My question, when are you going to be shooting at some one past a 25 yards? That seems to be about the max range I would dare say for a bonestock, no mod's M1911. Even at 25yds, with stock sights and a firm two handed grip, a competent shooter should be able to put rounds center mass.
"It was decided early in the study that high velocity and long range were not required of a military sidearm. Such an arm was for use only at short ranges. The first requisite was striking power, the sledge-hammer blow, a bullet that would stop the most deliriously berserk wild man in his tracks. As soon as it became evident that the .45 caliber would be the choice of the board, John designed a .45-caliber cartridge which he thought would do...
The .45 pistol was undoubtedly another of John's favorites. In the interim between the invention of the gun and the official tests, almost any afternoon, when John was in Ogden, he would leave the shop at four o'clock to wake echoes in the foothills with a couple hundred rounds...
The Ordnance Command made the following stipulations: 6000 rounds were to be fired through each pistol under consideration...
The trial ran through two days of actual firing... the strain [on John] grew worse as the count mounted...
When the booming came to a sudden end, he was not sure whether the pistol had finished the 6000 or whether there had been a malfunction. For a moment, the world was empty of sound. Then one of the soldiers who had been filling magazines let out a hoarse ejaculation, "She made it, by God!"...
John stepped up onto the bench where he had been sitting, took off his hat, and waited until the applause died down. "Gentlemen," he said, "the young man who spoke so eloquently a moment ago expressed my feelings precisely..."
Orders from the Chief of Ordnance of the General Staff and Secretary of War dated March 29, 1911, made the adoption of the Model 1911 official."
[JOHN M. BROWNING - AMERICAN GUNMAKER - by John Browning and Curt Gentry]
