MAGNUM MAGNUM - Jeffersonian

eaks and the odd .38 Special. Lots of
us high school kids traded guns regularly.
They had terrible triggers, lousy
sights and bullets that would sometimes
bounce back off a hardwood tree. But
the .45 stories held me in awe of the
caliber, and the 1911. A lot of them came
back with WWII veterans and military
ammo, particularly the steel case Evansville
Ordnance ammo, was cheap, sometimes
two for a penny. Time after time I
heard combat vets beer-talk that all you
had to do to knock a man on his ass was
to hit him with a .45 in the little finger —
and I really wanted to believe that.
Finally I got my chance at a warweary
1911, not an A1, but with three
notches in the grip. It always worked,
too. Hard trigger, tiny sights, biting
hammer and G.I. hardball made
shooting a bit difficult. With cigarette
filters stuffed in my ears I managed to
hit about 50 percent on 20-yard quart oil
cans. Groundhogs were plentiful and I
ambushed one coming out of his hole
at 10'. Lining up on his head I squeezed
one off. He ducked! I couldn’t have
missed — the hole in the dirt was where
it should be. A few seconds later he
popped out again to see what that noise
was with a blood spot on centered on
his neck from the .45 round. The next
shot went where it was supposed to and
I found the first one had penetrated his
neck without hitting the spine. So much
for hitting them in the fingertip and
knocking them on their ass.
John Connor
My “first 1911” wasn’t mine, and it
wasn’t one. From my earliest memories
of growing up in the far Pacific
and Asia, my Dad always had a big,
dark wooden case holding two 1911A1
pistols. He, and then we, must have
fired enough rounds through those guns
to sink a barge by their weight alone.
One was a bright blued Colt, set up
and tuned by a top Navy armorer. That
was Dad’s service match gun, and fortunately
for me, his “training the little
troll” gun. You can guess who that
little troll was, can’t you? The other
looked like a battered old Dodge Power
Wagon sitting next to that Colt Ferrari:
a much-used, worn, shiny World War II
issue piece made by Remington Rand. I
couldn’t even begin to guess how many
banzai-charging land crabs and infiltrating
enemy tin cans I popped with
that pistol. That one was Dad’s carrygun,
and my recreational shooter.
My memories of those pistols began
with me standing, aimed on target,
with Dad kneeling behind me, reaching
around me with both arms, adjusting my
position and grip, his rumbling voice
in my ear coaching me through every
round. Then later, Dad standing beside
me as I shot, me bursting with pride
when he tapped me on the shoulder and
said something like, “That’s four-&-
CZ P-07 DUTY
P.O. Box 171073 | Kansas City, KS 66117-0073
Toll-free: 1 (800) 955-4486 | Phone: + (913) 321-1811
E-mail: info@cz-usa.com | Website: www.cz-usa.com
oh, son; good shootin’!” Just before his
death, those cased pistols disappeared
en route while being shipped stateside.
Dad deeply regretted he could not leave
them to me. But really, he did. I can still
see them now; feel his barrel chest and
arms; hear his voice, just by closing my
eyes. They were about far more than
shooting. They were about a father and
his son. They were all about my Dad.
And I will always have that.
John Taffin
My first 1911 goes all the way
back to the winter of 1956-57. It was
a military surplus, government issued
Remington-Rand .45 and cost all of
$15 which in those days was two days
pay. A group of us teenagers working
together on the loading/unloading docks
all had 1911s and ’03s. Saturday mornings
we would gather at the local pizzeria
before heading to Boyle’s Gun
Shop to see what was currently available
and also use his outdoor range. On
one of these trips I learned a most valuable
lesson, possibly two.
We had invited a new fellow along
assuming he not only knew how to
shoot but had a modicum of common
sense. I gave him my 1911 and as we
were standing behind him he fired the
first round and hit the target. He was
so elated he did a 180-turn sweeping
WWW.AMERICANHANDGUNNER.COM 91