Why No More .45 ACP 2011s?

[Gun1]

Lately it seems thst all of the double stake .45 ACP 2011s have been discontinued, but they are now offering a double stack 2011 but only in 9mm? Why the sudden change?

[benjamin101677]

What 1911 is offered or had been offered in 45 double stack??

[simonp]

[tabascoz28]

Medium hands here and I don't even like my 1911.

[rodralig]

What 1911 is offered or had been offered in 45 double stack??

Armscor Tac Ultra FS HS is one that I am aware of

https://www.armscor.com/firearms/ria/tac-series/tac-ultra-fs-hc-45-acp/

_

[Scotty]

45 2011 were never that popular. 2011 were created for the competition market. If you were shooting Limited, it was built in 40. Open was 38 Super and now 9 mm Major.

[Monkeywrench]

What 1911 is offered or had been offered in 45 double stack??

Para Ordnance 14-45

[IVC]

45 2011 were never that popular. 2011 were created for the competition market. If you were shooting Limited, it was built in 40. Open was 38 Super and now 9 mm Major.

^^^ This.

The 2011 was designed as a modular pistol for competition. The frame is just a steel bar with no grip, grooves for slide and groove and mounting holes for standardized, but modular grips.

Limited division has a minimum caliber requirement of 0.400" for "major" (beneficial scoring if round is more powerful) and magazine has a maximum length of 141.25mm (this is one difference from IPSC). With no round capacity limit, the idea is to have as many rounds as possible. So, everyone shoots .40S&W to get the most rounds into the magazine. The standard "141 magazine" will hold 20 rounds if thin followers are used (no slide lock capability, really pushing the limit) and most of those will be "reloadable" (there is enough give after the 20th round is loaded so that the magazine can be inserted when the slide is in battery). If not reloadable, or to avoid any potential issue, many competitors will "download" by a round and load one less. If standard followers are used, the capacity is reduced by one.

Since USPSA courses are up to 32 rounds long, having a 20 round magazine allows for a single magazine change per course (or no change if the course is shorter) with a room to spare. Actually, it's more important to have the ability to create a stage plan where you change the magazine anywhere between 12th and 20th round, so you can pick the point where there is most movement between arrays to schedule your reload and not lose any time.

Imagine that you use .45 caliber instead. We are talking about significantly fatter round that would lower the magazine capacity to around 13-14. That puts you below the 16 threshold which allows you to clear two 8-round arrays before the reload. It also forces an extra reload per stage, which complicates the plan quite a bit.

The Open division has no caliber limit, so the overall "9mm minimum" applies. Open also allows longer magazines, 171.25mm. When you combine the skinniest round, the 9mm/38 Super/38 SuperComp, with the long stick, you get 28 rounds in the magazine, enough for all but the longest stages without reloads. The problem in Open is actually that vanilla 9mm cannot make the "major" power factor, so that's where the other calibers kick in and that's why "9 major" was invented (availability of brass).

[Gun1]

So a 2011 is not meant to be a combat firearm? I always thought of ut as the modernization of the 1911, which was once a combat pistol and an excellent one at that, so I always thought of the 2011 as a modern combat version of the 1911.

[Scotty]

Sandy Strayer and Virgil Tripp share the patent. The two formed STI. Strayer left to form SV with the late Mike Voight (USPSA President for a long time). Tripp left to form Tripp Research. STI later became Stacatto.

STI and SV both primarily was marketed towards competition guns and dominated USPSA Limited and Open divisions for the last almost 30 years.

There were some other double stack 1911's during the same era, Caspian and Para Ordnance. Caspian was also mostly competition oriented. Para was the only mass market double stack gun.

It's not till the Obama era when other companies started making double stack 1911's.

[buggsb]

So a 2011 is not meant to be a combat firearm? I always thought of ut as the modernization of the 1911, which was once a combat pistol and an excellent one at that, so I always thought of the 2011 as a modern combat version of the 1911.

[SunsetIE]

False. Atlas pistols are available, just have to know where.

[sbo80]

STI had the "tactical" 4.0/5.0 guns for a while, seemed targeted to Law Enforcement. But if they never picked up any large contracts, the volume was probably fairly low, compared to the competition oriented sales. So I can see how it was dropped. And officers who have a pistol as primary weapon probably still favor the capacity of .40 or 9mm. A SWAT guy whose pistol is secondary, might pick .45, but that's a small market. Double stack 2011s are not small guns, and make poor carry options for a lot of people if you have to conceal, so there just aren't that many people wanting one for that purpose, in any caliber. As IVC pointed out, in none of the competition sports, is .45 an advantage. It's always a disadvantage. Some divisions in some sports have mag capacity limits (Compact Carry in IDPA for example), so there the disadvantage is simply the recoil. But since it's a capacity limit, there's also not really an advantage for a high-cost double-stack gun, and you might as well shoot a Glock or commander frame 1911 (of which there are many high-end models if your wallet can tolerate).

[Verdha603]

So a 2011 is not meant to be a combat firearm? I always thought of ut as the modernization of the 1911, which was once a combat pistol and an excellent one at that, so I always thought of the 2011 as a modern combat version of the 1911.

To my knowledge no military organization uses the 2011 design; the original market for the 2011/double-stack 1911 was a mixture of competition shooters and law enforcement, with more adoption by the competition shooting crowd than LE. Another factor to consider is to put it bluntly, 1911's advocates tend to be a rather conservative bunch, so pushing for anything "new", including the 2011 design, has always been met with a degree of pushback.

As for a "modern combat 1911", the closest your going to find to that are the M45A1's that just got retired out of MARSOC service two or three years ago, with the rumor mill stating many are still in USSOCOM inventory; but at the end of the day it's literally a modernized 1911, not a 2011.

[Snoopy47]

So a 2011 is not meant to be a combat firearm? I always thought of ut as the modernization of the 1911, which was once a combat pistol and an excellent one at that, so I always thought of the 2011 as a modern combat version of the 1911.

The fire control design of the 1911 is phenomenal. So without a better ignition system in other platforms competitors are motivated toward using that platform within the limits of the rules.

As already pointed out, it comes down to meeting the rules of the game, and that is capacity, and power factor. The 2011 does that best, but it does it best in a caliber smaller than 45ACP.

*****
How good is the 1911 ignition system???????

It's so good that it has been excluded from PRODUCTION divisions. Single action pistols are not allowed in "Production". Production means more modern polymer, striker, and DA/SA designs. Not SA only.

*****

A 2011 is the optimal ignition system shoehorned into competition shooting rules.