This
Remington Rand made M1911A1 pistol serial #2436475 was shipped during mid 1945
to the Transportation Officer, Springfield Armory. It
is in completely original and retains about 95% of its original finish. The
pistol appears to have been carried in a holster and the wear is consistent
with other examples. Internal
wear appears to be minimal. The
slide shows the characteristic dark area at the muzzle end that is due to the
selective hardening process applied to the slides of all wartime pistols.
This 1911A1 pistol was originally shipped in a Kraft paper over cardboard
shipping box and two magazines. However
the box for this pistol and those of most other military 1911A1 pistols have
long since been discarded and burned. Yet
the vast majority of military 1911A1 pistols are today sold in counterfeit
boxes that seem to be in high demand.
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The
Remington Rand Story: Remington Rand was awarded its first order on March
16th, 1942, for a total of 125,000 1911A1 pistols. The company had no
experience building pistols at the time it was awarded the contract. Remington
Rand formed a new division (Remington Rand "C" Division) to take
charge of building the pistols. Remington
Rand "C" Division converted a vacant plant into a modern pistol
manufacturing facility. The
plant was located on Dickerson street in Syracuse, N.Y and was once used for
building typewriters,
Initially
some manufacturing equipment was not available. This caused Remington Rand to
acquire parts from other sources to complete the early pistols. They purchased
barrels from High Standard, Colt, and Springfield Armory; Disconnectors from
US&S; Grips safeties from Colt; and Slide stops from Colt and Springfield
Armory (2,865 left over from WWI). Remington Rand "C" Division inherited
much of the documentation, tooling, and machinery that originally was used by
The Singer Manufacturing Co. in their Educational Order. Consequently some of the parts of the early pistols were made
using Singer supplied tooling and fixtures.
Careful examination of Early Remington Rand pistols will reveal
striking similarities in some of the parts to Singer made parts such as the
triggers and mainspring housings. The
first 255 production pistols where accepted by ordinance inspectors in
November of 1942. Initial
shipments appeared to perform satisfactorily, but subsequent tests performed
by Ordnance Inspectors revealed serious problems with parts interchangability.
In March 1943 James Rand Jr., stopped production due to a high rate of Parts
Interchangeability Test failures. Only
after a change in management and a thorough review of the inspection and
manufacturing operations was production finally resumed in May of 1943.
Throughout production Remington Rand aggressively attempted to innovate and
improve the production of 1911A1 pistols.
By March of 1945 they where building the lowest price pistol in the war effort and quality was considered second to none. By the end of the war Remington Rand had produced over 875,000 pistols, almost as many as Colt (628,808) and Ithaca (335,467) combined. Reference Charles Clawsons “Colt .45 Service pistols”.
Email: M1911@CoolGunSite.com
Rev 1.1