Why did Police Officers carry guns chambered in .38 Special for so long when 1911's have been around since, er, um, about 1911?

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Surprisingly more than you could imagine are not gun guys.Having condition one 1911 in holster across the land would have been too much liability.

Just a guess but possibly most of the 1911s during the .38 Special's 'Golden years' were in use by the Military and cost of new was most likely higher than new .38's

I had to provide my own sidearm, and had a 1911. No point in buying a .38 when a new one cost a month's salary.

But the 1911 was worth more used than a new .38/.357 at the time.

Almost all police agencies that issued handguns provided a .38 Special revolver, S&W or Colt. An individual that wanted to (and was allowed to) carry something different had to purchase it.

For a non-gun person, a .38 revolver is much easier to learn to shoot reasonably well than a 1911. And, as already mentioned, there is the liability and safety aspect, cocked and locked, with the 1911; something else to learn that requires additional training.

Before the mass transition to semi-automatic handguns in the late 1980s, there were a number of officers carrying 1911s throughout law enforcement, probably more than many would imagine. Regardless, those carrying .38 revolvers outnumbered the 1911 carriers by a considerable margin.

There was also the lingering perception that semi-autos were liable to jam at any moment.

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Release the Kraken

At the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco Texas, most of the well known Rangers in the early 1900's up until the '60's seemed to carry more 1911's than any other sidearm.

BTW visiting this museum is well worth the trouble. It's refreshing to see the time when Peace Officers could be just that instead of Social Workers.


Art

To paraphrase an old police firearms instructor:

"The 45 comes apart into 2 pieces and it is too easy to lose one of those pieces (as he held up a magazine). Also 38 ammo only goes in one-way and you can't screw that up."

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6/23/2022

The bottom line of all Agencies that had to provide the minimum amount of training for the officers to become proficient with their sidearms dictated that they go with the simplest version possible. The hard fact is that the M 1911 handgun requires often 4 to 5 times the man hours on the range with quality instruction for the officers to become safely proficient.

The example was given that most of the Texas Rangers were carrying M 1911s. That is because their agency did not provide any training on any weapons system. The rangers had to get it on their own. They were willing to put in the time in training to become proficient with the best combat handgun available at the time. The vast majority of LE Agencies did not give a hoot that their street officers were NOT equipped with the best combat handgun available. Those agencies only wanted the least expense possible to get relatively safe handling of a weapon that was minimally acceptable.

That situation is what gave Glock Firearms the edge in sales during the transition from revolvers to semi-auto loaders. It simply took less money in range training for the officers to make the transition. .....

It's a matter of historical perspective.

Most modern 1911 fans do not realize that the gun's fame to a large degree is a case of "retrospective glorification". In plain English, the ol' 1911 wasn't worshipped nearly as much during most of the 20th century when it was issued.

I've had the honor to work with many (now unfortunatly long passed) veterans especially of WW II. Talk to any of them who weren't "gun guys" (the majority) about the 1911, and you get the usual stories about heavy, clunky, recoil, and hard to hit anything with. Jeff Cooper ain't representative of a lot of people.

Add to that the fact that the whole obsession with the minutae of "stopping power" is a relatively recent phenomenon, and the preponderance of the revolver as a simple, easy to learn police gun for officers many of whom weren't gun people either is no mystery at all.

^^^^What he said. REALLY! WWII vets almost to a man reported the 1911 had a brutal recoil. We kids in the NE who were not allowed to even touch handguns years ago accepted such statements. Semi-auto pistols did not begin to gain acceptance or popularity until the early 1970s. The catalog sections of the Gun Digests of the 1960s showed many pages of revolvers... but few medium-size centerfire automatics. The 1911s, Browning HP, S&W 39, the 52 forCF target work: that was pretty much it!

Perception played a role. Today, we praise the Browning HP, and with good reason. Years ago, it was a klunk with a magazine safety and a hard-to-operate safety lever that was maybe an OK military sidearm that might jam.

Also, the cocked-and-locked carry mode of such SA guns as the 1911 and HP caused many people (including cop bosses) to think of these guns as unsafe when seen in a police holster, safety strap notwithstanding.

A happy and safe New Year to all!

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103

I have to gently remind you that the very existence of the M 1911 and the .45 Automatic Cartridge Pistol is because of the issue of "stopping power". The US Army was facing adversaries in the Philippines that were commonly fueled by drugs. The Army's issue 38s were not 'stopping' those badguys. The .45 acp was brought forth and then the issue of having more shots at hand than the 6 shot revolver was addressed. JMB among others offered designs for consideration in the semi-automatic handguns. JMB's pre model 1911 was selected and over the course of a few years became what we know as the Model 1911. The final design was a dictated result of the Army's requirement that this new handgun was primarily intended for use by the horse mounted Cavalry. ....

The thing of it is, they were.

Firearms manufacturing wasn't what it is today. It was expected that if you bought a pistol for defensive use or serious competition, you'd have to send it to a gunsmith to tune it up. And that was just to get it to run. The pistols themselves were just terrible.

Next up--magazines. It wasn't until the arrival of action pistol shooting as a sport that magazines frankly didn't suck. Everything from regular rapid disassembly to bent and mis-aligned feed lips can turn a magazine into garbage. Managing all of those magazines requires that they be marked, inspected, and tested in qualification. And since qualification could be as infrequent as once a year, that's an awful lot of time a stamped and welded magazine--what we would look down on today as a cheap piece of trash--to be getting the stuffing knocked out of it on a guy's belt.

Then there's maintenance. Recoil springs and magazine springs need to be changed out, and you need an armorer to do that (can't trust the officers to do it). You need to verify the disconnector works, that the half-cock notch works, and so on.

There was also a much greater emphasis places on accuracy then there is today. It wasn't uncommon at all for even urban departments to include 25-yard shooting on a bullseye target in qualifications. Even 50 yards was on the table in some places. And good luck getting a factory 1911 of the day to do that.

Compare that to a S&W K-frame .38 or .357. Out of the box, the revolver just works. Fresh from the factory, or abused, it's reliable and accurate. There's no magazines to worry about, and the sights aren't awful. Short of something literally breaking, there's nothing for an armorer to actually do. For training and qualification, .38 Spl wadcutters were thick on the ground, and cheap.

The modern 1911 is miles better. But the modern 1911 is not what they were working with.

However, what is frequently lost in the historical discussion is that the hastily substituted .45's weren't stopping those bad guys in the Philippines either. I believe it was Jack Lott back in the 1970s whose research laid the simple story of "ineffective" .38 vs. "man-stopping" .45 to rest. It wasn't quite that straightforward. And the adoption of the .45 ACP had a lot more to do with the Thompson-LaGarde tests and Col. Thompson's determined advocacy than any wonder performance on an actual battlefield.

Be that as it may, it does not appear that back then any of these military developments played out in any public forum the way discussions about ammunition, caliber effectiveness, stopping power etc. were popularized starting in the 1960s/70s first in books and gun magazines and nowadays in blogs and internet forums.

This still makes me smile. Brutal compared with what, is what I wonder.

Since coming to the US I have shot a whole bunch of different pistol calibers and I have never found that 45 ACP in a fullsize gun is anything other than a hefty push.

In semi-auto the worst for recoil I have shot was a Glock 23C shooting 180gr loads. In revolvers it's a toss-up between 44Mag in a Redhawk and 357 in a 3 inch Model 65.

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Release the Kraken

"The example was given that most of the Texas Rangers were carrying M 1911s. That is because their agency did not provide any training on any weapons system. The rangers had to get it on their own. They were willing to put in the time in training to become proficient with the best combat handgun available at the time."....not true.

To become a Texas Ranger one has to already be a LEO... Rangers aren't just out of college graduates who apply to become a Ranger. One has to be cream of the crop of LE even to be considered.

Bob

A 1911 .45 can produce what many non-gun persons would call substantial recoil. That in itself can make such a gun difficult to shoot well.

I'd say that recoil was a major factor. In the USAF, many men simply couldn't shoot the .45 well, and a lot of the .38 ammo was loaded lightly, in hopes of not scaring trainees who fired revolvers seldom.


Frankly, a lot of our pilots just weren't into handguns and resented training time with them. Yet, if they went down, that .38 was their primary defense and means of killing game for food, where safe. Most of these guys were also tech happy, and wouldn't be much good with a knife if that was required to kill an enemy. They were a lot more dangerous to the enemy in the air than on the ground!


Also, detectives carried smaller, usually snubnose guns. There was no separate traning required for them. If you could operate the basic four or six-inch barreled .38, you also knew how to safely use the snubnose .38. And they shared the same ammo, usually.


Most cops then weren't safe with an auto. And stainless ones were slower to reach the market. Bill Jordan told me that he considered the stainless factor the greatest single advance in handguns in over 100 years.


I can't say that I ever had trouble with either GI or commercial Colt .45 autos, no jams if the magazine was good and the bullet profile right. But I began reading Jeff Cooper when I was 12 years old and the average cop didn't! And I did have a few jams with Browning Hi-Power 9mm's. A S&W M-39 I shot was miserably inaccurate.


Finally, I think .38 revolvers were usually cheaper than a Govt. Model .45. And more accurate!

We see today that truly great firearms and cartridges whose only fault is that they arrived late on the scene, oftentimes remain an "also-ran." The .38, actually, a misnomer as it was really a .36 caliber and the first ones on the market were .36 caliber cap-and-ball navies converted to fire fixed cartridges. Hence, the .38 got there first and became well-established.

My first real exposure to the Model 1911 was in MP school at Ft. Gordon, Georgia. I was a young federal agent with some formal firearms training but we were subject to the draft and that's what happened. Anyway, myself, and a police cadet both fired expert with the Model 1911. We were the only two in a line of fifty MPs that qualified that day.

It should be remembered that as recently as 35 years prior to the adoption of the .45, the military adopted a single shot trap door Springfield when repeaters were already in use. I think there was a great mistrust in repeating firearms of any kind and a belief that they wasted lots of ammo.

When I was about 15 or 16 years old, I asked a San Jose PD officer why they didn't carry Colt Government Models. The response; not reliable. I then asked if anyone carried a .357 Magnum, like a Colt Python. The response; too dangerous. The officer was there for Career Day, and I think he didn't want to deal with any high school kids in general, or with me in particular.

Texas Rangers are often cited regarding the 1911.

Truth is, many probably carried the .38 Super, not the .45 ACP.

And why do we assume they were all proficient with the 1911 and crack shots?

As for the .45 ACP, wasn't John Browning more a proponent of the 30 calibers in his designs, the.38 Auto and 9 mm?

Just recently Bill Wilson commented in an article that the .45 ACP is not the most reliable cartridge configuration for the 1911 design even in hardball. Truly, its reputation for sterling reliability was quite lacking. Colt 1911 and Jam-o-matic were nearly synonymous names in many, many circles.

The 1911 of the early and mid 20th Century really was not quite the refined and reliable gun it is today.

And who remembers buying a Colt Government back in the 1960s or even into the 1970s? Remember how many magazines Colt provided? Well, kids, do you?

And Colt was virtually the only maker of the 1911 until the late half of the last century. So, no beaver tail grip safeties, no decent thumb safeties, small and out of date ejection ports, tiny sights with the front one being staked and usually popping off, a Gold Cup with a rear sight that often popped off when the roll pin that retained it broke, and so on.

It was the gamers in Bianchi Cup, IPSC who helped improve the 1911 along with successful upstarts like Springfield Armory and Kimber for production guns.

And lastly, while times have always been tough, the good old revolver was sufficient for its day with almost no criminals being better armed than the police in virtually all confrontations.

The primary reason most of us carried a revolver in .38 spec only was because we were told to... even if you were allowed to carry a .357mag...you could only carry factory 158 grain lead round nosed ammo in it.

That wasn't changed, until a fleeing armed robber ran over & killed an infant being pushed in a baby buggy. A local police sgt. had put 5 rounds into his car door just a few blocks before... and none had penetrated the door to wound him. Unfortunately, the sgt. retired very shortly after the incident..

Within a very short time every local town & sheriff's dept. allowed their people to carry different pistols & calibres ... with 2 provisos, they were .38 spec and bigger & you had to qualify with what you carried..

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be safe,enjoylife,journey well

As a kid, I toured an FBI regional office and, of course, the highlight for the boys was the armory. That was the first and last time that I saw so many Thompson Submachine guns and Model 1911'a in one place. They were available to the local police supposedly. I never learned the politics around that. They had them if they needed them, but I suspect a 38 revolver was good enough for routine duty until the narco-criminals stepped up the arnment race.

To get a little insight into the Texas Rangers , I read Joaquin Jacksons biography , " One Ranger " . He talked about the tools of his trade some in his book .

The same reason a lot of guys here still carry J frames. Simple and reliable.

The only pistol I fired before Marine boot camp,Paris Island SC in 1961,was a Zip Gun made from a door latch,car antenna and rubber band.

A city boy like me was able to be taught to accurately shoot a 1911A1 in a few short months and earn an expert pistol badge.

In 1966 I took to my NYPD 10-6 HB like a duck to water.

My days at the NYPD firing range were often filled with shock witnessing the rusted shut revolvers exiting the holsters of shooters on the firing line next to me.So you ask .... why not 1911 ....

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NEVER GIVE UP YOUR GUN

The primary use of a police sidearm isn't to shoot people, but to take people at gunpoint.

I never shot anyone in 33 years of law enforcement, but I took hundreds of felons at gunpoint.

For that purpose, a DA revolver (or a DA/SA semi-auto, like my Sig 220) is without peer.

And, if you need to shoot someone they work for that, too.

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Rule of law, not a man.

Also these were the days before the militarization of the local police. Back in the day the 1911 was seen as a military sidearm, where the revolver was the civilian firearm.

Huuuuuuummmmmmm!

Primary use may be dictated by the assignment you're performing.

Maybe I held my gun too tightly around the trigger area when there were bad guys with guns in my vicinity.

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NEVER GIVE UP YOUR GUN

When the Texas Department of Public Safety was formed in 1935, uniformed Highway Patrol officers were issued 1911 45 Autos. Very soon thereafter, these were replaced with Colt New Service 38 Special revolvers.
Those were replaced with Smith & Wesson 38 Special Heavy Duty revolvers (38/44) in the early 1950s. Those started being replaced around 1955 by the Highway Patrolman (later became Model 28) revolvers in 357 Magnum. Those were replaced with L Frame Model 586s and then later with Sig 226 9MM. The 9MM was replaced with the Sig 220 in 45 ACP. Those were replaced with Sig 226s & 229s in 357 Sig.

So Texas DPS has switched away from 45 ACP twice. Their biggest issue with it was limited penetration, especially through car doors.

I started in law enforcement in 1974. About the only 45 Auto ammo available back then was FMJ and wadcutters. 1911 pistols at that time were not designed to be reliable with anything other than FMJ. The wadcuters were light target loads anyway. Another drawback to the 1911 was it's single action operation. Say you pull over a vehicle wanted in a felony. You draw your weapon and point it at the occupants. With a 1911, it is either safety off (so now you have a weapon pointed at someone in a very tense situation with only a 4 to 6 pound trigger pull) or safety on, so it is not ready to fire. It is either too ready or not ready at all. The revolver was simpler (and thought to be safer) with no safety and a long double action trigger pull. Even the military kept issuing revolvers (Air Force issued 38 Combat Masterpieces to Air Police/Security Police) for many years after the 1911 came out. Most Navy and Marine Aviators were issued 38 revolvers during WWII. They worked with tracers (for signaling) and ball ammo. Autos are just a passing fad.

I remember on Dragnet, someone asked Friday a similar question. His response: "You hit a man in the hand with a 38 he has a hole in his hand. You hit a man in the hand with a 45 it yanks his arm off."

Or something like that, its been a while since I've seen it.

But IMO it's more expensive, harder to train recruits, more maintenance and possibly overkill, no pun intended.

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Isaiah 41:10

The biggest reason for Police Officers not carrying 1911's is probably half of them could never qualify with one. The 45 is a shooters weapon not for the Officer that only shoots twice a year. One gun writer made the comment that most Officers would rather have a custom Parker pen than a custom service weapon. After 22 years as an Instructor for my Dept. I agree. I would regularly inspect my squads weapons but some of the Sgt.s never did. There were always a number of weapons that were filthy or the Officer had loosened the screw for the main spring to make the trigger pull easier and there wasn't enough tension to dent the primer. I hate to say it but when choosing a weapon for a Dept. you have to pick one that the worst and most incompetent shooter can master. That's a horrible statement but its true. When we went to auto's in the 90's one we were looking at was the Sig. After long conversions with Instructors from some major Depts. that had them we choose the Beretta 92G. All comments from the instructors were the same about the Sig. It had to routinely cleaned and lubed. If not there were problems. Its hard to believe the number of Officers that never took their weapon out of their holster except to qualify twice a year. The Beretta isn't fool proof but its as close as you can get.

It should be noted that right up into the 70s, we saw a revolution in ammunition design. The first hollow points had exposed lead at the tip and they often hung up on the feed ramps until we figured out how to polish and reconfigure the ramps a bit. So, they were prone to stoppages.

Companies did away with the exposed lead and perhaps fine-tuned the return spring to be more compatible with lighter and faster bullets.

Overlooked in this discussion is that, most times, semi-autos can be returned to firing with training in immediate action drills. When a revolver suddenly malfunctions, sure hope you have a second gun because there are no immediate action drills for a wheel gun.

People use what they grew up with. Revolvers had been around for a long time compared to autos.

Several someones up above mentioned biggies: the average person shoots a .38/9mm faster and more accurately than they will a .45. Even with extensive training, this holds true. Also, the vast majority of cops aren't gun persons.

There's also a thing most aren't considering: COST! You have initial training (see above). Then there are in service training and advanced training, etc. My former employer had us shooting more than many departments, but our deliveries were in tractor trailers and contracts were in multiples of 100,000 rounds. Cost that out and you'll see not only a major difference, but you'll be spending more trying to get the less talented qualified.

If you don't think LE decisions aren't cost based, you live in a different world.

Not true.

The Revolver Malfunction Drill

Because lots of servicemen that used them, never cleaned the, and there were only a few armourers who could tune them up properly.

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Regards from THE Old Fart

As mentioned several times already, most cops aren't gun guys and they get what the bean counters and lawyers let them have. Money and politics are the primary considerations for most decisions about department weaponry, not effectiveness. As a kid, I knew our beat cop was Irish, even his ammo was green.

Show me someone who learned to shoot accurately with a .45 auto as a first gun and I'll show you the world's biggest liar!

I spoke with a young member of the Chattanooga Police Department today who referenced this very thing. (CPD issues P220's). He'd previously been a Glock fan and hated his 220, but after having a situation where a suspect surrendered in the milliseconds between what would have been a shoot situation with a Glock, to being able to back off the DA pull on the 220 made him love his 220. He didn't end up having to shoot the guy. (And to Officer C if you happen to read this, nice meeting you. You're one of the good guys, and I'm thankful for your service.)

.45s are one caliber that few people criticize their 'stopping power that is widely accepted by shooters. I mean, look, they are making a .45 SHIELD now.

Would they do that with a 10mm?

The .40 S&W is referred to as the 'Short and Weak' round.

.357 Sig just isn't very popular.

Realistically, how many LEOs carry a magnum pistol larger than a .357, if it's not a .45? Or any revolver for that matter.

I suppose one thing the .45 has is one big bullet that isn't in a high pressure cartridge that will break your hand off.

I guess what I'm saying is that if someone wants something more effective than a 9mm or a .40 they jump right to the .45

Does this make sense or am I just babbling?

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Can't recall the source but one statistic placed the .38 Special round nose lead bullet at 50 percent one-shot stops while the .45 ACP round nose jacketed was given a 65 percent rate of one-shot stops.

However, I believe that since the few who did carry the .45 were better shots/better trained their results from the cartridge were better than 65 percent. Meanwhile, the average cops using the .38 ranged from miserable shots/mediocre shots/good shots/expert shots which gave the .38 a less than 50 percent chance statistically.

With expert shots I don't think you'd want to risk your life on the chances you'd survive the .38 RN a whole lot better than the .45 RN.

And now with modern ballistics, it's a whole new ball game.

Define "accurately", I had lots of shotgun and rifle experience but my first training was with a 1911 at MP school. I did fine and so did a lot of other trainees.

Many vets complain about the recoil and inaccuracy of the 1911. I am of the opinion many of these complaints are based on the fact the military trained people to shoot 50 at a time, side by side, one handed, with no hearing protection.

Back in the 70s, I bought an accurized GI Model 1911 that could put bullets in one ragged hole if I did my part. .45 ACPs are plenty accurate but it's not the ideal handgun to learn on as the recoil can be a bit unnerving to a neophyte.

Yet, recoil-wise, I find the .40 S&W more snappy and punishing than either of my 45s, an M&P and an S&W 1911.

Teddy Roosevelt standardized the NYPD on .32s.

.38s were a step up.

It's a rare police department where pistol marksmanship is anything more than a formality.

Look at the NYPD and their "New York trigger" and you'll find your answer.

You do realize that in the heyday of the police revolver, shooting at 25/50 yards on a bullseye target was the norm, right? And that officers used to shoot many times the number of rounds they do today.

I mean, where do you think the P in PPC comes from?

...some old timers liked the 1911...Texas Ranger Manuel T. "Lone Wolf" Gonzaullas comes to mind...he also liked "Fitzed" trigger guards...

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A Country Boy Can Survive

I find that it depends on the gun. I find the 45 snappy in a Sig 220 ......Even in a 1911 but not in a HK. but I have no problems with the 40 in HK or Glock. They feel slightly more recoil than a 9 147gr.

When I shoot 45 my front sight moves much more than a 40, which doesn't move much

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

I realize that the LAPD was heavily into pistol marksmanship and rewarded skill. They issued revolvers which reflected that emphasis.

Not every police department in the United States was the LAPD.