M1911a1 vs P08

Witch of them was the best?I shoot with a M1911 regurarly, but i haven't ever touch a Luger. Personaly i think that the P08 will be more accurate due to 9mm luger. What do you think?

 

My impression (before the experts show up) is that the miliary models of the M1911 were more reliable but less accurate than the P08. Once the M1911 has been accuartized I'm not sure that holds anymore and may be as much a function of the shooter and ammo as the pistol.

 

I played around with a P-08 once, never fired it but definitely got the impression from its action that I wouldn't want to. I was a teenager and accidentally nearly broke the toggle just having a fiddle with it. Not sure you could do that with an M1911...

 

I'd rather have a Colt .45 M1911A1, because a side arm's main priority is reliability, I'd want something sturdy that will save my life when all else fails. Although you could say it is not as accurate you would only be using it a last resort any way, I doubt you'd be aiming properly or even be at a range where that slight inaccuracy would matter.

 

Yes, when the 1911 and the P08 were tested by the Ordanance Board here in America, the Luger failed the reliability tests. Those were the "hand made" .45 caliber versions of the Luger which were entered in competition. I believe there were three made in that caliber, one was undoubtedly destroyed in the tests, one is known to exist and is valued at over $1 million, and the wherabouts of the third is (I believe) unknown.

Some of those test were really quite dramatic and horrendous, and one cannot see how anything could have passed them at all. That the ACP did is a testiment to John Brownings design skills.

I once read that of all his autoloading designs, only two share common features, the .30 amd .50 machine guns, all the rest, shotgun, different rifle calibers, and pistols are different. Even the 9mm Hi-Power (which has been around foreve as a design) is different from the .45 ACP. Don't know if this is "gospel" or not, just something I picked up. Could easily be wrong.

 

My understanding is the while the P-08 was accurate it was prone to jamming. I could be wrong.

 

no you're not wrong you're probably right. The luger is an inherently more accurate design than the 45 automatic. On the 45 the barrel and slide move out of position and then back again each time a round is fired. On the luger only the toggle part moves the barrel is fixed to the frame. This makes the luger potentially more accurate. Also the luger has better balance, is a bit lighter, and points more naturally then the 45 auto.

However punching holes in targets on the range, and war are obviously two different environments and if i had the choice i'd take the 45 anytime. The luger was well made, TOO well made, had tight tolerances and little tolerance for dirt and mud. It needed to be cleaned often and throughly or the complicated toggle mechanism would probably jam tight after the first round, if it fired at all. Army issue 45s i have handled on the other hand, seemed to have loose tolerances on the machining (due to ease of stripping the parts) but had fewer parts than a luger and unlike same, would almost always fire. More importantly the 45 round was much more powerful than 9 mm parabellum and more likely to end the encounter quickly.

The German answer to luger reliability problems was to issue a weather -resistant leather holster to help deep dirt and water away from the gun. Lugers were usually intended and issued as either officer or police sidearms anyway and as such their main function was as a badge of rank and a last ditch defense weapon and nothing else - if the owner had to unholster this gun (with a useful range of maybe 40 feet) for real action he was probably in deep trouble anyway!

 

That I would agree with which is why I would also go with an AK 47 vs the M16.

 

Found some of my old files on the Luger 08, and the reasons the .45 caliber was adopted by the US.

The man who pushed the Army into adopting the .45 caliber cartridge was Gen. John T. Thompson, later the father of the Thompson submachine gun (also in .45) as he was a member of the Army Ordnance Board during the time that the M1911 pistol was being developed by John Browning and Colt. After the disastrous showing of the Army's .38 Long Colt pistols in the Philippines against the Moro tribesmen. Gen. Thompson was committed to the idea that the Army should be packing a real man-stopper in its handguns, a big .45 caliber bullet. It was the cartridge tests conducted by Thompson and Major Louis Anatole LaGarde of the Medical Corps in 1904 at the Nelson Morris Company Union Stockyards in Chicago that resulted in the adoption of the .45 caliber as the official U.S. Army handgun cartridge.

They tested various calibers on live cattle and horses at various ranges, and even fired into human cadavers (and autopsied them) to determine the best load. It was discovered by these "cavalry oriented" professionals that a .45 could drop a horse with a "chest shot" at ten paces, none of the lower calibers could do so no matter the speed of the projectile. If a man could "drop" a horse with his pistol, it was assumed by these cavalry men that this would be the weapon of the future. Sure couldn’t hold these kinds of "real life" tests today could ya? The PETA people would go into "vapor lock"! Of course today we have "ballistic gel" to use instead of live horses and cattle.

From these tests it was determined that the .45 was the most effective cartridge for the new handgun. In their report, they state:

"...the Board was of the opinion that a bullet, which will have the shock effect and stopping effect at short ranges necessary for a military pistol or revolver, should have a caliber not less than .45".

In response to the Ordnance Board's specification, Browning, working with Colt, re-designed his .38 auto-loading pistol to fire the .45 ACP. Browning's first loading was a 200 grain bullet running at 900 feet per second, but the Army wanted a larger bullet. Browning responded with the loading we have today, a 230 grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of 830 fps.

According to US Army Ordinance records, a torture test for new automatic pistols was conducted, starting on March 3rd, 1911. The test consisted of having each pistol submitted for evaluation fire 6000 rounds. One hundred shots would be fired and the pistol would be allowed to cool for 5 minutes. After every 1000 rounds, the pistol would be cleaned and oiled. There were a number of "contestants", Luger, Mauser (Broomhandle), Walther, Savage, and of course the Colt .45 ACP.

After firing 6000 rounds, the pistol would be tested with deformed cartridges, some seated too deeply, some not seated enough, etc. Each gun would then be rusted in acid for a day and/or submerged in sand and mud before more 1000 round firing tests would then be conducted.

Only Browning's pistols passed the whole test series, eliminating Luger, Mauser, Walther, Savage, et al.. It was the first automatic firearm to undergo and pass such a test, each single example firing continuously 6000 cartridges in two sessions (for a total of 12,000). This was a record broken only in 1917 when Browning's recoil-operated .30 caliber machine gun fired an unbroken 40,000 rounds test. It was still operating when the Ordinance Board called off the firing test out of boredom.

You might find this of interest:

9mm Luger (9x19)

And there is this:

Charles Kenyon Jr., in his book Lugers At Random states:

The serial number of the example shown [on page 111] is "2", number "1" having been used in the actual test, while number "2" was for "back up". U. S. Army records of the test program indicate that pistol number "1" was subjected to severe use and abuse in the course of the tests. To date, serial number "1" has not been located and is thought by many collectors to have been discarded after the tests were completed. (p.110)

Here is a quote from THE LUGER STORY by John Walter:

"Though the progress of the American trials is well documented, controversy still surrounds the .45 Lugers. Work apparently began in the late summer of 1906, when 5000 cartridges were sent to Luger from Frankford Arsenal. The pistols were completed late in February 1907, two of them arriving at Springfield Armory some time prior to 28th March. One gun, believed to have been no. 1, was put through the trials whilst no. 2 was retained for examination. The latter still exists, thought he fate of its companion is unknown. (p.118)

I still think the Luger has a "great look", I once owned a Ruger Mark 1 semi-auto in .22 LR. It was sweetheart. I bought it new for less than forty bucks when I was in HS in the sixties, and sold it to a buddy when I went into the Navy. I charged him sixty and thought I got the better end of the deal. Wish I had it back!

 

I've also heard that the Luger can be temperamental about it's ammo. This may be due to wider ranges of 9mm loads. My understanding is smg ammo shouldn't be used in pistols for instance. Not sure if this dates back to WWII or not. Some where I read or heard however that Lugers of different ages seemed to like different ammo.

 

any idea why the m16 is more widely accepted than the ak 47?

 

The luger was an decent accurate gun which was expensive to make, that is why the Germans went over to the cheaper Walther P38. What do I think? The Luger could outshoot a Colt anyday on a range but in combat everything is a variable.

 

I am not very sure. Colt M1911s can be quite accurate, but who knows? The performance of this gun is very dependable on how well it is assembled. A Royal Para who later wrote a book on WWII small arms had high praise for the M1911 and P-38 and said the latter was superior to the Luger in every way.

 

I believe that the Americans had the double shot technique in the second world war. Is that correct?What was the German technique? Because if you try to compare two weapons in the battle, you have to compare the usage. For example, is quite difficult to shot accurate using that technique with the M1911 but with 9mm pistol, like Glock, is very easy.
My grandfather, who fought in the second world war and in the resistance, was saying that it was a very accurate pistol which save his life many times wearon but you must clean it regularly...
I don't think that the luger was only for decoration...
But in combat, i prefer accurate fire than firepower...With a Glock i would achieve accurate shots at 30-50 meters distance. With a Μ1911, i don't think it will be that easy.
How luger's scopes looked like?
PzJgr, i prefer M16 than G3 but i don't know about AK.

 

Accuracy. It was found that the M-16 excelled at hitting targets long distance whereas the AK-47 was better in close range fire fights because of the larger caliber bullets used. Accuracy was not so much a factor as the rate of fire and impact.

 

I remember reading, on another forum, a post by an individual who in Vietnam got engaged in a short range fire fight (~10 feet as I recall) where his opponent was armed with an AK-47. He was/is pretty much a crack shot and is still surprised that he almost emptied the magazine on his 1911 before getting a hit. He has also mentioned that he is still surprised he survived the encounter (he did take a bullet to the shoulder).

The US did late in the war tend to replace pistols with M-1 carbines or M-3 grease guns for those who might need to actually fire an individual weapon.

 

What, exactly, is "the double shot technique"?

When I was trained in shooting the 1911A1 pistol (in the 1960's), the instructors simply taught us proper hold, aim, and trigger techniques and how to properly strip, clean, and maintain the pistol. No mention was ever made of any "double shot technique", and at least a few of the instructors learned their trade in WW II. What makes it any more difficult to shoot the 1911A1, but makes it "easy" to shoot the 9 MM pistols? And don't tell me recoil or "muzzle flip", as that is just a matter of practice.

How much actual combat pistol experience have you had?

"Accurate" shots at "30-50 meters" with a Glock, which is inherently no more accurate than the 1911A1, would certainly be a rarity and would require a highly trained pistol marksman. I have, on occasion, seen an extremely accomplished pistol marksman make long range shots with the 1911A1, some as far out as 35-40 yards, but never at 50 meters with any combat pistol. The vast majority of trained pistol shooters struggle to consistently hit a man-sized target at half that distance, say 15-25 yards.

In any case, this thread is a comparison between the 1911A1 military pistol and the P08 pistol, not the 1911A1 and the Glock, which was designed something like 70 years after Browning's master-piece. Incidentally, statistics of actual shootings show there is no comparison between the knockdown power of the standard .45 ACP military ball round and the standard military ball round of the 9 MM pistol.

 

Hey DA, I think he means the "double tap" which is the more common style with the 9mm and such. The police here in America are always talking about how a "double tap" (two shots in quick succession) are the very least where a 9mm is effective. I think that is what is being referred to here anyway.

 

In Osprey's book about US parachute troop units and tactics, I was very surprised to see that the standard sidearm for all non-riflemen (machinegunners, mortarmen, etc.) to not be the 1911 colt, but rather the M1 carbine!

They did not show this in HBO's Band of brothers!

In contrast, in German parachute units all troopers carried the P-38 sidearm.

 

You are probably correct; however, I have never heard of any "double shot" or "double tap" technique being taught to users of military pistols, especially during WW II.

The "double tap" method, on the other hand is something that is always being advocated in articles on "combat handgun shooting" in magazines here. It consists of targeting the opponent's "center of mass" (i.e. torso) with the first shot and following up very quickly with a second shot to the opponent's head.

This method began to become popular with police officers in the 1970's when large capacity 9 MM autos became the standard issue weapon of most police departments. They did not have any confidence that the 9 MM round could produce a "single shot stop" when aimed at the torso, yet making a head shot at more than a few feet was problematical with any pistol, so the first shot was aimed at the torso and a second one at the head hoping for a lucky hit. The logic of this strategy received a boost when body armor became available to the public and some criminals used it in shootouts with police.