Presumably an attempt to reduce the cost to manufacture the iconic handgun.

This one is also on display at the Springfield National Armory Historical Site.

  • FireTower@lemmy.worldOPM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 year ago

    My guess is it was the same idea as the Liberator (conveniently in the bottom left). A cheap gun that could be dropped in occupied cities to arm partisan fighters with something they could use to get a rifle.

    The Liberator wasn’t a very good pistol and was single shot. The stamped 1911 might have been an attempt at practicing the ideas behind the Liberator in a semi automatic handgun.

    We made ~1 million Liberators but turns out the hard part about arming partisans isn’t making the guns, but getting them to them. I believe most of them never left out hands. Probably a factor in the death of the stamped 1911 program.

    • SSTF@lemmy.worldM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      Believe that zero Liberators were ever airdropped as originally intended. Not because it was too difficult but because it was a waste of a bomber mission.

      I’m not arguing with you, just thinking out loud why and how this handgun idea ever materialized into more than a paper suggestion.

      • FireTower@lemmy.worldOPM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, it was definitely a ‘good on paper’ type idea. The only other possible explanation I can think of is export sales to poorer countries.