what was the absolute year the colt 45 1911a1 was made?

Question

just would like to learn more about the history of my pistol

Answer 1

The original 45ACP was the model 1905 Colt. 1911 was the year that the military trial Colt Model of 1910 was modified and adopted by the US military. The Model 1911-A1 came out in the early 1920s with only minor mods done to trigger position and the addition of a palm swell on the mainspring housing. What is interesting is that true 1911 mainspring housings (called "flat") are coming back into popularity.

Colt 1905 (the original 45ACP-commercial)
Colt 1910 (military trial pistol that is the first to take on the familar look)
Colt 1911 (slightly modified 1910)
Colt 1911-A1 (trigger and mainspring housing modified in the early '20s)

This is done off the top of my head from memory so I gave it a shot. The 1911-A1 variants make up the bulk of all 45ACP guns. I often think that they should gone to an "A-2" designation for all these newer 45ACPs.

Update: I forgot the Colt 1907. I read about this one in American Rifleman back in the late 1990s. Only about 250 were made.

Answer 2

In 1923, Colt made the following engineering changes on their 1911 style autos, which came to be know by the military as the 1911A1: a wider trigger, shorten hammer spur,and arched mainspring housing, a longer "horn" on the grip safety, and checkered grips made of plastic or wood. The beginning serial number for the commercial Colt models was C134,000.

In 1924, the abouve changes were incorporated in the military models at serial number 700,001, and it continued nti the last 1911 A1 shipped to the govt in 1945 with serial number 2,693,613

At about the end of 1991, Colt decided to reintoduced this model as an ecomonical model for shooters and called it the Colt 1991A1, and the serial number picked up where the old 1911A1's left off. Beginning serial number for the 1991A1 began at 2,693,614.

Answer 3

You can best determine this by writing to Colt and requesting the history of your handgun according to the model n serial number. There is a fee for this service but it is not exhorbitant and you may learn something you didn't know about your Colt. Other than this I can only tell you that the Colt .45 acp 1911a1 Model has been around since about 1924.

Best.

H

Answer 4

If your parts have drawing numbers on them, you can look the numbers up and you can get an idea of when the individual parts were made. Because some of these can be quite old and have seen usage, you can expect that most were reworked atleast once and may not have what would be considered 100% correct parts. So expect some variance in what company/contractor made the parts and what years they were made in/around.

Answer 5

David M is correct on his time line of the 1911A1. If in fact your pistol is an American manufactured 1911A1 or a "clone" the descrptive time line would apply......

Answer 6

They issued the A1 in 1924. I don't know when your pistol was made though.

Answer 7

This sight will tell you everything about the 1911. And has many excellent gun links on all aspects of gun ownership, enjoy.
http://www.sightm1911.com/

Answer 8

If you want to learn the entire History of your sidearm search > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1911............................