I read in another forum, one of the never ending FLGR VS.GI set-up threads, but came across something that tweaked my curiosity, that I've never been able to verify.
In the posters eternal battle over the usefulness/non-usefulness of the FLGR one poster replied something very similar to this:

"JMB decided that the full length guide rod made it impossible for an injured man to rack the slide one handed with a FLGR. Therfore he developed the shorter "GI" set-up, so that the soldier could rack the slide, simply by pushing against something" (not an exact quote, but close).

However, in my 32+ years of shooting, and study of the 1911, I've never read anywhere that a FLGR was ever used in his various stages of development, to the time it was actually accepted by the U.S. Army.

Do any of you have any literature, or knowledge of JMB actually ever using a FLGR in the development of the 1911? I've scoured the 'net, and could never find an answer either way.

Your replies are appreciated, and if you're right, certainly qualifies you as a guru...

HG....

I think that's a little embellishment on the part of an anti-FLGR person. I seriously doubt that JMB had one-handed chambering in his mind when developing what would turn out to be the M1911 pistol, just like he never considered the pistol to be used by left-handed people. Hence no ambi-safety or reversible mag release. These modification, along with the FLGR, were foreign concepts back in the early 1900's when JMB was designing guns.

Now there's no doubt that a standard recoil system is easier to work with than a FLGR, but had both been available during the design phase of the M1911, I can't say JMB would have chosen one over the other.

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Your words exactly mirror my "gut" feeling ever since reading that post...but I'm no expert when it comes to the early development of the weapon...and I haven't really found any way to prove or disprove it....

HG.

I think that you have the answer in your post. If there is no evidence that JMB ever utilized a FLGR in the development of the 1911 pistol. How could one attribute as fact, his consideration of an FLGR.

Rich

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None of Browning's pistols, for Colt anyway, had full-length guide rods, so he must have either never considered it, or rejected it long before the M1911 was adopted. I think the benefits of the full-length guide rod have been fairly conclusively proven to be only the added weight they provide, and even that has a downside in a duty or carry gun. The argument that you can't rack the gun one-handed with a FLGR is countered by some "tactical" folks, with the argument that the short rod allows the gun to be inadvertently knocked out of battery; which is more likely?
I was shooting from inside a plywood structure, through a "window" cut in the side, and as I dropped to kneeling to shoot through the port, the slide caught on the edge of the opening, and the slide came open about 1/4"; I remember thinking, even as I was subsequently shooting, "Hmmm, maybe there's something to that FLGR, after all?"

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A 1911 with FLGR requires a tool to dismount. Not good for a military weapon.

Beat's me Rich, but then again, I've been suprised a few times concerning various issues surrounding the 1911. So, although my gut feeling told me JMB probably never developed one, even for testing, I coudn't disprove it (to myself) either. As far as evidence goes, it's a fact, or it's a myth, I just can't find that evidence.

HG..