Why did cops carry .38's instead of 1911's in .45 ACP?

[bushmaster1313]

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

 

[Laketime]

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.

 

[Mistered]

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

 

[hoc9sw]

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.

 

[rockquarry]

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.

 

[LVSteve]

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

 

[V-35]

Texas Rangers

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

 

[armadillo]

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."

 

[Big Cholla]

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. .....

 

[Absalom]

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

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.

 

[kaaskop49]

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

 

[Big Cholla]

Reminder

It's a matter of historical perspective.

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.

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. ....

 

[Wise_A]

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

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.

 

[Absalom]

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 .....

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.

 

[LVSteve]

WWII vets almost to a man reported the 1911 had a brutal recoil.

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.

 

[SuperMan]

"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

 

[rockquarry]

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.

 

[Texas Star]

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!

 

[federali]

The .38 Got There First

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.

 

[jag312]

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.