H&K Makes a Deal with the Devil...

[longtooth]

1911s 30 yrs ago were not the same as today.
Bought one & it was the basic that had to then be upgraded.
Kimber is the one that brought the 1911 to the ready "out of the box"

[smyrna]

What are you guy's talking about, those guns look like junk, cheaply made junk. Firearms that come like that SHOULD be destroyed. Those so called "1911's" looked like CRAP.

Are you being sarcastic? Don't let what they look like fool you. What the guy is holding in the 6th and 7th picture is the ancestor of all 1911's, the 1911A1 the second iteration of the 1911 platform. Just because it is parkerized and lacks a beavetail, extended this and that, and all the other garbage that people put on 1911's these days to solve problems that don't usually exist doesn't mean it's cheaply made junk! They were not built like today's 1911's because they were mass produced in wartime with the manufacturing processes of the day. Were they "loose" compared to today's 1911's? You bet, but they were built to digest 230 grain ball ammo in the crappiest of conditions and keep going BANG everytime the trigger was pulled. Will they shoot 2" at 25 yards like some of today's out of the box guns? Not likely, but they saved many a GI's bacon for what they were designed for-killing at bad breath distances and just beyond.

CRAP? That's blasphemous!
I feel better now...
Now flame on.

[CompVest]

+1

[bryang]

+2

[Liberty]

1911s 30 yrs ago were not the same as today.
Bought one & it was the basic that had to then be upgraded.
Kimber is the one that brought the 1911 to the ready "out of the box"

You have a good point, I've never shot a modern 1911, only the GI version of years gone by. And it had a universal reputation among my peers of being crap. I assume the Coatian 1911s are of the same ilk. By destroying those guns and replacing them H&K was doing the soldiers who will actually use them a huge favor. Almost every government in the world has moved on to a more modern design.

I do understand that 1911s are among the prettiest guns, but I have never figured out the "trigger break" or "Clean trigger". Although I love going to the range, I'm not a marksman I am pretty content with putting scattered holes within 6 inches at 15 yds. One trigger seems the same as any other in my ham hands. I don't even notice much difference to double or single action when I'm shooting. I suppose those who are better shooters and more in tune with their weapons may feel the differences are monumental. Maybe someday I will understand.

I also never understood why there are Porshe's and Ferrarri's while there are Honda's and Toyotas.

[KBCraig]

You have a good point, I've never shot a modern 1911, only the GI version of years gone by. And it had a universal reputation among my peers of being crap.

That's because they were. And they were, because all of them dated to WWII and before, and had been used and abused for 40 to 75 years.

These pistols that were destroyed in Estonia were new, unused, and packed in Cosmoline. They had huge collector value. There was no reason to destroy them, other than to satisfy the U.N. gun control agenda.

[srothstein]

Kevin, I think this one was done for purely business reasons and not UN. HK sold them new guns and wanted to sell them more. If they have the old ones on hand still, they will be less inclined to buy more from HK, and if they sell them, other people will be less inclined to buy more new guns. Purely a profit motive, IMHO.

As for the collector value, this actually helps the value of the remaining guns. Anytime there is a large supply, the price goes down.

And given all that, I wish H&K had taken them in on trade, imported them to the US, and placed them on the market for sale. I just don't see them as being as evil as others do.

[smyrna]

[quote="Liberty"]
You have a good point, I've never shot a modern 1911, only the GI version of years gone by. And it had a universal reputation among my peers of being crap. I assume the Coatian 1911s are of the same ilk.... Almost every government in the world has moved on to a more modern design.[quote]

No such thing as a Croatian 1911. Like KBCraig said, these were likely "like new" licensed Colt copies made during wartime for the government by either Colt, Remington Rand, Ithaca, Union Signal and Switch, or GASP , one of the 500 units produced by Singer Sewing Machine.

The fact that the 1911 has been produced for almost 100 consecutive years is a testament to its design. Longtooth makes a good point that it is modern manufacturing that has made the 1911 even better, but its design, like most of John Moses Browning's, is truly timeless. In fact, a lot of what we see as modern can be traced back to JMB.

[KBCraig]

Other than one unsourced line at the original link (and lots of others that have repeated it), I've never seen any confirmation that this was a contractual issue.

[srothstein]

Kevin,

You could be right. Doing a search for it, I found a few more references saying it was a contract. I also found some saying it was a cache of seized weapons from criminals and some saying it was leftovers from the Soviets.

The interesting thing I found is that we are about two years late worrying about it. It was on The High Road in 2006.