I am completely fine with carrying it cocked and locked the way it is designed.
History is constantly being reinterpreted to meet the needs of today.
Many users of the M1911 justify carrying the M1911 in “condition one” by stating that the pistol was designed to be carried that way.
Unfortunately this claim is false, the M1911 was not designed to be carried cocked and locked. .
The adherents of this theory must be unaware of the evolution of the M1911. I highly recommend reading “The Government Models” by William H.D. Goddard to see the wonderful pictures and progression of Brownings automatic pistol design. I also recommend the “Colt .45 Service Pistols Models of 1991 and 1911A1 Charles W. Clawson”, but the pictures are not as good.
John Browning’s Models’ 1900, Model 1902, 1903 Pocket Model, Military Model 1905, M1909, M1910 did not have safety locks. There are safeties, , early on there is a hammer blocking device. This was the sight safety. The user pushed the back of the rear sight down, and that blocked the hammer from the firing pin. It did not last long. The grip safety was added later and stayed all the way through to the M1911.
The first thumb safety lock appears on the Model 1910 slant handle. It was added because the Cavalry apposed the adoption of a semiautomatic pistol because of their concerns about multiple accidental discharges while mounted. The Cavalry wanted to stay with their revolvers. As the primary user of a handgun, the Cavalry had the biggest vote at the table. John Browning’s thumb safety lock was a way for the cavalry to make the pistol safe with one hand.
Based on the serial numbers of some of the earlier models in the book, there must have been tens of thousands of these pistols built without a thumb safety lock.
Now how did John Browning carry this 45 ACP?
These pistols, and the M1911 were designed to be carried in “Condition two”, that is a round in the chamber with the hammer down. The thumb lock safety was to be engaged to make the pistol safe when the user’s other hand was occupied. The manual of arms from 1913 clearly shows that the hammer was to be lowered (using two hands) when the M1911 was holstered.
Army 1913 Small Arms Manual:
If you cannot read the text on the bottom of pgs 91 and 92:
If the pistol is to be kept in the hand and not to be fired at once, engage the safety lock with the thumb of the right hand. If the pistol is to be carried in the holster, remove safety lock, if on, and lower the hammer fully down.
Pg 92. (Caution) The pistol must never be placed in the holster until hammer is fully down.
So why did the Army change the regulations?:Hatcher’s Textbook of Pistols and Revolvers, page 95, provides the clue:
“It is the danger of accidental discharge when thus lowering the hammer with one hand while on horseback that caused the Army to change the regulations some years ago so as to require the automatic to be carried with the hammer cocked and the safety on.
It is obvious that accidental discharges occurred when the hammer was lowered . The Army had to find an alternative, something that did not require redesign of the M1911, and the Army went the easy path of creating a procedure that would result in fewer accidental shootings.
So carrying the M1911 cocked and locked, in the flap holster was instituted.
But the point is, the M1911 was not designed to be carried cocked and locked.
The Army also determined that single action autopistols, even those that could be carried cocked and locked , still had too many accidents, so by the time the M1911 was replaced, (1980's) the requirements for the replacement pistol effectively prohibited single action autos.
Textbook of Pistols and Revolvers, Major Julian Hatcher, Small Arms Technical Publishing 1935.
“
Thus with the hammer down and resting on the face of the breech and the loaded cartridge in the chamber, the .45 automatic is perfectly safe and the best way to carry it is with the hammer down on a loaded cartridge. Great care should be used, however, in lowering the hammer on to a live cartridge, and two hands should always be used for this job” pg 94.
I was very lucky to find that 1913 Small Arms Manual in a used bookshop, someone else will need to conduct their own research into when Army carry policy changed from round in chamber, hammer down, pistol in flap holster, to round in chamber, cocked and locked in flap holster. The second condition had to be before WW2, so long that “Cooperites” had no idea of this policy. I am coining the word “Cooperites” as followers of Jeff Cooper. I have not read anything from Jeff Cooper where he states the M1911 was “designed” to be carried one way or another. However, Jeff Cooper and his crowd created quick draw self defense games, heavily influenced by the Cowboy “walk and draw” craze of the 50’s, in which you shot a number of rounds in a timed period, with the pistol starting in the holster. Of course the pistol that could be drawn quickest and fired fastest was considered the “best” combat pistol.
The M1911 could win this contest as long as it was carried cocked and locked in an open top holster. Whether it is best policy to walk into a shooting conflict with your pistol in your holster, or whether it is better to take the thing out and have the pistol ready to shoot, I would go for the latter. But Cooperites have played their games and carried their M1911’s cocked and locked for so long, that to justify their carry condition, they claim that the gun was originally designed to be carried this way. It was not. I am confident that their mode of carry would have been considered too dangerous prior to WW1 as a cocked hammer still makes people nervous, and those Army Officers who had seen plenty of accidental discharges with every pistol in service, from Colt SAA, to Colt New Service, would not have been comfortable with the carry mode you see today.
This is a bare bones military configuration1911 and I like the configuration.
I consider carrying a 1911 cocked and locked dangerous because I have had the safety bump off. So have many others. And, it is easy to accidentally bump extended safeties on/off. Happens all the time. The pistol was designed, and carried, round in the chamber, hammer down. The only reasonably safe way to lower the hammer is to pull the trigger with one hand, and place the middle finger of the other hand, between the hammer and frame. I pull the trigger, the hammer is released but it is blocked by the middle finger. I pull the middle finger slowly out, lowering the hammer slowly, using the forefinger behind the hammer spur to control the process more positively. When I get the hammer to half cock, my middle finger is totally withdrawn, and it is a simple matter of lowering the hammer completely down, slowly, with the forefinger.
Once the hammer is down, the only way to fire the gun is by dropping it on its muzzle. The mechanism has a short, rebounding firing pin that will not contact the primer unless it is hit hard by the hammer. A high enough drop will create enough inertia that the firing pin will over come the spring tension. For a series 70 action, this is true whether the hammer is down, or the piece is cocked and locked. Once the hammer is down, the long hammer spur and out of the way grip safety tang allow quick thumb cocking, either by the support hand or the shooting hand. The early pre A1 1911's had a very wide hammer spur and the grip safety did not have a tang, all features to make it easy to thumb cock the pistol.
The pistol only has a safety because the horse cavalry needed a way to make the pistol safe with one hand. If the horse went bonkers, the rider could convulsively grab the trigger and fire the weapon. The safety allowed the rider to make the piece safe with one hand. Assuming he did not fall off the horse before putting the safety on. I knew a gunsmith who was in the pre WW2 horse cavalry. A bud of his fell off his horse during saber practice. His sword was attached to his wrist by the sword knot. Bud had released the sword, but still, it was attached to his wrist, and did not go far. As he fell, the sword reversed, rotated, the point got under the arm pit of the falling rider. The man was impaled when he and his sword hit the ground. He died, and it was not uncommon for men to be hurt, or shots fired, when riders lost control of their horses.
As I wrote earlier, the pistol has been heavily modified, starting in the 1950's with the Leatherslap crowd, to make the pistol fast to shoot in quick draw games. Walk and draw Cowboy games were all the rage, you could easily identify evil doers as they wore black cowboy hats. And it was well established in movies and TV, that the first man to clear leather always won the gunfight.
Hence the long, extended safeties, (which bump off, and on easily!) and beavertails (which are comfortable), and small hammers. These modifications make condition two carry difficult, but the original A1 configuration, which the RIA GI follows, makes condition two easy. Just don't lower the hammer with the thumb of the shooting hand. Lots of accidental discharges have occurred when the hammer slipped off the thumb. Use two hands to lower the hammer.