'43 Remington Rand 1911

[Francis Marion]

Here's a nice find that someone left in an amnesty box in Iraq. I'm told it still shoots great but the rifling is quite worn. Based on the serial number, this Remington Rand 1911 was made in 1943.

Enjoy the gun porn.

[rickf]

What will happen to it? Destroyed I would guess.

[raymond]

Wonder what the story is of how it got to Iraq.

Raymond

[Francis Marion]

What will happen to it? Destroyed I would guess.

It currently sits in the arms room and gets checked out and taken to the range on occasions so It won't get destroyed any time soon.

[Cobra5]

Probably a GI purchased it over there. Whoever it belonged to probably didn't have enough time to submit paperwork to the ATF to import it.

[m151dave]

The markings on the frame are real interesting. The ANAD 73 stamp on the right hand side by the trigger denotes = ANAD: Anniston Army Depot, Anniston, Alabama. So it was rebuilt at Anniston Arsenal August 1973. The inspection stamp on the left side by the slide lock denotes FJA: Frank J. Atwood. Found on Remington Rand and Ithaca 1911A1s. Stamped after finish.

A search of government records would probably show the weapon as a combat loss.

[Francis Marion]

A search of government records would probably show the weapon as a combat loss.

Combat loss after a rebuild date of Aug '73?

There were issuing 1911s to staff officers in Afghanistan back in '04 and I could imagine them doing the same in Iraq but with the tight controls they have on firearms in the Army these days, I'm having a hard time imagining how one would be a combat loss in Iraq and then end up back in a US amnesty box. It's not like the stories I keep hearing about the 1911 someones uncle or grandfather brought home in their duffel bag can happen any more.

[m151dave]

If it was rebuilt in 73 it either went to a unit or to strategic reserves. I used to be involved with this sort of thing when I was in the Army in 74. We still had them at that point. A lot of guard units had them even after the 9mm were issued. They were the end of the supply chain back when I was in. I supported guard units in 77 that still had equipment dating pre-Vietnam!

I have never heard of the government selling off strategic reserves to civilians. Any weapon turned in by the guard would have been evaluated and then scrapped or stored. They do not even take them apart for the spare parts.

Believe it or not there are still military forces carrying the .45, not day to day troops. Anything is possible. I agree that the record keeping for weapons has really tightened up. And bringing home your issued weapon stopped back around Korea, though I am sure some of that happened in the 60's as well. But it was easy to make a weapon disappear in Vietnam. It was called combat loss. No questions asked, give that guy another gun!

I have seen records of a helicopter going down, reason was not important....combat or milk run, and the equipment reported lost on the helicopter exceeded the gross take-off weight by 20% or more! The units used the crash to write off the equipment they were short on. Combat loss.

I am not disagreeing with you, I guess I am saying that anything is possible. Without being able to run the serial number, we will probably never know.

BTW - if they are still shooting it from time to time, where is the ammo coming from? If there are no .45's in the inventory, and we do not use a .45 caliber weapon in standard issue anymore. Makes me wonder if it came with ammo or it is being purchased locally or what?

Oh, another thing. While I was in the Army we tracked weapons written off as combat loss in Vietnam to about a dozen countries including the US. Black market weapons of US make were very big back then.

[raymond]

As I said, it would be interesting to know it's history and provenance.

[m151dave]

I have been thinking since Francis' note.

I wonder how many armed conflicts after Vietnam there were that the M1911 would have been the standard sidearm. Grenada or Panama maybe?

I was in until 77 and they were still standard then. How many out there on the forum were in the service at the transition stage? What years were they?

[toptiger]

When I came back from VN in 1969, I had a small russian pistol in my duffle bag, no paperwork. No problem. Perhaps because we arrived in San Fran and they were cool about it.
As for combat loss, back then when we lost a ship, a lot of things were quickly allocated to the downed aircraft and written off as a combat loss by the supply officer to cover items missing from his records.

[Francis Marion]

They were our standard side arm when I joined the Guard back in '85. I'm not sure exactly when they transitioned but it would have been sometime between my training dates in '87 and when I returned from Australia in '91.

I also understand the "combat loss" process. We had a pretty nasty "boating accident" when in the Philippines in '07 that somehow had equipment from every team in the battalion on it. But, if a firearm was on the list, someone's career would have ended.

[moose53]

The Beretta M-9 was adopted by the army in 1990.......

Jim