Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com, I'm Ian McCollum
and I'm here today at the Rock Island auction company, taking a look at a Gun Crafter Industries Model One.
This is a high-end, custom 1911 chambered for the proprietary 50 GI cartridge,
and so this is in many ways,
literally made for the people who say I carry a 45 because they don't make up 46. Well, this is a
50, but it's not quite the typical 50 that most people think of when they think of 50.
So let's take a closer look at the gun and let me describe
why they brought this out, where it comes from, and what the purpose was.
Gun Crafter Industries, the company was created by a guy named Alex Zimmerman, who was actually a
Danish immigrant to the US or is a Danish immigrant to the US, grew up in Denmark,
trying to be a serious competitive pistol shooter, but having a lot of trouble with Denmark's gun control laws, and [he was]
shooting a bunch in the US and ultimately he decided that firearms were what he really wanted to do,
and he packed up everything he had in Denmark moved to the US and went to work for Wilson Combat.
He worked for them for about eight years and then left in 2002 to create this company, and in 2004 at SHOT Show
they introduced the Model One, 50 GI pistol.
So this is a Model One. There are five different patterns of this pistol that they currently make
The Model One is a standard 1911 and then there is a Model Two that has a full-length rail on it,
Three is a short barrel, four and a quarter inch instead of five, model four is a six inch long slide and Model Five
is a shortened barrel and a shortened grip, so kind of the whole package variety of
1911 sizes
now, of course the big deal here is that this is 50 caliber and apparently this was sort of a youthful ambition of
Zimmerman's to create, and that kind of makes sense because
emotionally, that's why this is so appealing to people.
Here's a standard 1911 in
45 and the 50 GI pattern
The idea here
however, was not create another one of these huge Magnum calibers like
the the 50 Action Express or the 45 Win-Mag.
The idea was to maintain the same chamber pressure and the same recoil and the same basic firearm handling,
but to have a larger bore diameter. And this is based on the idea that a
larger diameter bullet is going to be more effective.
Now that is a subject for very contentious debate, because one of the things that we have seen in
You know, the recent couple of decades is the nine millimeter cartridge being basically accepted as every bit as effective as 45,
primarily based on bullet construction, and the idea that with a properly constructed bullet 9 millimeter actually gives one a
substantially increased magazine capacity with
individual performance of the cartridges being basically the same and thus being superior in practical terms to a 45.
Well
this takes the opposite approach, the 50 GI cartridge is
based on the idea that a larger bullet is going to be more effective, and thus even though you take a reduced capacity:
Standard magazines for these will hold seven rounds
Even though you take that reduce capacity you're better off because the bullet is going to be more effective.
Now what concerns me about this argument from a practical, well from a factual point of view, Is that bullet
effectiveness is largely based on
hollow-point performance, how well a hollow-point actually opens up
when it hits something, and that is based on a lot of R&D and development and so for example
The nine-millimeter hollow points we have today are very highly developed
designs, there's a lot of science that goes into making those things. The hollow points that are available for this guy are,
well, there's only there are only two patterns at two different bullet weights and they can't have gone through all that much design iteration because
they're proprietary to this gun. They just haven't been around long enough.
so
What concerns me about trying to judge this argument is,
are the bullets for one of these really going to be all that effective. They're probably just
going on the fact that this hasn't been around very long. The bullets are probably actually going to be less effective as hollow-points than
well-developed nine millimeters. Now a little bit about the ballistics here,
they make ammunition loadings from 185 grain up to 300 grain
The 185 is a big open hollow-point at 1,200 feet per second,
then the high end is a 300 grain solid bullet
which is
loaded by the factory at
700 feet per second. That maintains the same basic pressure as 45 ACP. I haven't shot one myself
but it apparently shoots just like a 45 ACP and it gives you a large,r but slightly slower,
projectile so think of this is kind of like the 455 Webley
idea.
The the cartridge itself, unfortunately, I don't have one here to show you but
the cartridge design is a rebated rim,
so the case head is identical to 45 ACP,
which means the slide pad, the slide design on the gun doesn't have to change at all to accommodate the larger cartridge
and Gun Crafter does actually make a 45 caliber barrel that you can drop into these to,
well, kind of remove all the purpose of having bought a 50 caliber 1911 in the first place.
Just for comparison's sake here's a 50 GI magazine and a standard 45 1911 magazine.
The GI one is not really any longer, maybe a tiny bit longer. It is definitely a wider magazine though.
And again,
you get one round more capacity in a 1911 magazine, even with this extra base plate on here.
The 50 caliber magazine is limited to seven cartridges.
There's not a whole lot for me to say mechanically about the gun because this is basically just a custom 1911.
They did go with a bushingless barrel. And of course barrel is larger than standard.
Solid guide rod, that's kind of about it.
There are the whole usual assortment of custom features that one can order on these guns. They are custom made guns. So there isn't a
stocking
Inventory of these things that you can buy. If you want to just go out and have one tomorrow you have to go through,
you have to buy a used one or one at auction like this.
At the time of filming I took a look at Gun Crafters website and their lead time was 18 to 22 weeks for a new production one.
Just a couple markings here. I will say I'm actually a fan of a very simplistic and minimalistic slide marking.
It's just model
number one, that would obviously be two/three/four/five if you got one of the other patterns and
there's nothing at all on the other side of the slide,
it's kind of nice to have that blank instead of being covered with patent numbers and warning labels.
As with so many things I believe once you understand the whole story here,
I think there's more to think about than most people would have expected at the beginning,
this is much more of a nuanced question of is this a good thing or
is it not, and as usual some people are going to come down on each side of the issue,
some people are going to absolutely love this idea,
and some people are going to think it's the dumbest thing ever.
but either way it is a
beautifully made handgun. If you'd like to have it yourself it is of course coming up for sale here at Rock Island.
Take a look at the description text below and you'll find a link to ForgottenWeapons.com and from there
you can click on over to Rock Island's catalog page, take a look at their pictures, description, price estimate, all
that sort of stuff on this pistol. Thanks for watching