doorgunner
04-18-2007, 10:54 PM
In August 2005, the Army and Special Operations Command announced their aim of buying as many as 650,000 .45-caliber Joint Combat Pistols designed specifically for military use, plus potentially hundreds of thousands of magazines, suppressors and holsters.
It looked like a good opportunity for handgun manufacturers, stuck in line behind Beretta’s 9mm for 20 years, so designers hit the drawing boards.
Then the projected request dropped to 50,000 pistols. Then it fell off altogether.
Thirteen months later, the project had been postponed indefinitely. Bad news for the gun companies; all that money and time spent building the perfect beast seemingly wasted.
What else could they do but put them on the open market?
New for 2007, a variety of .45s built to those proposed military specs are available for military and law enforcement agencies looking to get more bang for the buck.
Although we haven’t had any range time with them, we have wrapped our itchy trigger fingers around a handful of the mud-colored monsters, all incredibly similar because of the tight development guidelines. Until we fire them, the jury is still out on which model we like best.
But our early favorite — after holding them all, racking the slides, ejecting the magazines and hearing the company pitches — is the Smith & Wesson M&P45.
A new addition to the company’s Military & Police line, the M&P45 looks like the rest of the pack. The magazine holds 10 rounds, the pistol comes in a dark earth brown and there’s a standard rail system under the barrel.
The pistol also features ambidextrous slide stops and optional thumb safeties, as well as an easily reversible magazine ejection button. Interchangeable handgrips in three sizes make the weapon comfortable for most hand sizes.
With an overall length of 8.05 inches and weighing in at 29.6 ounces (without the magazine), the pistol just begs to be fired. Company officials expect it to begin hitting the streets in March, with a suggested retail price of $600 to $650. Catch an early glimpse at <http://www.smith-wesson.com> http://www.smith-wesson.com.
Heckler and Koch’s HK45 also looks like it has a shot at the prize. Similar to the others in features and styling, the HK45 is smaller than Smith & Wesson’s pistol; coming in at 7.52 inches overall, and weighs about 2 ounces less. Company officials added that the HK45 has a unique mechanical recoil reduction system inside that cuts recoil by as much as 30 percent, making it easier to control during rapid firing.
Unwilling to go down without a fight, Beretta also created a challenger for the contract, the Px4 Storm .45 SD. The most noticeable feature of the “special duty” pistol is the extended barrel, designed for use with an optional suppressor.
Will you ever see any of them in the field? Hard to say; after all, the venerable M1911 was the workhorse of the military for 70 years before it was replaced.
Change comes slow.
M3 submachine guns designed for simplicity
By Keith A. Milks
Special to the Times
One of the most popular weapons of the 1930s and early 1940s was the Thompson-series submachine gun. Favored by gangsters, law enforcement and the military, the .45-caliber weapon was ruggedly built and devastating at close range.
Unfortunately, the 'Tommy Gun' also was expensive, had a slow production rate and was notoriously inaccurate except in the hands of an experienced shooter.
To counter these shortcomings and meet the need for a reliable, rapid-fire, close-quarters weapon, the U.S. adopted the M3 submachine gun shortly after the onset of World War II.
Less than 45 days after it was designed, the M3 was rushed into production by General Motors. Simplicity in design and operation was key to the M3's success. Consisting primarily of welded-steel stampings, the weapon's most complicated parts were the barrel, trigger group and breech block.
With a retractable stock that extended its length from 22.7 to 29.8 inches, the M3 weighed in at just more than 8 pounds unloaded. The weapon's smooth, clean appearance earned it the nickname 'grease gun' because it resembled an automotive greasing tool.
Chambered to fire the .45-caliber pistol cartridge, the M3 had a maximum effective range of 50 meters and a cyclic rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute. Blowback-operated and fed by a 30-round magazine, the weapon could be fired only in the automatic mode, but careful trigger manipulation could result in single shots.
Designed without a safety, the ejection-port cover was fitted with a lug that locked the bolt in place when the cover was closed. To fire the weapon, the operator had to open the ejection-port cover manually, which served as an impromptu safety. An additional oddity was the stock, which served as a cleaning rod and magazine loading tool when detached.
While the M3’s simple construction made it easy to manufacture and resistant to jamming, several design flaws plagued early models. The cocking handle was prone to breaking, the thin wire stock bent easily and parts of the trigger mechanism often snapped.
Most of these problems were addressed with the introduction in 1944 of the M3A1, which featured an enlarged ejection port and flash suppressor. Another major innovation was the elimination of the cocking handle. Instead, a hole was drilled in the breech block; the user had to insert his finger and draw back the bolt to fire the weapon.
One design flaw that was never fixed was the single- column magazine. Prone to jamming, especially if dirt or foreign objects were introduced, the magazine was later fitted with a plastic cover that reduced the problem.
In their short production lives, more than 680,000 M3 and M3A1s rolled off the General Motors assembly lines.
The M3 continued to serve long after its production ended in the closing days of the war. Used extensively in Korea, and to a lesser extent in Vietnam (primarily by helicopter and armored vehicle crews), the weapon was widely exported and continues to serve with elements of the Philippine marines.
The writer is a gunnery sergeant. He can be reached at kambtp@aol.com :( :( .
It looked like a good opportunity for handgun manufacturers, stuck in line behind Beretta’s 9mm for 20 years, so designers hit the drawing boards.
Then the projected request dropped to 50,000 pistols. Then it fell off altogether.
Thirteen months later, the project had been postponed indefinitely. Bad news for the gun companies; all that money and time spent building the perfect beast seemingly wasted.
What else could they do but put them on the open market?
New for 2007, a variety of .45s built to those proposed military specs are available for military and law enforcement agencies looking to get more bang for the buck.
Although we haven’t had any range time with them, we have wrapped our itchy trigger fingers around a handful of the mud-colored monsters, all incredibly similar because of the tight development guidelines. Until we fire them, the jury is still out on which model we like best.
But our early favorite — after holding them all, racking the slides, ejecting the magazines and hearing the company pitches — is the Smith & Wesson M&P45.
A new addition to the company’s Military & Police line, the M&P45 looks like the rest of the pack. The magazine holds 10 rounds, the pistol comes in a dark earth brown and there’s a standard rail system under the barrel.
The pistol also features ambidextrous slide stops and optional thumb safeties, as well as an easily reversible magazine ejection button. Interchangeable handgrips in three sizes make the weapon comfortable for most hand sizes.
With an overall length of 8.05 inches and weighing in at 29.6 ounces (without the magazine), the pistol just begs to be fired. Company officials expect it to begin hitting the streets in March, with a suggested retail price of $600 to $650. Catch an early glimpse at <http://www.smith-wesson.com> http://www.smith-wesson.com.
Heckler and Koch’s HK45 also looks like it has a shot at the prize. Similar to the others in features and styling, the HK45 is smaller than Smith & Wesson’s pistol; coming in at 7.52 inches overall, and weighs about 2 ounces less. Company officials added that the HK45 has a unique mechanical recoil reduction system inside that cuts recoil by as much as 30 percent, making it easier to control during rapid firing.
Unwilling to go down without a fight, Beretta also created a challenger for the contract, the Px4 Storm .45 SD. The most noticeable feature of the “special duty” pistol is the extended barrel, designed for use with an optional suppressor.
Will you ever see any of them in the field? Hard to say; after all, the venerable M1911 was the workhorse of the military for 70 years before it was replaced.
Change comes slow.
M3 submachine guns designed for simplicity
By Keith A. Milks
Special to the Times
One of the most popular weapons of the 1930s and early 1940s was the Thompson-series submachine gun. Favored by gangsters, law enforcement and the military, the .45-caliber weapon was ruggedly built and devastating at close range.
Unfortunately, the 'Tommy Gun' also was expensive, had a slow production rate and was notoriously inaccurate except in the hands of an experienced shooter.
To counter these shortcomings and meet the need for a reliable, rapid-fire, close-quarters weapon, the U.S. adopted the M3 submachine gun shortly after the onset of World War II.
Less than 45 days after it was designed, the M3 was rushed into production by General Motors. Simplicity in design and operation was key to the M3's success. Consisting primarily of welded-steel stampings, the weapon's most complicated parts were the barrel, trigger group and breech block.
With a retractable stock that extended its length from 22.7 to 29.8 inches, the M3 weighed in at just more than 8 pounds unloaded. The weapon's smooth, clean appearance earned it the nickname 'grease gun' because it resembled an automotive greasing tool.
Chambered to fire the .45-caliber pistol cartridge, the M3 had a maximum effective range of 50 meters and a cyclic rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute. Blowback-operated and fed by a 30-round magazine, the weapon could be fired only in the automatic mode, but careful trigger manipulation could result in single shots.
Designed without a safety, the ejection-port cover was fitted with a lug that locked the bolt in place when the cover was closed. To fire the weapon, the operator had to open the ejection-port cover manually, which served as an impromptu safety. An additional oddity was the stock, which served as a cleaning rod and magazine loading tool when detached.
While the M3’s simple construction made it easy to manufacture and resistant to jamming, several design flaws plagued early models. The cocking handle was prone to breaking, the thin wire stock bent easily and parts of the trigger mechanism often snapped.
Most of these problems were addressed with the introduction in 1944 of the M3A1, which featured an enlarged ejection port and flash suppressor. Another major innovation was the elimination of the cocking handle. Instead, a hole was drilled in the breech block; the user had to insert his finger and draw back the bolt to fire the weapon.
One design flaw that was never fixed was the single- column magazine. Prone to jamming, especially if dirt or foreign objects were introduced, the magazine was later fitted with a plastic cover that reduced the problem.
In their short production lives, more than 680,000 M3 and M3A1s rolled off the General Motors assembly lines.
The M3 continued to serve long after its production ended in the closing days of the war. Used extensively in Korea, and to a lesser extent in Vietnam (primarily by helicopter and armored vehicle crews), the weapon was widely exported and continues to serve with elements of the Philippine marines.
The writer is a gunnery sergeant. He can be reached at kambtp@aol.com :( :( .