Yesterday, 11:00 PM #56
Thin Black Line
We need some Marines to chime in here on 1911 feats at 100 yds......
Well since you asked but this was a few years after my Marine Corps time.
In 1967 a BS artist at work made the statement that the GI 1911 was inaccurate and so underpowered that you could catch the bullets at 100 yards.
Yeah, I know the guy was an idiot about guns.
I told him I have a GI 45 that I bought from the government, through the NRA (1961 NIB for $17).
I said the gun will put at least 4-5 rounds out of 7 in a large Folgers coffee can at 100 yards. Of course he said BS.
When I got home I put a page of black photo album at my 100 yard (3/8 inch steel) backstop. I sat on the ground with my back against a big dog house and rested the gun between my knees.
It took two mags to get the correct elevation. I fired the third magazine "for record" If the coffee can had been in front of the paper 5 bullets would have hit it.
The next morning I took the target and some copper and lead slivers, that had been the 45 FMJ bullets to work it show the guy.
Of course he said he didn't believe it.
I said OK, "You name the bet and we'll see."
He still kept talking but wouldn't bet.
As it happened one of my Army helicopter students was the most decorated man on post. He got a Silver Star as a chopper door gunner after being shot down.
The blow hard told my student, "Your instructor is FOS. He can't hit anything at 100 yards with a 45".
I heard later that my student told him, "If Mr B********* says he can do it, you had better not bet against him. I got my Silver Star using the 45."
I later read the student's Silver Star award.
When shot down the chopper crashed upside down, hanging the pilot in the harness with a broken back and jamming the M60 in the door frame.
The gunner had only his 1911A1 and a few boxes of 45 in a 30 cal ammo can.
They had crashed in a big rice paddy behind a dike.
When the gunner looked over the dike there was a single VC 7 yards away. The gunner killed him.
The award goes on to tell how the gunner shot a BUNCH of VC that came at him one at a time across the rice paddy. ( I don't remember how many)
When they were rescued it was measured that the gunner had killed the VC from 7 yards to 97 yards with the 45.
No one could figure out why the VC came at him one at a time, except maybe they were green troops and thought the gunner was trying to sucker them out into the rice paddy where he could open up on them with the M60 (which of course they knew he had).
BTW I did teach him to fly.
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