The Firearms Forum banner

What should the army's new .45 be?

8K views 52 replies 33 participants last post by  TranterUK 
#1 ·
After hearing about the army's decision to return to .45 and not the 1911, what do you think they should adopt?
Personally, a gun like the HK USP .45 would be a great choice but due to its price and also the fact that they're already giving germany enough money for the XM8, i don't think its really an option...what do you guys think
 
#27 ·
The US military should have "NEVER" parted ways with the 1911A1 to begin with, and it's high time they return to it. The gun has proven itself, the caliber has proven itself, and the hell with what the other nations want to carry, an American soldier should carry the best, not what's in vogue with the friggin UN, or NATO.

After working the initial bugs out of Eugene Stoners rifle, the M16 has proven reliable and dependable, then someone has a brain storm to shorten the barrel from 20" to 16", not figuring on lost velocity, they can't understand why our troops are now complaining about wanting more fire power.... :rolleyes:
The 1911 in .45acp was addopted in response to someone ordering the change from .45 (long)Colt, to the insufficiant .38 Spl. The military brass never learns from it's own history, and loves to repeat it's mistakes, and so now we have all our troops armed with 9mm sidearms, the M4 carbine, and they are looking to replace both with more firepower....... :eek: ......why do you think that is...... :confused:

Many of the special combat units have already replaced their 9mm's with .45acp 1911's, either through private procurement, or through military channels, the 1911 has made it's way back into the hands of our soldiers, I say don't stop with the elite units, issue it to everyone, sell the Beretta 92's to France...they'll only drop them at the first sign of trouble anyway.....
 
#28 ·
Man, I hate doin this but.....

I have fired many 1911's, including GI 1911's, SA's, S&W's, Colt's, Para's, Wilson's, & Kimbers. The only ones I fired and felt good about cost $800 and up. The GI 1911 is the biggest peice of crap that I ever laid hands upon. I am an expert pistol marksman but couldn't get under a 3" group @ 25 with a GI 1911. As the price grew, I found that they were made a little better, an tighter. I was lucky enough to receive my Kimber as a gift, as I could never afford it. The only 1911 that I liked better was a Wilson Combat Professional, a true piece of art.

How in God's name is the governemt going to be able to afford quality 1911's?

This is all aside from the fact that SA auto's have already been disqualified by the troops in initial testing. Let's get something modern in there. I still like the newest USP in .45GAP.

Jim
 
#29 ·
Ruger.44 said:
Man, I hate doin this but.....

I have fired many 1911's, including GI 1911's, SA's, S&W's, Colt's, Para's, Wilson's, & Kimbers. The only ones I fired and felt good about cost $800 and up. The GI 1911 is the biggest peice of crap that I ever laid hands upon. I am an expert pistol marksman but couldn't get under a 3" group @ 25 with a GI 1911. As the price grew, I found that they were made a little better, an tighter. I was lucky enough to receive my Kimber as a gift, as I could never afford it. The only 1911 that I liked better was a Wilson Combat Professional, a true piece of art.

How in God's name is the governemt going to be able to afford quality 1911's?

This is all aside from the fact that SA auto's have already been disqualified by the troops in initial testing. Let's get something modern in there. I still like the newest USP in .45GAP.

Jim
A man's chest at 25 yards is a hell of a lot bigger than 3". What more do you need? Inquiring minds want to know! A JMB .45 Auto is not a 300 yard gun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In combat, you ain't shootin bullseyes on paper. Your shooting at someone who is shooting back at you. Major difference in shootin bullseyes! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
 
#30 ·
I for one like the idea of the GAP round. You get .45 performance in a smaller framed pistol with a higher round capacity. I think there are platforms out there better suited to the needs of the military than the 1911 platform. Please note that I said better suited not better.
 
#31 ·
inplanotx said:
A man's chest at 25 yards is a hell of a lot bigger than 3". What more do you need? Inquiring minds want to know! A JMB .45 Auto is not a 300 yard gun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:
I'm hearing you, Devil-Dog. It's just that, when the feceis and the propeller come in contact, the cherry soldier is going to be taking shots that are farther than the true effectiveness of the weapon, not to mention the difficulty aquiring a sight picture due to situational stress. the better the shot group, the more likely you are to get a hit. That counts when you only have 7+1. You DO get what you pay for.

Jim
 
#33 ·
With the exception of SF, combat handgun training is at best left in the dark, along with those who carry the sidearm. While the story is simular to the one sold us for the mouse gun used today, the results are the same.
When you offer more rounds to the shooter, the effectiveness is lesser.
Same with the rifle, double-fire/tri-burst, ect. The Wonder Nine`s introduced high capacity in a handgun. Hit probability did not change and if anything it was reduced, back to the spray and pray of long ago.

It is hard to fault a large and slow bullet, these dump more of their energy into the target than high speed bullets, remember FMJ !! Not some fancy hollow point to make an inferior round a better one. While the jury may be out on the handgun design for the 45acp platform. The round itself is proven, big and slow. It works. It does not need to be sped up nor lightened. It does what it`s meant to do.

It remains, no matter what the caliber......a means to fight your way back to the rifle.

LTS
 
#38 ·
Springfield XD Tactical.

 
#40 ·
It won't be the 1911 because then the BRASS would be admitting a mistake was made in adopting the M9.

I think Marine Recon is issuing 1911's again for SpecOps.

HK for Seals and other Elite Outfits.

I would prefer a US Made Pistol then the Govt would not have to move a Foriegn Factory Stateside and be reliant on a Foreign Companies/Countries Politics. (I know Italy has not done this to us but a Germany or Switzerland might pull a funny if they disagree with US strongly.)

Colt Management needs to pull there head out of their collective rear ends and I'm sure they have some design in a filing cabinet that could fill the need (Double Eagle MKII?).

Ruger is a funny company. It seems to loose lots of contracts with Police and the Military.

SW - now that it isn't a British ran company might have some viable option (especially since they are teamed with Walther).

HK - nice gun. Very elitist, probably costly, and big. Bigger than the M9? Forget it.

SIGUSA - Why not?

Beretta - they had their time in the sun. Nice guns but time is up.

Glock - It could happen. So popular right now with the civilians and police. Seem to be bulletproof and easy to teach to the troops.

I would choose the 1911 but BRASS ain't goin back to tried and true.
 
#42 ·
I'm going for a Kimber 1911. They may cost 800 or so to us, but when you get a big contract from the military, I'm sure you can cut a deal.

When are they supposed to make a decision? Does anybody know?
 
#44 ·
There was nothing wrong with the 1911 in the first place. I feel the military should go back to it and train how to use it right, which really couldn't be more simple, and use the best defensive handgun out there. I carry a 1911 because I like the simplicity and ease of use! :cool:
 
#46 ·
it MUST be a double stack, it must be a regular 45 auto round it must have at least a 5 in. bbl, it must have mags that are EVERYWHERE. S AND W AND RUGER FIT THIS BILL PRETTY GOOD. LAST BUT NOT LEAST IT MUST ALLWAys FIRE and not fire if it hits the ground , because it will from time to time.
 
#48 ·
For every smart thing DoD does, there's always a couple dumb things. Getting rid of the 1911 was dumb. But it was time to get better pistols, just not completely trash a perfectly good weapon altogether. I don't know if anybody remembers the last 1911's to go out, but they were wore out. Really badly wore out. We needed new ones. Not refurbrished either. They were already re-everything too many times since WWII. Instead of new 1911's (with tight fitting parts and fresh virgin steel) we got damn M9's which now are almost as loose and wore out as those old 1911's were. They aren't better quality either. The first M9 I ever shot back in the 90's I had to aim at the lower left corner of a man sized silouette to get a right shoulder hit at 25 meters. That is sorry by any standard.

Let's be real. The only reason the 9mm ever made it into our armory was because in the '80's it was hot-stuff. All the cops and every cop movie had them. Hey, Mel Gibson made the Beretta too cool. It was time for new sidearms in this military and right then there was a newly revitalized amazing wonder-bullet right off the shelf in a package that could pass field trials. Looking like a hard hitter on paper made it an easy sell. But by the '90's the cops got smart and went to .40 or better while the U.S. Military was stuck with another NATO round. Let's see...NATO adopted the 7.62x51 from us...NATO adopted the 5.56 from us...all of a sudden we give a crap about adopting a pistol round from them....yeah right. It was hot-stuff so we bought it. Period.

In 2003 my unit bought USP45's and a few other pistols. We laterally transfered all the M9's to whoever wanted one. It was a struggle to keep enough ammo for them in Iraq and we ended up trading 5.56 to government agencies to get enough .45 to stay in business. The only bad thing I can say about the USP is the grip size bothers some people (not that the M9 is very small either anyway). It is a good weapon. If we go back to .45 service wide, I expect this one to win the contract; Springfield being the second most likely. Both impressed people in combat so I expect they will anywhere else. (One of our sergeant majors hit a running dog from a moving 4wheeler with a USP and suddenly we had a new sport...try that with a crusty M9)

Glock will never get a contract for troops as long as there is no external safety. Period. DoD would stick their peckers in pickle slicers before they let it happen. Safety, Safety, Safety, and I hate to say it but they have damn good reason. There are enough accidents already; any training is perishable, couple that with good ol' combat zone complacency and you need a no-crap safety. Fact of life.

On training. Our military has the most overall bare minimum handgun training for conventional forces that we can get away with. Troops that are issued one only get any training at all, and they just learn to strip/assemble, load, and shoot from a couple positions. Yes you could issue a pistol from day one like we do with rifles now, but let me say that new soldiers have to learn so much these days in so little time that you'd get little good done by it. You'd have lots of new soldiers that hauled around a pistol until it's just more dead weight to them. There is not enough hours in any of the days during that 9 crucial weeks to add in worthy pistol training. As a man with a Drill Sergeant badge on my right pocket, I can tell you this with certainty. It already takes every free hour to get them proficient with a rifle and we still pray for more hours because after us they have their few weeks of AIT then join a unit shortly departing for a combat theater of operations. I got 25 total months in one place or another so this thought is never far from my mind.

Someone mentioned funds and the XM8. Well, this summer I was in the office that tests those, or was testing, to visit a buddy from my first unit, and he told me what he was allowed about why we aren't getting any XM8. Oh well, no love lost. The M4 is a world class fighting rifle and I'd carry it anywhere all over again. Anyway, they have plenty more new weapons to test and eat up funds, but that won't get in the way anyhow. We'll get a new pistol when DoD wants a new one; tax dollars be damned. It all comes down for which manufacturer lobbies the hardest to get hardware that can perform the best in testing with the lowest MSRP. And it has to be cooler than whatever it replaces; wish I were kidding, I can name examples.

If anything brings back the .45, it will probably be the GAP. Militaries used to be run by traditionalists, but those days are gone. We woke up one day and realized that we can have the cutting edge of everything. (uniforms, trucks, radios, bombs, planes, sunglasses) Okay, so GAP is everything the legendary .45 ACP was for us, but in a smaller package perfect for a hi-tech ergonomic space-age highly tactical new pistol. Yeah, it might have a chance.

Based on my experience, for a true all around service .45, we should just buy the USP patent and start producing them in a single stack, .45 GAP version, keep the rails so units can decide what gadgets to use, and you got a .45 fighting pistol. Same thing for the Springfield XD. Both guns are almost there anyway.

In the meantime, I have no say of what the Army issues me, but with my own money it's 1911.
 
#49 ·
My choices would be either the 1911 or the Sig P-220. My first .45 is my 220 and it is a fine choice.
 
#50 ·
G
#51 · (Edited)
Well......whatever design is chosen, I feel it should be all metal (except for the grips); rugged; reliable; accurate; elegantly simple in design; able to be completely stripped down without tools; able to function in all sorts of climatic conditions.......and have been designed by John M. Browning in or around 1911....... :D

As long as it meets those parameters, any choice will be fine.... :)
Cant argue with that conclusion. Alternativly may I respectfully suggest another JMB classic:
 

Attachments

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top