frontline service well into the 1980s.