Stamped Sheet Metal 1911 Prototype (1947)
Stamped Sheet Metal 1911 Prototype (1947)
Presumably an attempt to reduce the cost to manufacture the iconic handgun.
This one is also on display at the Springfield National Armory Historical Site.
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I've always wondered what the thinking behind this was. There were 1.8 million 1911A1s made during WW2. Given that the vast majority of military members aren't issued pistols and that pistols are used less which means less wear & tear on parts, it is difficult to imagine why nearly 2 million 1911A1s in service (plus however many of the 700,000 1911s that were still serviceable) would need to be augmented by a cost cutting version. Kind of seems like somebody was really excited to make a stamped pistol for the sake of showing off improved stamping technology. Given that this project never went anywhere apparently there also wasn't much interest outside of whoever was running the program.
My guess is it was the same idea as the Liberator (conveniently in the bottom left). A cheap gun that could be dropped in occupied cities to arm partisan fighters with something they could use to get a rifle.
The Liberator wasn't a very good pistol and was single shot. The stamped 1911 might have been an attempt at practicing the ideas behind the Liberator in a semi automatic handgun.
We made ~1 million Liberators but turns out the hard part about arming partisans isn't making the guns, but getting them to them. I believe most of them never left out hands. Probably a factor in the death of the stamped 1911 program.
Believe that zero Liberators were ever airdropped as originally intended. Not because it was too difficult but because it was a waste of a bomber mission.
I’m not arguing with you, just thinking out loud why and how this handgun idea ever materialized into more than a paper suggestion.
Yeah, it was definitely a 'good on paper' type idea. The only other possible explanation I can think of is export sales to poorer countries.
The army was experimenting with bringing the weight down. The one in the picture is stamped sheet metal, but they also experimented with stamped aluminum. Only 30 were ever made. I don't think they ever planned to produce them in mass. Its a proof of concept.