Quote:
Originally Posted by Skeetr57
A handgun that could have been used in WWI, and that I never see mentioned here, is the Colt M1909 revolver in .45 Colt caliber. This was the last revolver adopted by the US Army before adoption of the M1911. I have one of thse seldom seen revolvers, and it is just a New Service with the model marked on the butt. Does anyone know how many of these revolvers were purchased by the Army?
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19,503 of these revolvers were purchased by Army. Of these, 19,153 were sent directly to the Philippines in Manila for use against the Moros. They were desperately needed, as the .38 caliber revolvers then issued were poor stoppers. Few ever came back to these shores, and probably few to none were ever used in WWI. More probably, the surviving guns saw some action against the Japanese when they invaded the Philippines during WWII. I'm also fortunate enough to own one of these rare guns, shipped in 1910, illustrated below.
John
P.S. These revolvers chambered a special .45 Colt cartridge with a bit wider rim for better extraction. Today's standard .45 Colt cartridges have a bit wider rim than the original rounds, and so work pretty well with normal extraction in this gun.