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Norinco 1911
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Norinco 1911A1
The M1911, also known as the Colt Government or "Government", is a single-action, semi-automatic, magazine-fed, recoil-operated pistol chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge.[7] It served as the standard-issue sidearm for the United States Armed Forces from 1911 to 1986. It was widely used in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The pistol's formal designation as of 1940 was Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911 for the original model of 1911 or Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911A1 for the M1911A1, adopted in 1924. The designation changed to Pistol, Caliber .45, Automatic, M1911A1 in the Vietnam War era.[7]
The U.S. procured around 2.7 million M1911 and M1911A1 pistols in military contracts during its service life. The M1911 was replaced by the 9 mm Beretta M9 pistol as the standard U.S. sidearm in October 1986, but due to its popularity among users, it has not been completely phased out. Modernized derivative variants of the M1911 are still in use by some units of the U.S. Army Special Forces and the U.S. Navy.
Designed by John Browning, the M1911 is the best-known of his designs to use the short recoil principle in its basic design. The pistol was widely copied, and this operating system rose to become the preeminent type of the 20th century and of nearly all modern centerfire pistols. It is popular with civilian shooters in competitive events such as USPSA, IDPA, International Practical Shooting Confederation, and bullseye shooting. Compact variants are popular civilian concealed carry weapons in the U.S. because of the design's relatively slim width and the stopping power[10] of the .45 ACP cartridge.[11]
What is a Norinco???
Norinco was started in 1980 – an enterprise group engaged in both products and capital operation, integrated with research and development, manufacturing, marketing, and services. They are in the China 500 ( think fortune 500 ) – they started by producing small arms and have grown into a massive company today – over 275000 folks work for them.
There is a lot of stuff on the web about them as well as their own web sites out there – they even have an English language version – here and now today – lets just go with they are big.
A lot of their small arms started showing up in the early to mid 80’s – remember the sks rifles – $59.00 bucks apiece if you bought 3 or more and you cleaned the cosmoline – those were fun times.
They got themselves into a sideways situation with the US – ended up with a trade embargo in 1993 and most of it ( the small arms ) dried up. You saw a lot of the 1911’s in gun stores and pawn shops through the late 90’s and early 2000’s – but that supply has pretty much dried up. You run across them occasionally but they are not just common anymore.
This particular pistol 1911A1, Government Model version with Mil-spec (USGI) M-1911A1 clone; with the Phosphate finish” – the hell you say – snort down several shots of your favorite non carbonated adult beverage and try saying that three times.
The Norinco 1911’s were bought by the crate load by custom pistol builders in the 80’s and a great many of the “race guns” that were used in competition used the Norinco as a starting point. One of the primary reasons for this is the steel rockwell tests out about 30% harder than Colt’s.
As far as shooting – straight forward government model 45 – one of life’s simple pleasures – the trigger smoothed out with shooting.
If you run across one and it is reasonably priced grab it is my recommendation – it is a clone so parts availability is good – either mil-spec or upgrade parts – about the only things to be aware of is signs of peening on the locking lugs – that would denote timing issues – although chances are if the link wore enough to cause timing issues and the pistol was subsequently still being shot it failed catastrophically and is long since scrap – and rust issues – surface rust is one thing but pitting drastically affects values – as with any other used firearm – condition is king – but they will most times clean up nice and make good shooters.
