Nostalgia

As one would expect when you work in the firearms industry, a lot of our office banter is about guns. The other day the Colt 1903 Pocket Hammerless pistol came up. Being the resident old guy in the office, I chimed in that I had one made in 1920. My boss asked, “How long did they make those?” They were made until about the end of the Second World War (1945 specifically). I also added that Colt had re-introduced the 1903 under license with USA ARMAMENT CORP just a few years ago, in 2015. These old guns were a mainstay of gangster and police movies of the 1940s and 1950s, including being a favorite of Humphry Bogart in the...

A couple of weeks ago, Galco received a SIG-Sauer M17 for holster fit testing. As I’m sure almost everyone reading this knows, the M17 was selected as the Army’s new service pistol. As an old – I just turned 47 – Army vet, this got me to reminiscing a little.   My first exposure to military pistols was on a National Guard firing range when I was maybe 10 years old. My father, and company commander of a Military Police unit at the time, brought my sister and me to the pistol range on a Guard camp in, if memory serves, Massachusetts. There I first fired a Guardsman’s S&W Model 41, a fine target...

For those who read my first blog post, thank you. In the interest of continuity, let’s ignore Leo in the peanut gallery and keep to the theme of classic, but not necessarily vintage, firearms. With the advent of new polymer technology and the explosive proliferation of different modern “plastic fantastic” handguns, many of us old timers retreat to our safe space (the gun room) and fondle our solid steel and metal-framed guns. The all-time champion and American favorite – the famed 1911 – comes readily to mind. But I’m not going to go into its storied past or wax affectionate about its inventor, John...