Navy issue pistol??? Vietnam era

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swampratt

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I was in Wilburton OK Monday for a Funeral.
I was talking with my dads cousin.
My dad and him hung around and fished and hunted all the time ..My dad went to Vietnam and sometime after he returned he met up with is cousin and they got to shooting guns.
My dad gives him a semi auto 45 pistol said he needed to have it as my dad had another pistol.

My dads cousin told me he thinks it is or was his service weapon.. It is hard to pull the slide back and it has not been shot much and looks pretty new.

He forgot he even had it.. he had not seen it in 30+ years.. buried under some cardboard ammo boxes.
Said he thinks it was made in Florida.
Said it is very heavy too heavy to carry as it will pull your pants down.

He told me I could have it and remind him next time i am down that way and he will give it to me as he wanted me to have my dads gun.

That was nice of him.

But it got my curiosity up.

What do you guys know about weapons from that era 45acp probably made in Florida.
I may or may not be military in my mind.
I haven't got a clue.
 

coolhandluke

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AFAIK the only semi auto sidearms that were widely used at that time would be a 1911 / 1911A1 or Browning Hi-Power. It would have to be a private purchase pistol if it were anything other than a 1911.
 

swampratt

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Thanks CorpsVet
He said he shot it about 50 times many years ago and it has been stored inside the house in a safe ever since and forgotten about.
I will take it apart or inspect it.. probably change the recoil spring in it if it does not act right for my hand loads.
I got a 350 Mag that was my dads after he had died.
That guy never cleaned his guns or at least this one.

His cousing told me about the 357 and how it shot when they would shoot guns.
Said they would buy a bunch of cheap ammo and shoot the crap out of it and one bullet would hit 2 feet to the right and another round it would be 4 feet left said it was not accurate at all.

Yea I get that as the barrel was packed full of lead. You could not see the rifling grooves just chunky crud all the way to the muzzle.
It is very accurate now.
158 gr SWC bullets and HP38 for under 30 yards or gas checked 170 gr. SWC and 2400 powder for long range shooting.
 

gerhard1

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If it was a Colt 1911 I don't think it was government issue if it was in good shape. I understand that the last 1911 shipment from Colt to US military was in 1946, so if this is so, the guns owned by the military would be quite old and worn out.

This is what I read a long time ago.
 

SoonerP226

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If it was a Colt 1911 I don't think it was government issue if it was in good shape. I understand that the last 1911 shipment from Colt to US military was in 1946, so if this is so, the guns owned by the military would be quite old and worn out.

This is what I read a long time ago.
If it was Navy issue, it may very well have spent most of its life in a weapons locker. It's not like they had a whole lot of use for hand-held firearms at most of their duty posts, especially in the Blue Water Navy.
 

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