As a minor note, in the books James Bond doesn’t get the PPK until Doctor No, the fifth in the series. Novels prior to that had him carrying a Beretta .25 with a skeleton grip. The Service relieves him of it because it’s a “lady’s gun” and because its silencer gets caught in Bond’s holster when he tries to draw it on Rosa Klebb in the final chapter of From Russia With Love, the previous novel. When the movie series began with an adaptation of Doctor No, there was an early scene in which Bond’s Beretta is replaced with a vague description of it having failed him in a manner somewhat similar to the Klebb fight, which itself would be dramatized at the end of the second film.
the 1911 is the chevy small block of the pistol world. People know them, know how to work on them, you can get a wide range of bolt on hot rod parts for them, and it’s a decent design.
And you can get a fairly cheap reliable knockoff that may not win any competitions but can be reasonably expected to fire every time and hit what you aim at. A friend of mine bought a high standard version for less than 400 brand new the other day and we ran quite a bit of ammo through it without any jams, and it was reasonably accurate.
I’ve had a few colts, an auto ordinance, and a LAR Grizzly in 45 win mag, I like them, and wouldn’t mind having another one.
Unlike some of the more “modern” semi-automatic handguns, there is a huge industry devoted to modifying, customizing, and personalizing a 1911. Can you do that with a Glock? Not really. You can put a wrap-around grip and a different connector on a Glock, or you can void your warranty by totally reshaping the frame, which is some arduous work. You can’t even do that much to a Sig. But a 1911? You can switch every part on that until it is uniquely yours and switch it back with a minimum of effort.
It’s the handgun equivalent of a tuner car.
Without saying anything too negative about 1911s, I will say that I am decidedly not a fan of them for various reasons, but I do have to concede that the design is time-tested and one can scarcely blame people for their tastes as a result. I’m not too judgmental about it. Buy what makes you happy.
You should not discount another thing, hardly a fan boy thing, but many Colt owner became Colt owners for the same reason I did. I inherited one. It is four years older than I am. My Grandfather carried it around in North Africa. My father didn’t get presented his side arm, so I don’t have two. But if I had had two, both would have been M1911a1’s and no fan boy input at all.
Since my grandfather was a signal corps general officer, I have sincere doubts about it having any sort of combat record. He certainly never mentioned it. But, I got a picture of him wearing it in North Africa. So, when my dad passed away, I got it. I did a few things to it, and have considered having a new barrel and guide put on it, since is is a little loose, after 65 years. I found out just how loose (six inch circle at 50 feet) when I bench shot it at the NRA range. Still, I hardly ever get that mad at anyone that far away, so, meh.
I know for an actual fact that everything on it is original military issue, except the crimson scribe laser designator I added. (I kept the original grips, of course.) So, like so many other owners of the 1911, I have a long satisfaction association with it. There are millions of them.
Tris
That’s one explanation, but that doesn’t explain why people regularly suggest 1911s or their variants over other types of handguns, often while denigrating anything else. Gun forums are replete with caliber and model wars-which is better? Invariably you’ll get the Glock fanboys coming in and beating their drums, followed by the 1911 fans, or vice versa. The first group into the discussion usually controls the tone of the discussion. It’s worse in some ways than PC vs. Mac discussions, because while everything comes down to preference, one side claims history and the other side claims that it’s time to get rid of the old stuff and go with the new. It’s sad, really.
I’ve owned Glocks as well as 1911’s, and though I’m a fanboy of neither, I do much prefer the 1911. If we are talking about both guns being the same caliber, say .45 acp, the Glock loses out for me because it can’t be customized.
For me, a 1911 requires a flat mainspring housing, and grip panels of normal-or-less thickness to fit my hand. No long triggers need apply. If the gun is set up that way, it really does function like an extension of my arm.
I have yet to own or fire the Glock, however, that came remotely close to fitting me. The grip angle is all wrong for me and, unless I bend my wrist at an unnatural angle, they all point way high in my hands. This could be corrected, I suppose, with some surgery on the grip but that voids warranties and is pretty labor intensive, as Doors has already pointed out. Glock triggers don’t impress me either, though all my experience is with factory-standard ones. Maybe they can be improved with some of the aftermarket parts.
When fanboys of the respective guns get into one of their endless pissing contests, the outlandish claims and anecdotes pile up more quickly bullshit on election day. My personal favorite:
“The Glock can be fired under water and assloads of SEALS, UDT, and other elite operators carry them as protection from sharks.”
… bullet… fragment… what the ever loving monkey?
Seriously?
(Though I’d think it could be fired under water. Tech’nically. I’m not sure if the bullet would fragment before or after it exited the barrel, though, and what the overpressure would do to the gun.)
Grampa used it in WWII and came home, his dad used it in WWI and came home. It puts a hole 45 one-hundredths of an inch in people trying to kill you. Boo yah!
Handguns will fire underwater, but the effective range is basically nil. A bangstick on the end of a baton is actually better since you have to make muzzle contact with the target for effective use with either weapon. The couple feet or so of shaft on the power head gives you more “range” than the 4 inches of Glock barrel.
Note: the underwater firing pin assembly referred to in the linked article isn’t actually for firing when underwater, as such. It was designed for use by amphibious troops as the stock assembly can under certain circumstances have light primer strikes after being submerged. The underwater assembly is actually to promote drainage when the pistol is brought back to the surface.
I always thought the fanboi atmosphere around the M1911 was the same sort of jingoistic crap that surrounds Harley-Davidsons, but I haven’t paid any attention to M1911s since about 1970. From what I read here, they are not really dogs that can’t hit the broad side of a barn, at least after you fiddle with them enough, so I guess they are nothing much like Harleys, which still seem to be crappy bikes no matter how much money people throw at them.
Why on earth would you want to stir up that mess again.
bdgr, it’s understandable that dropzone felt that way. But I think the analogy to a chevy small block is much more apt. It’s daddy’s car, but… it’s still a good engine and you can do neat stuff to it. Sure, there’s the japanese stuff, but you can learn from that and apply it to the small block… and whadda know, it gets better, too.
Edit: Huh. Shooting underwater does work. I see the Glock bitches, and I see that what I predicted happens to everything but ball ammunition… and even that’s down to five or so feet. (partially penetrating wood at four)
I also see that my prediction almost comes true on the Glock, as the .40 experiences separation.
Nice when a gut feeling plus a back of the hand calculation approximates as true.
I’m just refering to the whole harley bashing silliness.
I’ve got a follow-up question to that posed by the OP:
I have a third-generation Smith & Wesson Model 4506. Apparently, S&W stopped production in 1999. Why?
Indeed, S&W has appeared to abandon their classic series of semi-auto pistols. In other words, there really is no “fourth-generation” of S&W pistols. Instead, they have a bunch of knockoffs and copies of other manufacturers’ guns mixed up with various compact and/or polymer-framed models.
Today, S&W has their Sigma series (a Glock knockoff), their SW99 series (a collaboration with Walther to produce a P99 variant), their M&P series (another polymer-framed weapon like the Sigma series), and last, but not least, their new SW1911 Series, a M1911 knockoff. Yes, that’s right. Even S&W is in the M1911 business now.
What gives? What if I want to buy a replacement for my 4506 (i.e. a full-framed stainless steel .45 caliber non-M1911 pistol?
Personally, I love my 4506. The ergonomics are great–it always felt like an extension of my hands. The M1911s I’ve fired always felt too skinny in my hands, but that may be a function of the standard grips on the Navy-issued models I used when I was in the service.
The 3rd Generation S&W pistols were reliable, well built, and as you note, had excellent ergonomics (though I’m never going to agree with the slide mounted decocking safety, but that’s another issue.) However, they enjoyed only very limited law enforcement sales compared to Glock, Beretta, and Sig-Sauer, and when the FBI abandoned the 10mm Auto because of the aggressiveness of the round and a few problems with the 1076, it pretty much sank the S&W line, even though several law enforcement agencies adopted the .40 S&W high capacity pistols for a while. The S&W full sized 10mm Auto pistols, particularly the 1006 and the FBI-issue 1076s (lacking the magazine disconnect) command premium prices for used guns, far more popular than the questionable Colt Delta Elite and the bulky Glock 20; however, in the law enforcement market that is the bread and butter of commercial handgun manufacturers (and where Smith & Wesson has traditionally make their money) the 3rd Gen pistols didn’t compete, even though they were in many ways superior to more successful patterns.
Stranger
And yet, I want both a HD and a .45. Go figure. 
Really, though, both are, er, classic designs that, straight from the factory, are, um, sub-optimal. The changes needed to optimize the M1911 are outlined above and Harley fans must admit that most owners begin optimizing their rides the day they buy them and never stop. That takes both gun and bike out of the realm of tools and into that of hobbies, and hobbies seem more likely to attract fanboy types, who are also more likely to buy magazines devoted, at least partially, to their hobbies. And, as a hobby, it will attract wannabes as well as owners, which is why a Lamborghini on the cover of a car magazine would sell more copies than a Kia.
well…a 1911, from a decent manufacturer will perform decent out of the box, but can be tweaked into full blown race gun.
a HD, right out of the box is as reliable as any other bikes on the road, and compare ok to other bikes in their class performance wise, but the more tweaking most owners do to them the less reliable they get. so it’s a profoundly different thing.
Yeah, both are usually hobbies, but only because people make them so. I know people with bone stock harleys that never have to do anything but change the oil because they dont screw with them. I know people with 1911 copies made by rock island and high standard that are content with a military style 45 as a carry gun and they are happy with it.
I hadn’t thought of the “Working on them as a hobby” aspect it, to be honest- I like old military firearms as a hobby, but I don’t try and “improve” them beyond restoration of missing parts and routine maintenance.
I am noticing a lack of innovation in the self-loading pistol field, and I’m inclined to think that we’ve gone as far as we can with them until someone comes up with an effective handgun firing caseless ammunition using an electric primer (or something along those lines). The “Tround” system from the 1960s is probably the closest I’m aware of to something approaching this, and even that’s really a solution looking for a problem, IMHO.
Revolver development peaked in 1901 and there have been no notable or remarkable innovations in revolver design since then, and I think it’s interesting to note that it took 64 years to go from the Colt Paterson to the Webley-Fosbery revolver and it’s taken almost the same time (slightly longer, actually) to go from the Mauser C96 to the Beretta M92 semi-auto pistol.
You make it sound like the Webley-Fosbery was the apogee of revolver design. It wasn’t even the best automatic revolver design. The Mateba is a superior piece in every respect.
I’m not overly impressed by any of the hinged-frame Webley designs or the cartridges they used, in any case. The design doesn’t lend itself to any kind of high intensity cartridge. The cartridges they do use lob pieces of lead at velocities little better than you can get with a slingshot.
The Smith and Wesson Triple-Lock (and its superb .44 special cartridge) of 1908 is a better candidate for the peak of revolver design.
It was, IMHO. It won gold in the 1908 and 1912 Olympic, and was well regarded in its time for basically being the fastest and most accurate handgun available.
The only knowledge I have of the Mateba is based on what I’ve read on Wikipedia and the rest of the internet- I’ve never seen one for sale anywhere, never come across anyone who owned one. The general feeling I’ve gotten from my research is that the Mateba was regarded as a curio- basically, people said “What’s the point?”
When the Webley-Fosbery came out, it was a unique design and, in some applications, an improvement on what was currently available. The idea of an Automatic Revolver seems a bit pointless now because conventional self-loaders are now just as accurate (if not more so) than revolvers, but it’s still a concept that I find very interesting from an engineering and technical point of view.
This is a fair criticism of the Webley top-break design, but one that I respectfully disagree with. Personally, I don’t see a lot of use for high intensity cartridges like the .500 S&W, and the failure of a particular gun to fire them shouldn’t be considered a failing, in the same way a Lithgow 1B .22 rifle shouldn’t be considered an inferior design because it can’t handle a .500 Holland & Holland cartridge- it just wasn’t designed for that purpose.
The Webley revolvers (and by this I’m referring the Mk I-VI .455 service revolvers and the Mk III & IV .38 S&W revolvers) were designed as man-stoppers and they performed in that task extraordinarily well.
There’s so much mass in a .455 Webley cartridge (265gr) that the low muzzle velocity really isn’t a detriment, IMHO- you’re still going to have an appallingly bad day if you get hit by it, as a lot of people in pretty much every Colonial war the British were involved in during the Victorian period- and, later, both World Wars- found out.
The .38 S&W models are, ballistically, almost identical to any other .38 calibre revolver and, had Webley & Scott chambered the Mk IV in .38 Special I’m confident it would still be in production somewhere.
Given the choice between a Colt M1911 and a Webley Mk VI, I’d take the Webley any day of the week. That’s not to say the Colt is an inferior arm; but my personal preferences run towards the Webley revolver and a cartridge I find to be powerful but pleasant to shoot.
There’s no arguing that the S&W Triple lock was a fine revolver, but IMO the Webley-Fosbery is the peak of revolver innovation and design, and everything after that was just improvements on existing ideas. The S&W Triple Lock fired a powerful cartridge, but mechanically it wasn’t really any different from any other double-action sold-frame, swing-out cylinder revolver on the market at the time, (besides the presence of the extra locking lug, and that was only for the increased pressure generated by the .44 Special cartridge).
A “What’s the best revolver ever made?” discussion might be a better topic for another thread, though. 