GUNS Magazine Old Favorites

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1911s come in all sizes. These, all Springfields, are a 5" Range Office (top left),
a Plaxco-comped 1911-A1 (right) and snubby EMP 9mm (bottom).

Thomas Wolfe titled his famous 1940 novel, You Can’t Go Home Again. I tell my students, when common sense is involved, there are times you can be wearing your Self-Defense Coach hat or a Life Coach hat, and find yourself giving the same advice. Under both hats, I’ve found sometimes you can go home again — but it’s bittersweet, and may not be quite the same.

I’ve met the longtime target shooter who started with Dad’s old Colt Woodsman he eventually inherited. When he got serious about competition he worked his way up through the exotics to settle on an expensive Pardini .22, yet still took the Woodsman to the range for old times’ sake. And the cop who had to be dragged away from his familiar revolver when his department went to those new-fangled odd-o-matics, only to switch back to the round gun at retirement. Both seem to live happily ever after.

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With your body weight into the gun, full-power 1911 .45s are easy to shoot one-handed.

Case In Point

I bonded with the 1911 .45 pistol in 1960 at the age of 12. I had been reading Jeff Cooper’s essays on that pistol and it was as if a messiah had risen in the West. Dad, who owned autos but preferred to carry revolvers, indulged me, and soon I was carrying one loaded and concealed while working part time in the family jewelry store. It was a 1918 production Colt — the original 1911 configuration — and I still own it. Soon it was joined by others. In time, I carried it as a police service pistol and as a personal defense gun. I shot 1911s in bulls-eye and PPC, IPSC and USPSA and IDPA, Bianchi Cup and more. I shot one or another 1911 .45 exclusively at the National Tactical Invitational for six years straight. I won a lot of stuff with those guns.

Time went on. After being an instructor for a while, I made it a habit to teach with a different gun on each training tour, just to stay competent with everything. After all, the students all brought different guns so it made sense to stay on top of each system.

In recent years, I grew complacent in that regard. Instead of changing each tour, it became seasonal, with the occasional exception of a gun I was testing for an article. In seasons when I taught a lot in 10-round limit venues, a revolver or a single stack like the 1911 made sense. Other seasons it would be a traditional double action Beretta or
SIG Sauer, and more often than anything else in the time of striker-fired pistols, one or another Glock. In 2017, the long-dormant Second Chance match resurfaced as “The Pin Shoot” every June, and it seemed logical to go back to the 1911 for that. To re-familiarize with the 1911 .45 beforehand, that has become my “second quarter teaching gun.”

Strapping one back on for the duration, I got that “bittersweet” taste again.

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A shoulder holster, like this Simple Shoulder Holster from Diamond D,
can help tote a big gun, like a 5" 1911, without putting weight on the hips.

The Sweet And The Bitter

I’m reminded 1911s come in all flavors. Mine range from 3″ to 6″ barrels, and I own them in calibers .22, .38, .45, 9mm, 10mm and .45 Winchester Magnum. In the time of the ammo drought and inflation, I’m glad to have .22 conversion units. When I recently had to fly to California, whose Draconian laws no longer allow out-of-staters to purchase ammo there, I figured 115-grain 9mm would let me carry twice as many rounds as 230-grain .45 within the airlines’ 11-lb. ammo limit, so I took a 9mm Springfield Ronin.

With its approximately 18-degree grip-to-barrel angle, the 1911 points perfectly for me. Browning’s design genius — or decades of habituation? Probably a mix on that one. There’s no slimmer, serious .45 for inside the waistband carry, and that, plus nostalgia, have always made something inside me purr a happy “Aahhh” when I strap one on. The logic-mandated on-safe carry adds a layer of safety and is proven to buy time in a struggle over a weapon. The low bore axis minimizes muzzle jump, load for load. And of course there’s the short, sweet trigger pull.

But, there’s some bitter with the sweet. Arthritis has both tenderized my gun hand, and limited its digits’ range of movement. I can no longer dump the magazine as quickly and surely with my right thumb as in yesteryear, slowing my reloads perceptibly. A full-power .45’s recoil will make the hand ache the next morning after a day with a lot of shooting.

Some deteriorating spinal discs have put pressure on the sciatic nerve, with sciatica symptoms on the right hip where I’ve always carried. However, the slimness factor I mentioned earlier helps when I don my now-orthopedic shoulder holster, a well-worn Bianchi X-15, which keeps a full-size 1911 .45 discreetly concealed.

Gun-wise, at least, it seems to me, Thomas Wolfe wasn’t 100% right.

DiamondDCustomLeather.com

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