Colt 1911 in .38 SPECIAl:

Yeah - that's not a typo.. but there always has been some 'cross-over' with various cartridges utilization - pistol rounds in carbines, - rifle rounds in handguns, - 'auto cartridges' in revolvers (- with or without moon clips)..

 - When I first read mention of it I went PHWHAT - but apparently both Clark Custom Guns and Colts themselves made these rare 'conversions' for bulls-eye target shooting - and my reading suggests that these 'target' pistols were successful and accurate.

'Automatic .38 Special Mid Range'. 

These pistols were built to fire rimmed revolver cartridges filled with flat nosed cylindrical WAD-CUTTER bullets moving at around 710 feet per second - while making use of the hopefully crisp 1911 trigger action. - Wash my mouth out with soap but some 1911s do come out of the box with gritty, poor triggers.

.38 Special Magazine Holds Five Rounds.

- These .38" 'specialist' 1911s were made in the 1960/70s  and may still be available from custom makers to take advantage of the .38" Special Cartridge's accuracy potential - while the semi-rimmed .38" Super was reckoned to be less accurate.

The Clark .38" Special guns were built starting with .38" Super barrelled guns and retained the Colt Browning locked breech mechanism (- modified).

- While The Colts pistols were engineered with a (slightly) retarded blow-back system using a floating block.

I'd say that getting the pistols to feed the flat nosed rounds into the chamber would be the really tricky part.. if you can get an auto-pistol to feed wad-cutters you'll get them to feed anything.

- So there you go then, - stranger things have been known to be made to work (Look at 'Desert Eagles!).

Marty K.
After researching & writing 1,036 blogs I've got something NEW to try .. I've signed-up to Patreon. - In over five years I've not made one cent from this .. NOW you can send me a wee support $ - starting from $1. to get all this stuff from New Zealand - over a year that's nearly the price of one Shooting magazine. - Am I worth it?

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