Since I handled my first 1911A1 pistol at the age of 14 in high school ROTC, I've been a fan of the .45 caliber pistols used by our armed forces in the 20th Century. For that reason, I became a collector of them, and have put together a modest collection of representative arms. This is a picture I took back in 2002 of my collection, preparatory to an article I wrote for the 2003 Gun Digest. Not having a digital camera at that time, the picture was taken on slide film with my old Pentax K1000 35mm SLR. The folks at Dillon Precision were kind enough to let me use their photo studio for the shot. The article won the John Amber award for that year as the best submitted to Gun Digest.
Perhaps some of you share my passion for issue .45s - in my opinion, shared by Thompson and LaGarde in their tests, the .45 caliber is about ideal for a self-defense caliber. I was chagrined when the U.S. adopted a 9mm pistol, and hope someday sanity will return and a .45 will once again become the the prime issue pistol for our troops. I think they deserve no less.
Hope you enjoy the pic - putting it together was fun.
John
U.S. issue .45s in the 20th Century
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