When contracts were let to build more 1911's during WWII, the process of making them was so poor that Ordnance commissioned Singer to come up with a better production and fabrication flow. And, they did, well proved by Remington Rand and Ithaca. However, Singer, itself, was incapable of making them, and scrapped all but the few accepted. I nominate the Singer 1911A1 as the worst made gun ever issued.
We may cringe at the idea of some of the guns nominated, yet it's the ones that were literally bleeding red ink with laborious hand fitting and no possibility of interchangeable parts which are the real stinkers. The 1911 is an early auto pistol design with no Ordnance blueprint. That was also one of Singers early corrections - they had to backwards design a proof drawing to set standards of reproduction. Colt only had their own bits and pieces, some literally a "proof part" they copied for the next production run.
First, your time line is off.
Singer was awarded a
Production Study Contract in mid-1939, before Poland was even invaded. This contract was to study the current method of production and suggest improvements, study the drawings and suggest design changes that would simplify or speed production, and standardize the raw material sizes. After this study was finished and the report published, Singer was given an
Educational Order of 500 M1911A1 on a production line as detailed in the production study in April 1940, in order to validate the study's recommendations.
Second, Singer produced all 500 pistols per the contract and they were all accepted by the Army. These 500 pieces were all well made and finely finished, thus validating Singer's production concept. However, in 1941 the Army was not ready to begin large scale production of M1911s, and Singer, in need of some money-making contracts accepted a contract from the Navy for the Mk 1A Fire Control Computer, which was more in line with Singer's product line*.
After Pearl Harbor was attacked, the Army decided that now was the time to begin large scale production of the M1911 and asked Singer to start full scale production. Singer declined as their factory space had converted to Fire Control Computer production. Singer did, however, provide the Government with all of their M1911 production tooling that had been used during the 500 pistol educational order. This tooling was transferred to Remington Rand and Ithaca, both of whom received contracts to manufacture M1911A1 in 1942, Remington-Rand in March, Ithaca a few months later.
Third, to state that Singer "was incapable of making" the M1911A1 is flat incorrect, they could, and did produce them. And their tooling and methods were of great value to Remington Rand, who like Singer, had never made a firearm in the history. There may have been a large number of incomplete or scrapped parts, but that is due to the Production Study nature of the first contract. In order to see if the proposed manufacture method is better, or even possible, you try it, so there will be a large number of ideas that did quite work out, and partially complete parts; there is no need to make a complete gun to see if machining one cut on a slide is better with a jig-borer or a knee-mill.
I do not second the nomination and suggest that it has been made in ignorance of what Singer's M1911A1 contract really was for, and what it actually accomplished.
EDIT:
Some of these pistols noted have actions that are based on questionable ideas, some have questionable safety arrangements, some have questionable quality, and some are just ergonomically, a disaster. These are candidates for the worst pistol.
To place the Singer M1911s, which is based on a proven and safe design, finished better than most M1911s, and whose entire production lot was accepted by the US Army, and whose production methods and drawings were used by multiple manufacturers who similarly had successful production runs, in this category, makes me wonder where you are getting your information.
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* The Mk 1 FCC was a mechanical computer, whose innards are more resembling a sewing machine than a pistol.
