1911 in .455 British

[Brian Dick]

JM, I'm not sure the extractors are different. I'll have to check. The barrels differ in that they are reamed a bit bigger and have a step in the hood, correct proofs, etc. Back in the 1950's when most of the ones in the USA were imported, they were converted before resale by changing the barrel and magazine. I had two spare barrels. One went into the pistol referenced above and the other to Fultons in England.

[Claven2]

I finally got around to taking some quick snaps of my example. It's an RAF-issued gun, which I'm assuming was refinished in service between the wars (given it doesn't have a high-lustre blue like some of the vet bring back WW1 .455 1911's have). It's got a rack number (14) stamped into the MSH. RAF marked. Otherwise, a typical W-series .455 Colt. This one has the original barrel (proof marked from when it was sold out of service) and the original correct magazine. I believe it's not a bring back, but rather a gun sold to the trade after it became obsolete, or I suppose it could be a privately owned gun that got proofed in the UK during an ownership transfer back in the day. Who knows?

Also, I notice on mine and the other examples of RAF 1911's I've seen, the blue job looks to have been done over a light bead or soda blast, or is alternately a rust blue where the scale was left on a little longer than on high-gloss commercial guns, giving it a matte appearance. I originally though it was caustic blued, but once cleaned up, and in good light, I think it's rust blued. The safety and slide stop are high-gloss blued and don't look to have been refinished near as I can tell.

[Brian Dick]

The extractor is a bit different. A standard .45 ACP one can be slightly opened up to work with a file.

[Mk VII]

You have to change the ejector as well.

[xSentinel]

From what I have read that is exactly what a lot of returning GI's did. Just swap out barrel and magazines and go 45 acp. But after reading the above post about extractors I don't know if that is different or not.
I have never tried it worth mine. I keep mine exactly as is and I won't shoot it unless I find some .455 ammo. So probably never I have plenty of other 1911's to shoot.

[Claven2]

From what I have read that is exactly what a lot of returning GI's did. Just swap out barrel and magazines and go 45 acp. But after reading the above post about extractors I don't know if that is different or not.
I have never tried it worth mine. I keep mine exactly as is and I won't shoot it unless I find some .455 ammo. So probably never I have plenty of other 1911's to shoot.

FWIW, I'm not convinced there were a "lot of returning GI's" coming back to the States with .455 1911's. That would have been a really rare occurrence. More likely is that a bunch of US owners bought .455 guns when they were surplused by the brits in the years after WW2 (like my example) where the barrels and mags were swapped to deal with a local lack of .455 Auto ammo. The brits, when surplussing them, proof marked them on the barrel and if you swap that part, the provenance of the gun being sold out of service is lost and it looks like a "vet bring back".

[xSentinel]

Just to make sure I understand you correctly ... so you're saying that if the barrel has a proof mark then it is a gun that was surplused by the Brits after WW2 and if it does not have a proof mark then it is a military gun either brought back by an American or British vet?
If that is what you are saying then I don't understand why someone would want to change the barrel to make one look like the other. Why would one be more valuable than the other? In my opinion it would seem that the collector value or "coolness" factor is that these guns were used in WW1 and WW2. How they got to the states afterward does not seem that important to me at least. Whether a vet brought it back in his bag in 1945 or the UK gov't sent them here and that same vet bought it in a gun store in 1946 it is still the same gun and was still physically used in 2 world wars.

To me at least having the original barrel is an indicator that the gun was more likely to have never been converted to .45 ACP which I think is a good thing, but only because that was the original configuration and as such is more original and more complete.

[Brian Dick]

I think what Claven is saying is that ALL military weapons surplused from British service had to go through the commercial proof house, (they still do), before being sold off. My uneducated guess is the same as his. The vast majority of these pistols came to the USA via companies like Interarms in the 1950's. They were changed to .45ACP to make them more salable on the USA market because of the uncommon caliber. Simple as that.

[browningautorifle]

Same thing happened with many .455 revolvers, they were altered to take .45 auto in clips to make them more attractive to the US market.

[xSentinel]

I think what Claven is saying is that ALL military weapons surplused from British service had to go through the commercial proof house, (they still do), before being sold off. My uneducated guess is the same as his. The vast majority of these pistols came to the USA via companies like Interarms in the 1950's. They were changed to .45ACP to make them more salable on the USA market because of the uncommon caliber. Simple as that.

Right. That makes sense. But this one has a .455 barrel; not a .45 ACP. Unless I am mistaken Claven was saying that some people that had these with the proof stamped .455 barrels that indicate that they were likely bought on the commercial market and likely not brought home in a vets bag, changed the .455 barrel with the proof mark to a .455 that does not have a proof mark to make it look like it came home with a returning vet.

If so then I am just wondering why someone would do that? What is the benefit of changing the proof marked barrel to a non-proofed one? Especially when any .455 original barrel is so hard to find. It sounds like a very expensive switch and I see no gain.

Unless I am just not understanding his post. If so please forgive my ignorance.