ok guys last time we talked about nazis

but they lost so fuck that

were goin all american today

one of the most famous american handguns ever

the 1911

so until the 1911 the most famous american handgun was probably the colt single action army

old cowboy gun in .45 long colt

a very powerful pistol at the time

used by the army to fight injuns in the wild west

thats why its called army

as for single action

this means that the trigger has one job and one job only

and thats release the hammer

if the hammer is forward

you can pull the trigger all day and nothing will happen

and people usually carried on an empty chamber

so if you drop the gun on a rock it wont slam the hammer into a loaded round

which is good because look how long this friggin firing pin is

that sticks way into the chamber and would be happily bouncing next to that primer all day long

definitely a good idea to have that chamber be empty

then when you want to fire you can just cock the hammer with your thumb

that will make the cylinder rotate to the next chamber

and youre ready to fire with one motion

pull the trigger and it goes bang

this ends up being a pretty simple and easy system

and also really safe

the downsides are you can only hold like five rounds

and you have to manually cock that hammer every time

so its kinda slow to fire

and you can only put in one round at a time

and after shooting you have to remove one round at a time

so its kinda slow to load too

then in 1892 the army adopted a new revolver they called the m1892 for some reason

it had two big improvements

the first thing colt did was invent a cylinder that swung out to unload and reload

you can just dump everything out in one move

way faster to load

this is now a universal feature of modern revolvers

the second improvement was that it was double action

guys this is twice as good as the single action

so double action means the trigger can cock the hammer and then release it

two things

this is great because you load that bad boy up and you just keep pressing the trigger and hearing bang bang bang bang bang bang

way faster to fire

its pretty awesome

so the army used those for another couple decades

but the m1892 used the .38 long colt cartridge

and honestly it kinda sucks

its .07 smaller than the big .45 long colt the army had been using

and holds way less powder

plus after the spanish american war

where we beat up spain and took their lunch money

and their cuba

and their puerto rico

and oh yeah their the phillipines

we ended up having some trouble with the .38 long colt because the phillipines was full of moro rebels

and the moro rebels were full of god and drugs

so when you tried filling them with lead

they insisted on chopping you to pieces before finally dying

so the army is like damn dude this caliber sucks softballs

and they did an emergency reissue of the single action army with its big .45 round

but at the end of the day any revolver has limitations you just cant get past

the empty cartridges have to be manually ejected

and the new rounds are kinda slow to load

so for the long term the army put out a request for a new pistol in .45 caliber

and lets make it one of these new fangled semi automatics thats getting popular

heres a comparison

so semi automatic means that if the hammer is cocked

and you pull the trigger

the cartridge goes bang

the slide goes back

ejects the spent case

cocks the hammer

loads up a new round

and youre ready to fire again

all automatically

the only thing it doesnt do is fire another round

thats why its semi automatic instead of fully automatic

obviously this is way faster and a lot easier than cocking the hammer yourself every round

or having to push the rounds out yourself individually

plus they use magazines so you can reload it super quick

and the magazine can just be made as long as you want so it can hold like 8 or 10 or friggin 13 rounds

its pretty sweet and generally better in every way

lol at whoever just jumped down to argue with me in the comments

so to safely carry a semiauto we got a couple options

like the cowboy revolvers we can leave the chamber empty

but since we dont have a cylinder we will need to rack the slide before being able to shoot

just cocking the hammer wont work anymore because the slide is what puts a new round into the empty chamber

and racking the slide is harder to do than just using your thumb on a hammer

you pretty much need both hands

so semiauto guns came with a safety

which is a little mechanical widget that you manipulate with your hand that blocks the gun from working in some way

that way you can chamber a round to have a cocked hammer with the safety on

and like the single action army you still make it ready to fire with a quick thumb movement

not bad

so the army put out their request and six companies submitted designs

but the clear winner was from colt

designed by john moses browning

patron saint of all gun owners

it was so badass they shot it nonstop for like 6000 rounds

dunked it in water to cool it off

zero malfunctions

badass

so it was adopted as the m1911

its a single action semi automatic magazine fed pistol

it holds 8 rounds of .45 acp

and uses the browning tilting barrel short recoil system

it served in world war i and people liked it

after the war a number of small changes were made and the new version was called the m1911a1

then in wwii they made a bunch more

like millions

it served everywhere anyone threw a rock at an american into the 90s

and some military units have some even today

the 1911

a century of service

so i talked about semiautos in general

lets talk about more of its specific features

first off the 1911 has not one but two safeties

it has the manual thumb safety on the side

but it also has an automatic grip safety

the whole upper half of the back of the grip pushes in when you grab it

so if you drop it on something the gun shouldnt fire even if the thumb safety is off

pretty slick

the other big thing to mention is the barrel locking method

so in a revolver its easy

the hammer hits the primer and the bullet flies out the front

and everything that needs to move is done afterwards by you

in a semi auto you need to move it all with the energy of the round itself

so you want the barrel to be locked in place to let the bullet out

then start moving to get the empty case out and cock the hammer and load a new round

but if you do it too early all that hot expanding gas goes right into your face

this guy maxim had a cool system to deal with that

but he was distracted making cool machineguns

so when browning took the idea and decided to apply it to a pistol

he put lugs in the top of the barrel

which lock into the slide

and the whole thing gets pushed back locked together

this delays unlocking long enough for the pressure to escape out the front

then it swings the barrel down out of the way so the slide can keep on going

this method of recoiling part of the way then stopping is called short recoil

kinda like the short stroke gas systems i talked about before

almost every semi auto pistol to this day uses some kind of short recoil operation

browning and the 1911 were so good they had a permanent impact on firearms design

as for accessories and variants

the 1911 has more options than any other firearm in existence

super short

breally big

space age

even double barrel

no matter what you want you can find it

it has served so long and has so much you can to because it just works

this is the gun your grandfather carried to defend america

and you can carry it now to defend your loved ones

but the 1911 is even more than just an important gun

its a huge part of americana

pewpew

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