Accuracy of WWII .45s

[chopinbloc]

well, how about some more anecdotal evidence?
my dad told me that when he "qualified" on the .45 before he got to vietnam, the rangemaster put a .45 in a vise and fired the magazine at the 25 meter target. he told me the rounds were dispersed all over the target and some didn't hit at all.
is that because of poorly maintained, shot out equipment? maybe. was dad "exagerating"? maybe. i know that my old auto ordnance - not the newer type - can hit pretty damn well. can't cycle for snot, but it can hit. my kimber actually throws a little wider groups. go figure. now i'm gonna get me a sprinfield.

 

[ZeroX]

I remember watching a show on the History Channel about WWII guns. They were mentioning that soldiers tended to complain about not being able to hit anything with their 1911s. They interviewed a former soldier who said the guys who complained were the guys who drew and shot from the hip. He then said if you sighted and brought the gun down on your target, you couldn't miss.

 

[HSMITH]

I was a unit armorer in the early 90's and we still used 1911A1's. Lots of them had been rebuilt but some were completely original.

They ALL cycled just fine, maybe a little more sensitive to limp wristing than a highly tuned gun but they ran good.

ALL of them would print a 5" group at 25 yards offhand with a decent shooter on the handle. Some would get down around 2.5". Rested groups would likely be better.

I had guys blame the guns, some of them because their dad/uncle/grandpa/brother/whatever told them they weren't accurate. It was as simple as taking it from them and pounding one magazine through it to shut them up. At qual time I (rangemaster also) put at least one good shooter on each group that went to the line, that went a long way to keeping the whiners quiet.

 

[Ky Larry]

As others have pointed out, very little training was given to recruits in proper pistol shooting. Uncle Sam needed bodies who could use rifles and needed them NOW. I would be willing to wager that no group of people could pick up any pistol (SIG, Glock, CZ, Beretta,S&W, etc...) and use it well without proper instruction and practice. I've heard tell of "natural shooters" but I've never met one. If you want to know why this myth is still alive, just look at the threads by the 1911 bashers. This group of bozos can't understand that what they are buying today is not the pistol J.M. Browning designed. They don't understand that what is sold today are not 1911 pistols, just 1911 "style" pistols. People get ideas in their head and refuse to be confused by facts.

 

[DMK]

.I remember watching a show on the History Channel about WWII guns. They were mentioning that soldiers tended to complain about not being able to hit anything with their 1911s. They interviewed a former soldier who said the guys who complained were the guys who drew and shot from the hip. He then said if you sighted and brought the gun down on your target, you couldn't miss.

I saw that too. The guy was a Ranger, the CO's body guard and a sniper/designated marksman. He apparently knew how to shoot, especially with a 1903 Springfield. I'll tell ya though, I watched that about four times and still can't figure out what he meant by "bring the gun down on your target".

 

[Old Fuff]

Going back to a time when revolvers were carried and thumb-cocked, and pistol shooting was conducted one-handed, some in the military were trained to pick up those little sights and keep them alligned while lowering the pistol to the center-of-mass - or whatever they intended to hit.

Right or wrong, if you learned the method it worked. But I don't know that it would be recommended today.

 

[isp2605]

Pistol training in the military isn't training. It's familiarization.
There's a big difference between the 2.

 

[Sunray]

Standard issue military pistols (and most other military issue pistols) are not target pistols. They were built for reliablity with loose tolerances. Add mediocre ammo and the lack of training and you get guys who 'acquired' a pistol not being able to hit barn walls then complaining about it.

 

[BigG]

It's much easier (not to mention more "manly") to blame it on that old gun than to admit "I can't shoot worth a damn."

This is the real answer, 9 times out of ten.

 

[1911Tuner]

Differences

isp sed:

>>Pistol training in the military isn't training. It's familiarization.
There's a big difference between the 2.<<
*****************

Bingo!

Familiarization=How to load the gun and fire it...hopefully without shooting yourself or your comrades...just in case you have to pick one up and use it sometime.

Training=How to deploy the weapon effectively.

Major difference.

 

[ulflyer]

Familiariazation

When I did basic in '52 it was a few classroom hours on how not to shoot your foot, then off to the "range" where we got to shoot a whole mag full. Wasn't any grading system. If you could load it and shoot it, that was all that was required. Same with the 30 cal machine gun. Got to rip a few off just to know how it worked. No skill required. Most of us were lucky to even hit the huge piece of paper the target was printed on, much less the target itself. A lot of the guys had never even shot a pistol of any kind.Thats prob where a lot of the "it won't hit the barndoor" myth came from. We did spend a lot of time with the Garand and Carbine. Loved that carbine.

 

[BluesBear]

For conscripts who had been taught rifle marksmanship based on aperature sights those tiny sights on M1911A1 pistols took a little more effort to use properly.

And well all know your average Boot wants to expend as little effort as possible unless on leave.

All you need is a day at your local range to hear so many people complaining about their handgun shoots always high and to the right except when it's shooting low and to the right.
It's much easier to blame the gun (or the ammo) that to practice sight alignment and trigger control.

So many people believe Hollyweird and think that all you need to do it point the weapon and pull the trigger and the bullets will find the target all by themselves.

And don't even get me started on the morons with their floating aiming points.

 

[ulflyer]

More on the Barndoor

Reminded me that I hadn't shot the '43 Rem-Rand for long time. Put two mags of reloads thru it today and for an old codger (the gun and me) I think it did pretty well. And it has a rough barrel too.

 

[Dr.Rob]

I'm positive my old 1919 Commecial Colt is still running fine.

Constant re-building and parts mixing can have its issues... I know one Bradly commander issued a 1911A1 in Desert Storm... he claimed it was 'useless for anything but 'busting a guy off his track'... it rattled, it only held seven rounds but it went BANG every time. He claimed he wouldn't use it past 25 feet or so.

And this was a knowledgeable 'gun guy'... a shotgun instructor.

 

[briang2ad]

The old rattling 45...

I'd LOVE to have one of my old arms room 45s! They were always accurate and utterly reliable (better than my SA). I once was on a range as OIC, and our supply sgt couldn't hit the target during qualification (we were a tank battalion). I went to the firing point to investigate - he complained that "it was the gun", which was pretty "lose". I picked up a mag, put seven rounds into the black at 25 yards and handed it back to him. Those were GREAT guns!

 

[ranger7]

dmftoy1 said: "I'm not sure about this, but wasn't the training in those days to hold it out one handed at full extension? (I've seen pictures but I'm not sure if they were WWII vintage or WWI). I know I can't hit worth a damn like that. Now a modifiied Weaver or Iso . . . ."

Strange that all the Bullseye shooters I know shoot their 1911A1s "out one handed at full extension" and shoot great groups at 25 and 50 yards.

 

[BluesBear]

Yes but Bullseye Shooters know all about proper sight alignment and trigger control.

 

[BigG]

If you can't shoot, it's just as easy to miss with a nine.

Ulflyer's target ought to take the excuses away from the "minute of barn door" guys.

 

[ulflyer]

One of these days...

When I get some young feller over that can see good and shoot good, I'm gonna see what the RR is capable of. At 71 I feel pretty good when I can hit the barndoor.

 

[45auto]

How far out were the targets when they trained the "new guys"?

If you take a non-shooter and hand him hardball, one handed shooting and trying to hit 25 yard targets...good luck.

 

[vanfunk]

My '43 Remington Rand has prolly 125,000 rounds through it and'll still hold 5 inches at 25 yards, maybe better. Oh, and it's never malfunctioned. Well, except when the firing pin broke around round 110,000 or so...

My 1917 Colt has about nineighhundthousomething rounds through it and I can barely see the rifling without a borelight, but she'll stil lay 'em through detergent bottles at 50 yards all day. Recently, one of those "curious" types at my range couln't help but come over and voice his concern as I was setting up to plink at 50 yards with my old Colt. He said "you're not even likely to hit the berm with that pistol; don't wanna see us closed down 'cause you're lobbing slugs into the town center." I just bit my tongue and went about lobbing 7 rounds in a row through a half-gallon Tide bottle. It was, in sum, my finest hour .

I love the darn things. If I can get my finances together I'm gonna buy the Ithaca that's for sale near me.

They can shoot, believe me.

vanfunk

 

[happy old sailor]

WW 11 gi ammo was primed with mercury based primers. this made them highly corrosiove, or hygroscopic (i think thats the word). anyway, it attracted moisture. the so called pistol trasining was merely a fam fire and as ppl had no faith in the gun, they did not take care of them.

i heard that acceptance specs for the gi 1911 was 8 inches at 50 yards. they were purposely built loose for parts interchangeability and also be ground in mud and sloshed off in any available water, including a rain filled mudhole. and, keep working, a very important consideration.

i too have shot a bunch of gi ,45s and found them to shoot into specs and better. i dislike the chintzy trigger, the WW1 hammer and the WW11 humped mainspring housing. the little sights were for "no snag draw".

i currently have 5 1911s and will buy another in a minute if i run across one owned by a person that believes it can't hit a 55 gal drum at 20 yards.
and no, im not going to show him he is wrong. let him tell the joke to his friends about the sucker that bought that old clunker of his.

i will love it and shoot it with the rest.

 

[dsk]

well, how about some more anecdotal evidence?
my dad told me that when he "qualified" on the .45 before he got to vietnam, the rangemaster put a .45 in a vise and fired the magazine at the 25 meter target. he told me the rounds were dispersed all over the target and some didn't hit at all.

I'm not at all surprised. A vice certainly ain't no Ransom Rest! How they even kept the pistol from squirming around in the vice while it was being fired (assuming he didn't chuck it down so hard it warped the frame) is beyond me. Methinks your dad either told you a fib or they were indeed crazy enough to do that.

 

[BluesBear]

Putting a 1911A1 in a vice would, in theory, hold the frame in the exact same position.

The rub is, the slide and barrel will not always come back to the same exact position. hence the "rattle" of those old .45s.
If they had looked across the sights they would have seen that their point of aim was wandering. And that it was wandering pretty dang close to the point of impact.

If they had taken the time to reaim for each shot they would have been surprised at the accuracy that "worn out" gun still had.