Last Post: 01/01/11
Retrieved: 01/13/11
Through some of the strangest twists of fate, some of the more remarkable items come through the shop. We had only READ about these or HEARD stories about them, but nobody had ever seen one in person, let alone held one. Then one day, in walks this:
At first sight, a nice US Government Property marked Remington Rand 1911... but that magazine looks a little different...
The other side, the serial number has been edited out for the picture. Looks like an odd job of lowering and flaring the ejection port, what's up with that?
Let's field strip and check the insides ... hmmm, that barrel looks rather crude...
A close up of the barrel, looks like something did some "cut and weld" or other "grafting" type job (and not with the best tools either)
So looking down the bore, things are getting interesting. That don't look like no .45 I've ever seen...
What about this slide work? Rough and crude, but WHY? And the bolt face was altered? Huh?
The inside of the slide... aside from needing some cleaning, it well, looks different...
Seems someone spent some time on the frame as well - that front strap looks THIN
And it goes the entire length of the mag well... with hand tools, that took some time and patience
That mag... I knew it looked familiar. That is the mag for a TT-33 Tokarev pistol... but now it fits this USGI 1911!
Battlefield/Jungle converted to fire 7.62 x 25 and use TT-33 magazines...
Again, we had only heard or read of these, never seen one in person, nor seen pictures of them on the internet. One barrel once showed up on GunBroker, but other than that, they were "internet lore". Well, no more. This is the real McCoy...
There was an outfit that advertised in Shotgun News back then that had these. They were converted by the Chinese after the commies took over. Made a lot of logistical sense, given the amount of M1911A1's we gave them during WWII, and the already common 7.62x25 in use there at the time. They certainly weren't going to be getting any more .45 ammo from us, so they converted them to something they could get.