Springfield/Colt 1911

[twines]

Attended a talk by a young man representing Archival Reasearch Group out of New Market MD.  This young man was passionate about his reseach and a great presentor.  I mean a power point on archival docments has the potential to be deadly.  I paid attention.  He has challenged Clawson concerning the gun pictured below.  Clawson has allways considered this gun a post WWI rebuilt with a Savage slide. The ordnance bomb on the slide with an S in the center is the mark in question.  Clawson speculates that mark is Savage and the slides with this mark were used in the post war rebuild process.  My presentor claims it is a mark placed there by Springfield or possitlbly Colt.  He has documented Colt purchasing Springfield 1911 parts when Springfield transitioned to the manufacture of the 1903 rifle.  If Springfield placed the mark it was because they wanted assurance they would be paid.  If Colt placed the mark it was to be sure liability was assigned to Springfield if the slide failed.  The long and short of this is that Archival Rearch claims that 1911s marked in this fashion are factory Colts with a Springfield slide and that flies in the face of the Clawson wisdom.  Archival researh has documented several guns that left the factory with slides marked with the S.  This gun is a pure 1918 Colt.  The barrel is has the HP intertwined mark (although hard to read).  The take down lever is incorrect and the hammer is earlier than 1918.  The wear patterns are consistent.

 

I went to an auction a week after the lecture and this gun was there and advertised as a post war rebuild with a Savage slide.  Glad nobody attended the lecture.  It follwed me home.

[kwill]

I recommend this thread over on the Colt Forum:  https://www.coltforum.com/threads/interesting-article-on-early-s-marked-slides.395534/#post-3429706

 

[twines]

The article mentioned was written by the from Archival Reseach.  I really think has found a new and important twist the 1911 story.

[kwill]

As I said on the other forum, I completely agree that these slides were NOT made by Savage, but he ignored the possible Rem UMC and/or Sedgely connection and the physical evidence argues against his premise.