CHAPTER 18

THE FUTURE OF THE 1911

What have we learned in the last century? What have we seen? A lot. We've learned that the argument over 9mm vs. .45 will never be settled. We've learned that history ain't what it used to be and nostalgia is for old fogeys.

We've learned that Congressmen never tire of spending the same dollar twice, giving us a nickel back, and praising themselves for being “prudent” in “cutting costs” and “investing in the future.”

What we've seen is a breathtaking number of advances in technology, medicine, communications and entertainment. The movie went from a one-reel “short” in black and white, silent, to audio, to color, and on to spectacle. It co-opted radio, it adapted to TV, it evolved into a wide-screen panorama/extreme-vision experience, and morphed onto laser disks, DVDs and now downloads. It went from something someone could finance out of one's pocket, to mega-movies that cost a hundred million or more to make, and had to recoup that investment in the first few weeks of availability.

The automobile went from a rich man's plaything, to a life-saving (or at least life-altering) device, to an indispensible time of daily life. Or, a plague upon the earth worse than the seven plagues of Egypt. And I'll bet that those who hold the latter opinion have not read of the plagues, but only seen them on a megamovie at the multiplex, and made light of the movie while enjoying it.

We've learned that the argument over 9mm vs. .45 will never be settled. We've learned that history ain't what it used to be and nostalgia is for old fogeys.

The 1911 has to beat out such competitors as these Savage M1907 pistols, but it did. Since then, it has never been out of production, in many instances being made many places at once.

This custom gun, with hand-fitted slide to frame rail fit, and Tripp carbidizing on the rails, will last through a number of barrels. Each barrel can last over 100,000 rounds. This may be a million-round pistol.

When the 1911 pistol was adopted, the 93 million residents and citizens in the US had a life expectancy that was a mere 51 years, making a mockery of the new retirement pension idea floated by the Germans. Retire at 65? Only those who were not working in agricultural or manufacturing jobs had much of a chance of that. When the Beatles sang “When I'm 64″, they were 24, 24, 22 and 21 years old. At the time, the average life expectancy was only 69. Now, when you read this, the two survivors are 69 years old, and the life expectancy now is a projected 89 years. And in twenty years I fully expect Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to still be with us, and still shrugging off the jokes about having their blood exchanged for that of Swiss schoolgirls.

Teams are afoot as I type this to push the land speed record past 1,000 miles per hour.

Music went from sheet music you bought and played, to 78 rpm records, 45s, reel-to-reel, LPs, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, CDs and now downloads to MP3 players. However, there are those who still use LPs, because vinyl has a “warmer” “richer” “truer” sound. Yeah, right, and black powder is still best.

What for the future of the 1911? And us? Us, I'm not so good at predicting. Were I good at predicting the future, economics or otherwise, I'd be famous, rich, and in line for a Nobel Prize. A joke about the latest winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics: “He successfully predicted seven of the last two recessions.” Who? It hardly matters, does it?

In the time of the 20th century, so much changed. Heck, even the pavement we drove on changed. The two-lane concrete or blacktop street in front of your suburban house right now is a wider, straighter, better-built driving artery than existed in most of the country in 1911. The free-way it leads to is better-built and built for more speed than any racetrack of 1911. Having looked at almost everything, I can say in good conscience that the number of tools, office equipment items, conveyances, communication devices, toys, clothes and other common products that have remained as unchanged as the 1911 pistol is infinitessimally small. Perhaps only the book can be compared to the 1911, and even then, a reader of 1911 would be simply astonished at the glossy paper, color photos and sheer volume of today's books, despite the inroads of the internet. He or she would not find the book itself, however, changed much at all. A shooter of 1911 would marvel at the fit, finish, quality, durability and most especially the magazines of today, but would not have any problems working the pistol as we know it. They could not, however, start and drive a 2011 car, any more than you, gentle reader, could get a 1911 car started and moving.

How much longer might the 1911 pistol last? Individually, or as a pistol of choice?

The 1911 pistol is an all-metal firearm, with few exceptions. And those that are polymer came late to the polymer fracas, and thus we can pretty much count on the formulations being very durable. As such, we can count on them lasting for a good long time. Barring political interference, the ones in existence can be counted on to work for another century. And how many have been made so far? Military production, pre-war, WWI and WWII comes to something like 3.5 million. Colt made it commercially for a century, if we average 15,000 a year for a century (some years a lot less, others a lot more) we come up with another million and a half. For the last couple of decades the total has been in excess of 100,000 a years, so round it off and call it another 2.5 million, and come up with a SWAG of 7.5 million 1911 pistols. That's a lot of guns.

I'd like to think that when we travel to the stars, those intrepid explorers will still have something dependable when they arrive, like this 10-8 Performance 1911A1.

Even if fully half of them have been used up, lost, destroyed, confiscated, melted-down, etc., we're left with over three million in circulation, and more coming out every day. As long as guns can be owned, some of them will be 1911s. As long as there are 1911s in circulation, there will be .45 ACP ammo made. Barring political interference, I expect someone in 2111 to be writing (mentally transcribing?) a book, tape, disk, crystal, whatever the recording media of the time will be: The 1911: Two Centuries of Pistol.

As for individual firearms, the 1911 is remarkably long-lived. Those made before and during WWII tend to be made of softer (relatively speaking) alloys, and service life depends as much on what you feed it, how you shoot it and how you treat it as anything else. If you take an early gun and feed it nothing but hardball, you can count on 50,000 rounds or so. The post-war guns, with hard slides, properly fitted and maintained, can be counted on for over 100,000 rounds of hardball. If you feed it lead-bullet reloads, the sky is the limit. I know of one top IPSC shooter who has several guns over 200,000 rounds each, and one over 300,000. And then, if you shoot a .38 Super at Major, with light-bullet loads, and do lots of high-speed shooting, you'll burn the barrel out under 100,000 rounds. A rebuild will be easy, and with a new barrel and some tuneup work, you're good for another 100,000 rounds or more.

Unless there is some sort of cataclysmic change in the social structure such that guns are unknown, I expect that when mankind is steering ships to the stars, we can count on finding four things on board, whether those in charge want them there, or not: duct tape, WD-40, bowie knives, and 1911 pistols. At the rate the firearms market is changing and adapting to customer's needs, the world will be awash in four handguns: the 1911, Glocks, communist-made Makarovs and copies of the Colt Single Action Army. One might object to the choice of a 1911 on a starship, arguing that the powers-that-be will select Glocks, and have them locked up in the ship's armory, for issue “when needed.” Which misses the point: choice. People buy Glocks because they are (to their mind) the best tool for the job, at the least required investment in money, training, maintenance and emotional attachment. People buy 1911s because they feel they are the best tool for the job, are willing to invest the money and training, and desire an emotional attachment to the tool that may someday save their life. People buy 1911s because they want to.

I leave you with one last gorgeous 1911 on which to feast your eyes. This Colt left the factory in 1918, no doubt bound for the trenches. It survived to be built as a USGI Retro Best Grade gun by Jason Burton. Jason, every detail is perfect. Photo courtesy Heirloom Precision and Hernandez Photography

We will, alas, find ourselves preparing for another journey, a journey into another land: the future.

Alas, at the rate we're going, none of us will ever get a chance to smuggle the aforesaid items onto a starship, preparing ourselves for the challenges we might find at the end of that particular journey. We will, alas, find ourselves preparing for another journey, a journey into another land: the future. That land may not have starships in time them. But we do and for us to journey on them. But we do and will have the 1911 with us to solve any other problems that happen during the journey into the future: the one within our lifetimes. It is a tool of exemplary usefulness.