Colt .45 ACP Government Model Series 70
It’s a tough job reviewing a legend, but I’m gonna have a crack at it anyway. I’m by no means an expert, but I have owned a few handguns over the years, and this is the only one I own now, which should tell you something about it.
Whether or not choosing the Colt as my only handgun was a wise decision is another matter (I suspect most of my shooting colleagues would have opted for the Glock 22, but that’s another story). However, the truth is, I kept the Colt because it is unique – a customised piece that was rebuilt to my specifications, and thus has a fair amount of my blood, sweat and tears engrained within it’s workings. It was also the most aesthetically pleasing of all my pistols.
The Colt .45 is of course, one of the most enduring handguns in the world. In the United States, it enjoys an almost fanatical cult status among handgun nuts. People will pay many thousands of dollars for a customised 1911 from one of the big name gunsmiths. It even has an entire magazine dedicated to it (step forward, American Handgunner). The reason for this is not hard to understand, it was invented by an American, John Moses Browning, and the gun-owning segment of the American population is nothing if not patriotic.
However, I suspect that its appeal also comes from another area: the calibre for which it was designed. The .45 ACP (which stands for Automatic Colt Pistol) is a real brute of a bullet. At 230 grains it’s the heaviest handgun slug going (bar the handgun hunting calibres) and as such travels below the speed of sound. But if you place your shots in the central mass area, chances are your target will go down, and stay down. Few areas in firearms are as contentious as ballistics, but the consensus among the grizzled vets is that .45ACP is the way to go if you’re fairly confident of your ability to hit what you are aiming at.
(All right, I know this is not a proven fact, but I believe it to be true. The 9mm is a marginal stopper at best, and needs to be pushed at extreme speeds to really be effective; the 10mm is not practical with regards to availability of ammo and choice of firearms that will take it, and the 40 S&W is still too new to really be in the running. Likewise, .357 Sig is still a marginal player. For me then, the title of ultimate semi-auto calibre still belongs to the .45ACP.)
The calibre’s reputation as a manstopper meant it was the number one choice among serious handgunners in the US of A for many years (the most popular side-arm however, was – and possibly still is – the Smith and Wession five shot revolver in.38 Special). However, it took a serious knock in status when America’s armed forces adopted the Beretta 92 in 9mm as its official side-arm in the mid-80s. The arrival in the mid-90s of the .40 S&W has also eroded its popularity. For many, the .40S&W features the ideal combination of speed and weight - like the 9mm and .45ACP rolled into one - and as a result it was quickly adopted by a majority of police forces in the large metropolitan cities throughout the United States.
However, for many the .45ACP cannot be replaced, and there are a great many who still prefer the proven qualities of this calibre. And what better vehicle to deliver it than the Colt Government Model? After all, it is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and no other design has been issued by so wide a variety of manufacturers.
So where, exactly, does the appeal lie? In all honesty, it’s a difficult thing to put on paper. First of all, this is a handgun that fits the hand like no other. It’s relatively slim, thanks to the single stack mag, and if you have medium sized hands, as I do, it will feel as if it was custom made for you. However, in every other respect, it’s a real pig straight out of the box. As any 1911 aficianado knows, this is a gun that requires a considerable amount of work to get it up to scratch.
Although this process requires plenty of time, money and effort (gunsmiths are among the most difficult people you will ever meet), I believe this customisation aspect – which is unique to the 1911 - is exactly what appeals to people.
In fact, a veritable industry has sprung up around the Gov’t Model. Led by companies like Wilson Combat and Ed Brown, there are at least a dozen firms in the USA who manufacture parts for the 1911 pistol. In fact, you can make one up entirely from scratch, if you so wish. It’s like building a hotrod entirely to your own specifications. This is, of course, is a highly appealing concept to the gun community, who tend to be strongly individualistic people anyway.
However, there are still many out there who believe that the Colt Series 70 was the finest version of this design - at least as a platform to build on. Why exactly this is remains something of a mystery to me. Certainly from a historical point of view Colt were the premier makers of this firearm, and they make particularly fine handguns (the Colt Python is undoubtedly the Rolls Royce of revolvers) but I suspect it is one of those bits of verbal lore that are handed down from person to person until it is just accepted as the gospel and nobody will even bother arguing with it. In a country like the USA, however, where you have the pick of any number of .45s, people like Springfield Armoury, Les Baer, Ed Brown, Wilson Combat and Kimber would probably all take precedence over Colt today.
However, in the heyday of combat sports shooting, the 70s, there was no better gun to build a good combat on that a Colt Series 70. They’re also quite common still in my part of the world, and I was fortunate enough to find one without too much trouble. Mine was in nice condition, and already had the most important work done to it. The feeding ramp had been nicely polished, the ejection port was lowered, and a set of high profile sights had replaced the standard sights, which are practically worthless. It also had a pretty good blueing job on it, although nothing like the beautiful mirror polish that you have on the Colt when it comes out of the factory.
If I had any sense, I would have left it like that (perhaps just replacing the grips) and it would have served me faultlessly for many years. However, I was quite short of common sense in those days and I saw the gun merely as a blue print onto which I was going to place my unique stamp. And so off I went. I cannot remember what I actually changed first, but this is how I ultimately transformed my Colt:
The rear sight was replaced with a Novak low profile ‘carry’ sight, and a terrific sight it is too.
The standard safety grip was replaced with an Ed Brown ‘memory groove’ beavertail. Again, a significant improvement (in my eyes).
The hammer was also changed to an Ed Brown design, and as such complements the beavertail nicely, although it offers no noticeable improvement over the standard Colt hammer.
The trigger was replaced by a Wilson-made device of aluminium. However, I wasn’t entirely happy with the job and despite adjusting it since, to this day the trigger feels a little light to me.
The standard Colt safety was replaced by an Ed Brown ‘tactical’ safety. Again, the visual effect was enhanced but the standard safety on the Colt is actually entirely adequate.
A lovely pair of Wilson ebony grips were a significant improvement over the cheapie rubber ones that the gun came with, as were the Ed Brown stainless hex head grip screws that set them off nicely.
Finally, I had a local gunsmith finish the piece off with a really nice nitrolloy coating on the receiver and a matte black teflon finish on the slide. At the same time, he tidied up the bevelling on the mag well - which another gunsmith had made a bit of a mess of - and a very nice job he did too.
It didn’t end there, however, as a vital component of any handgun is the magazine, so I got onto Brownells and ordered myself a brace of Wilson-Rogers no. 47 stainless steel 8 round magazines, generally acknowledged as the finest in the business.
All in all, I must have spent at least the same amount again on the gun as my initial outlay (actually, I suspect it was significantly more, but I stopped counting after awhile - on purpose). Does the gun shoot any better than it did originally? I would say probably not, but it sure as hell looks better, and that counts for a lot, believe me.
So, you may ask, after all this work, is this the ultimate carry gun? Well, no.
First of all, it weighs a ton. The whole thing is made of stainless steel. Not aluminium, or plastic. Good old-fashioned steel, brother. Dug from the earth by hard-drinking men with dirt under their fingernails. And when you combine that with a magazine filled with 45 slugs, it’s a substantial weight. Which is great if you intend shooting thousands of rounds through the thing, but not so great if you’re planning on carrying it regularly. The weight thing never used to be such an issue, of course, as ALL guns were made of steel, until the Glock company changed everything. Now, you could have your cake, in the form of major firepower, and eat it too, by carrying a gun that is remarkably light, in comparison to the all-steel piece. The Glock turned the whole handgun industry on its head, and despite initial resistance, everyone – from Walther to Sig Sauer and even good old Bill Wilson – now offers a handgun with a polymer receiver.
Second, it has a standard magazine capacity of seven rounds. Fortunately, the smart fellas have managed to squeeze another round into the aftermarket magazines, but even so, eight rounds doesn’t seem like much when you consider that the Glock 17 has an incredible 17 rounds in the mag (hence the moniker), albeit of 9mm.
Fourth, it’s single action only. Which means that if you want to carry one in the chamber, you only have the choice of cocking the hammer and placing the safety on. You can’t fire from a hammer down position, like your Berettas and Sig Sauers. So when you think you hear something moving in that dark corner and you drop that safety and your heart starts going like a trip hammer as your mouth dries up and your vision tunnels in on the potential threat, the only thing between you and that hammer coming down is about four pounds of pressure on the trigger. Believe me, that ain’t much.
So you’d better have some steady hands there, brother, or you could be facing a world of trouble, if you let off a round and end up shooting an innocent stone dead.
Which is why they say the Colt .45 is only for the expert user. Single action is a tricky mother and I personally know of two people who have shot themselves in the groin area because they liked to carry a single action Colt .45. To be fair, both these individuals were entirely too familiar with firearms and behaved accordingly. How can you be too familiar with firearms, you ask? Well, its easy. If you’re someone who carries and handles firearms on a daily basis, you tend to become a little blasé about them. The piece becomes just another accessory, like your wallet, keys and switchblade, that you tuck away on your person before sallying out to meet the world.
And then what happens is one day, you’re busy handling that firearm without paying too much attention and ka-boom! That strange burning sensation tells you you’ve just sent a 230 grain slug into your own leg or groin at point blank range. Very few things in the world can make a man feel more foolish than shooting himself with his own gun. That is, if he lives to tell the tale.
And this is where the customisation issue becomes a problem. Too many Colt .45 guys tend to fuck with their guns to the point where they are so fine tuned just about anything can set them off. The one unfortunate individual in question, for example, had pinned his grip safety and lightened his trigger to some insane point (I think it was under 2 pounds). This is sheer madness in a single action carry gun. Then to compound the problem, he would carry it shoved into the front of his pants, sans holster, one up, cocked and locked.
Now anyone with half a brain will tell you that this is a disaster waiting to happen. And it did. Evidently, the thumb safety must have somehow disengaged and the next time he bent over his rather ample belly gave the hammer a slight shove and it fell on a live round. The gentleman in question survived the wound mainly, he believes, because he never used hollow points. The round nose slug went through and through and he was able to summon help in time. A hollow point may well have ended it for him there and then.
Moral of the story? Don’t mess with the piece too much, particularly the trigger setting. Four pounds is the minimum setting for a carry trigger, and I personally feel that’s still too light. Although the same single action trigger means the Colt can be out and shooting in faster time than most double action autos (and with greater accuracy), it’s a serious potential liability if it’s set too light. If you shoot competition, and have your trigger set accordingly, then leave that gun in the safe when you’re prowling the mean streets. A carry gun is simply a different animal. I feel certain this is the main reason the US Armed Forces now issue the Beretta, as opposed to the 1911. A double action trigger pull allows a lot more room for error.
So why do I carry the Gov’t Model if it’s such a finicky old warhorse? The answer is complicated. First of all, the laws in my country have made it next to impossible to license a new firearm. I was in the process of licensing a Glock 21 when the Firearms Control Bill was passed and they subsequently refused that licence (along with 98% of other applicants, it seems). I may never know if the Glock 21 is the ultimate carry gun, although certainly those who profess to know these things would say that particular honour would go to the Glock 19, as the 21 is simply too large. In any event, it’s a moot point now.
My passion for the .45 ACP remains unabated however, and I would always prefer my carry gun to feature that calibre. I have looked at the Glock 30 and even test fired it. It’s a real beauty and would be almost perfect, were it not for that weird over-sized boot on the magazine, which is not ideal on the Glock, where the magazines aren’t exactly a tight fit (there is potential to pinch the hand in the gap between the magazine and gun, not ideal in a carry gun).
So until the law is changed here, which does not seem likely at this point, I will be carrying the Colt Gov’t. Model. I still feel pretty safe with it, despite the discomfort of hauling it around. The combination of my familiarity with the piece, it’s 5 inch barrel and those eight rounds of 230 grain hollow-points feel good to me when I’m venturing out after dark.
Of course, I would be far likely to carry a pistol if my carry gun was a Glock 19, or even a Glock 30, and they say the best weapon is the one you have with you at the time. But without the 2nd Amendment backing us up, we pretty much have to make do with whatever’s in the safe at this moment in time. And the way things look currently, I strongly suspect there will come a time when we’ll be backed up by edged weapons only, if the government continues along this path unchecked, which seems highly likely.
All in all, the Colt 1911 Government Model is a serious weapon, that will not fail you in your moment of need (if its been worked on by a gunsmith who knows what he’s doing). It’s also a classic that has performed well in three major conflicts. As such, it derserves no less than a 4/5.
Whether or not choosing the Colt as my only handgun was a wise decision is another matter (I suspect most of my shooting colleagues would have opted for the Glock 22, but that’s another story). However, the truth is, I kept the Colt because it is unique – a customised piece that was rebuilt to my specifications, and thus has a fair amount of my blood, sweat and tears engrained within it’s workings. It was also the most aesthetically pleasing of all my pistols.
The Colt .45 is of course, one of the most enduring handguns in the world. In the United States, it enjoys an almost fanatical cult status among handgun nuts. People will pay many thousands of dollars for a customised 1911 from one of the big name gunsmiths. It even has an entire magazine dedicated to it (step forward, American Handgunner). The reason for this is not hard to understand, it was invented by an American, John Moses Browning, and the gun-owning segment of the American population is nothing if not patriotic.
However, I suspect that its appeal also comes from another area: the calibre for which it was designed. The .45 ACP (which stands for Automatic Colt Pistol) is a real brute of a bullet. At 230 grains it’s the heaviest handgun slug going (bar the handgun hunting calibres) and as such travels below the speed of sound. But if you place your shots in the central mass area, chances are your target will go down, and stay down. Few areas in firearms are as contentious as ballistics, but the consensus among the grizzled vets is that .45ACP is the way to go if you’re fairly confident of your ability to hit what you are aiming at.
(All right, I know this is not a proven fact, but I believe it to be true. The 9mm is a marginal stopper at best, and needs to be pushed at extreme speeds to really be effective; the 10mm is not practical with regards to availability of ammo and choice of firearms that will take it, and the 40 S&W is still too new to really be in the running. Likewise, .357 Sig is still a marginal player. For me then, the title of ultimate semi-auto calibre still belongs to the .45ACP.)
The calibre’s reputation as a manstopper meant it was the number one choice among serious handgunners in the US of A for many years (the most popular side-arm however, was – and possibly still is – the Smith and Wession five shot revolver in.38 Special). However, it took a serious knock in status when America’s armed forces adopted the Beretta 92 in 9mm as its official side-arm in the mid-80s. The arrival in the mid-90s of the .40 S&W has also eroded its popularity. For many, the .40S&W features the ideal combination of speed and weight - like the 9mm and .45ACP rolled into one - and as a result it was quickly adopted by a majority of police forces in the large metropolitan cities throughout the United States.
However, for many the .45ACP cannot be replaced, and there are a great many who still prefer the proven qualities of this calibre. And what better vehicle to deliver it than the Colt Government Model? After all, it is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and no other design has been issued by so wide a variety of manufacturers.
So where, exactly, does the appeal lie? In all honesty, it’s a difficult thing to put on paper. First of all, this is a handgun that fits the hand like no other. It’s relatively slim, thanks to the single stack mag, and if you have medium sized hands, as I do, it will feel as if it was custom made for you. However, in every other respect, it’s a real pig straight out of the box. As any 1911 aficianado knows, this is a gun that requires a considerable amount of work to get it up to scratch.
Although this process requires plenty of time, money and effort (gunsmiths are among the most difficult people you will ever meet), I believe this customisation aspect – which is unique to the 1911 - is exactly what appeals to people.
In fact, a veritable industry has sprung up around the Gov’t Model. Led by companies like Wilson Combat and Ed Brown, there are at least a dozen firms in the USA who manufacture parts for the 1911 pistol. In fact, you can make one up entirely from scratch, if you so wish. It’s like building a hotrod entirely to your own specifications. This is, of course, is a highly appealing concept to the gun community, who tend to be strongly individualistic people anyway.
However, there are still many out there who believe that the Colt Series 70 was the finest version of this design - at least as a platform to build on. Why exactly this is remains something of a mystery to me. Certainly from a historical point of view Colt were the premier makers of this firearm, and they make particularly fine handguns (the Colt Python is undoubtedly the Rolls Royce of revolvers) but I suspect it is one of those bits of verbal lore that are handed down from person to person until it is just accepted as the gospel and nobody will even bother arguing with it. In a country like the USA, however, where you have the pick of any number of .45s, people like Springfield Armoury, Les Baer, Ed Brown, Wilson Combat and Kimber would probably all take precedence over Colt today.
However, in the heyday of combat sports shooting, the 70s, there was no better gun to build a good combat on that a Colt Series 70. They’re also quite common still in my part of the world, and I was fortunate enough to find one without too much trouble. Mine was in nice condition, and already had the most important work done to it. The feeding ramp had been nicely polished, the ejection port was lowered, and a set of high profile sights had replaced the standard sights, which are practically worthless. It also had a pretty good blueing job on it, although nothing like the beautiful mirror polish that you have on the Colt when it comes out of the factory.
If I had any sense, I would have left it like that (perhaps just replacing the grips) and it would have served me faultlessly for many years. However, I was quite short of common sense in those days and I saw the gun merely as a blue print onto which I was going to place my unique stamp. And so off I went. I cannot remember what I actually changed first, but this is how I ultimately transformed my Colt:
The rear sight was replaced with a Novak low profile ‘carry’ sight, and a terrific sight it is too.
The standard safety grip was replaced with an Ed Brown ‘memory groove’ beavertail. Again, a significant improvement (in my eyes).
The hammer was also changed to an Ed Brown design, and as such complements the beavertail nicely, although it offers no noticeable improvement over the standard Colt hammer.
The trigger was replaced by a Wilson-made device of aluminium. However, I wasn’t entirely happy with the job and despite adjusting it since, to this day the trigger feels a little light to me.
The standard Colt safety was replaced by an Ed Brown ‘tactical’ safety. Again, the visual effect was enhanced but the standard safety on the Colt is actually entirely adequate.
A lovely pair of Wilson ebony grips were a significant improvement over the cheapie rubber ones that the gun came with, as were the Ed Brown stainless hex head grip screws that set them off nicely.
Finally, I had a local gunsmith finish the piece off with a really nice nitrolloy coating on the receiver and a matte black teflon finish on the slide. At the same time, he tidied up the bevelling on the mag well - which another gunsmith had made a bit of a mess of - and a very nice job he did too.
It didn’t end there, however, as a vital component of any handgun is the magazine, so I got onto Brownells and ordered myself a brace of Wilson-Rogers no. 47 stainless steel 8 round magazines, generally acknowledged as the finest in the business.
All in all, I must have spent at least the same amount again on the gun as my initial outlay (actually, I suspect it was significantly more, but I stopped counting after awhile - on purpose). Does the gun shoot any better than it did originally? I would say probably not, but it sure as hell looks better, and that counts for a lot, believe me.
So, you may ask, after all this work, is this the ultimate carry gun? Well, no.
First of all, it weighs a ton. The whole thing is made of stainless steel. Not aluminium, or plastic. Good old-fashioned steel, brother. Dug from the earth by hard-drinking men with dirt under their fingernails. And when you combine that with a magazine filled with 45 slugs, it’s a substantial weight. Which is great if you intend shooting thousands of rounds through the thing, but not so great if you’re planning on carrying it regularly. The weight thing never used to be such an issue, of course, as ALL guns were made of steel, until the Glock company changed everything. Now, you could have your cake, in the form of major firepower, and eat it too, by carrying a gun that is remarkably light, in comparison to the all-steel piece. The Glock turned the whole handgun industry on its head, and despite initial resistance, everyone – from Walther to Sig Sauer and even good old Bill Wilson – now offers a handgun with a polymer receiver.
Second, it has a standard magazine capacity of seven rounds. Fortunately, the smart fellas have managed to squeeze another round into the aftermarket magazines, but even so, eight rounds doesn’t seem like much when you consider that the Glock 17 has an incredible 17 rounds in the mag (hence the moniker), albeit of 9mm.
Fourth, it’s single action only. Which means that if you want to carry one in the chamber, you only have the choice of cocking the hammer and placing the safety on. You can’t fire from a hammer down position, like your Berettas and Sig Sauers. So when you think you hear something moving in that dark corner and you drop that safety and your heart starts going like a trip hammer as your mouth dries up and your vision tunnels in on the potential threat, the only thing between you and that hammer coming down is about four pounds of pressure on the trigger. Believe me, that ain’t much.
So you’d better have some steady hands there, brother, or you could be facing a world of trouble, if you let off a round and end up shooting an innocent stone dead.
Which is why they say the Colt .45 is only for the expert user. Single action is a tricky mother and I personally know of two people who have shot themselves in the groin area because they liked to carry a single action Colt .45. To be fair, both these individuals were entirely too familiar with firearms and behaved accordingly. How can you be too familiar with firearms, you ask? Well, its easy. If you’re someone who carries and handles firearms on a daily basis, you tend to become a little blasé about them. The piece becomes just another accessory, like your wallet, keys and switchblade, that you tuck away on your person before sallying out to meet the world.
And then what happens is one day, you’re busy handling that firearm without paying too much attention and ka-boom! That strange burning sensation tells you you’ve just sent a 230 grain slug into your own leg or groin at point blank range. Very few things in the world can make a man feel more foolish than shooting himself with his own gun. That is, if he lives to tell the tale.
And this is where the customisation issue becomes a problem. Too many Colt .45 guys tend to fuck with their guns to the point where they are so fine tuned just about anything can set them off. The one unfortunate individual in question, for example, had pinned his grip safety and lightened his trigger to some insane point (I think it was under 2 pounds). This is sheer madness in a single action carry gun. Then to compound the problem, he would carry it shoved into the front of his pants, sans holster, one up, cocked and locked.
Now anyone with half a brain will tell you that this is a disaster waiting to happen. And it did. Evidently, the thumb safety must have somehow disengaged and the next time he bent over his rather ample belly gave the hammer a slight shove and it fell on a live round. The gentleman in question survived the wound mainly, he believes, because he never used hollow points. The round nose slug went through and through and he was able to summon help in time. A hollow point may well have ended it for him there and then.
Moral of the story? Don’t mess with the piece too much, particularly the trigger setting. Four pounds is the minimum setting for a carry trigger, and I personally feel that’s still too light. Although the same single action trigger means the Colt can be out and shooting in faster time than most double action autos (and with greater accuracy), it’s a serious potential liability if it’s set too light. If you shoot competition, and have your trigger set accordingly, then leave that gun in the safe when you’re prowling the mean streets. A carry gun is simply a different animal. I feel certain this is the main reason the US Armed Forces now issue the Beretta, as opposed to the 1911. A double action trigger pull allows a lot more room for error.
So why do I carry the Gov’t Model if it’s such a finicky old warhorse? The answer is complicated. First of all, the laws in my country have made it next to impossible to license a new firearm. I was in the process of licensing a Glock 21 when the Firearms Control Bill was passed and they subsequently refused that licence (along with 98% of other applicants, it seems). I may never know if the Glock 21 is the ultimate carry gun, although certainly those who profess to know these things would say that particular honour would go to the Glock 19, as the 21 is simply too large. In any event, it’s a moot point now.
My passion for the .45 ACP remains unabated however, and I would always prefer my carry gun to feature that calibre. I have looked at the Glock 30 and even test fired it. It’s a real beauty and would be almost perfect, were it not for that weird over-sized boot on the magazine, which is not ideal on the Glock, where the magazines aren’t exactly a tight fit (there is potential to pinch the hand in the gap between the magazine and gun, not ideal in a carry gun).
So until the law is changed here, which does not seem likely at this point, I will be carrying the Colt Gov’t. Model. I still feel pretty safe with it, despite the discomfort of hauling it around. The combination of my familiarity with the piece, it’s 5 inch barrel and those eight rounds of 230 grain hollow-points feel good to me when I’m venturing out after dark.
Of course, I would be far likely to carry a pistol if my carry gun was a Glock 19, or even a Glock 30, and they say the best weapon is the one you have with you at the time. But without the 2nd Amendment backing us up, we pretty much have to make do with whatever’s in the safe at this moment in time. And the way things look currently, I strongly suspect there will come a time when we’ll be backed up by edged weapons only, if the government continues along this path unchecked, which seems highly likely.
All in all, the Colt 1911 Government Model is a serious weapon, that will not fail you in your moment of need (if its been worked on by a gunsmith who knows what he’s doing). It’s also a classic that has performed well in three major conflicts. As such, it derserves no less than a 4/5.
posted by Mark Crozier at 12:19 AM
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