1945 Remington Rand M1911A1

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.

Right Frame Markings and Stamped Trigger	Thumb safety	Slide Lock and Left Side Slide Markings
Hammer (Top)	Rear Sight	Front Sight, barrel bushing, and plunger
Hammer Side View	Mainspring Housing	Big hole barrel bushing, and spring plug :)
		From the T. Moore collection

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

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