Thursday, May 5, 2011

(Evening) Night at the (NRA) Museum

As the 2011 NRA Annual Meeting came to a close, some of us lucky bloggers were allowed to hang around and fondle gently handle some of the guns in the NRA Museum that were on display at the convention. 2011 being the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Colt 1911 by the US Armed Forces, there were historic 1911s in one case, other runners-up in another. Here are some of the legendary firearms we were allowed to coonfinger handle:

Remington Rand 1911

The Remington-Rand 1911 was one of the more plebian firearms on display!



Liferaft 1911

This is a WWII issue 1911 that was adrift at sea following a naval battle. It's a little worse for wear (the front sight fell off too!) but we were joking that if we could find a safe backstop, we could insert a magazine from one of the carry 1911s and it would work fine.



Number Four

Yes. You're seeing that correctly. That's the fourth Colt 1911 ever made...



Savage of 1911

That's the other gun considered for service in 1911, the Savage model of 1911. It's an improved Model H, and was found to be easier to strip than the Colt, but less reliable. Interesting how things could have turned out, no?



Colt 1907

Colt 1907, one of the intermediate firearms in the development of the 1911.



DWM Luger

The DWM Luger was submitted as one of the potential designs, albeit reluctantly (they apparently thought we were going to copy the fragile and complicated Luger action - which we promptly did).



Mystery gun

I have to admit I don't remember what this gun was. It's design obviously influenced the Hi-Standard target 22 pistol of later generations, and elements can be seen in the Automag. Anyone know what this is? Tam?



And here are the lucky folks who got to play with the guns:

Bloggers!

Man, that was fun - Many thanks to the NRA for allowing us this rare opportunity...

That is all.

9 comments:

Chris said...

That Savaged seemed so cool and Buck Rogers. I'd never seen one before. It's going to make me hunt down their 1907 production guns that look just like it. I see the money flying from my wallet as I think about it. It really was great of the NRA to let us check those out.

Les Jones said...

Great pics.

I noticed some other bloggers using cell phones and point and shoots and their pics weren't all that great. The DSLR is bigger and heavier, but the quality of the photos makes it worth carrying.

libertyman said...

Hey, what happened to the rabbit ears shot? Clearly a doctored photo!!

Jay G said...

Okay, now Les just made my day...

When Les "photog" Jones says "great pics", you know you're doing it right... :)

Kevin R.C. O'Brien said...

The "mystery" gun looks to me to be a Grant Hammond. It looks like a prewar high standard because he started that company and designed those, too. It was tested in 1917.

I put in my URL but I'm not live yet.

Kevin R.C. O'Brien said...

Oh, here's a link to some GH history.

http://unblinkingeye.com/Guns/GHP/ghp.html

cheers

-=K=-

Karl said...

@Chris: I love my 1907 Savage. Check out http://www.vintagepistols.com/1907
I know the owner of this page and he seems to know his stuff. FYI - Some of the 32Cal 1907 Savages saw military service under a contract from France during WWI. I have a nice one of these.

That's the greatest thing about Milsurp guns, even the ugly ones are interesting. A good example of this is the Liferaft 1911 in JayG's post.

Chris said...

@Karl

Thanks for the info and I'll check the site out.

Clint1911 said...

Oh man. I even asked at the end of Saturday is they could just open the case. Just open it, I wouldn't touch anything, so I could get some good photos without glass glare.


Shame I couldn't make Sunday...