|
Honey, I Shrunk the 1911!!! While 1911s have been downsized before, none had been manufactured for the mass market. Until now.
The popularity of the 1911 pistol—standard military sidearm of two world wars, the Korean “police action,” the Vietnam conflict, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—has outlived every effort to relegate it to the dust bins of history. The simplicity of John Browning’s invention, probably the most well-known of all his designs, incorporated the short recoil principle with an operating system that became the pre-eminent type of the 20th century and of nearly all modern pistols. The short recoil action dominates the world of centerfire automatic pistols, being found on nearly all of 9 x 19 mm or greater caliber. Short recoil operation differs from long recoil operation in that the barrel and bolt recoil only a short distance before they unlock and separate. The barrel stops quickly, and the bolt continues rearwards, compressing the recoil spring and performing the other actions of cycling. During the last portion of its forward travel, the bolt locks into the barrel and pushes the barrel back into battery. Recoil operation is an operating mechanism used in locked-breech, autoloading firearms. As the name implies, these actions use the force of recoil to provide energy to cycle the action.
It was from the fertile imagination of Springfield Armory designer Dave Williams that a compact .bmp "Image") version of the fabled 1911 sprang. A competition shooter, Williams, and Springfield’s marketing team fantasized that such a gun could tap the burgeoning concealed carry market. Where most small pistols could be sized to fit concealed in small areas of the body or in containment vehicles including pockets and purses because they were striker-fired, the Springfield team’s challenge was to downsize such a small 1911, with its various appendages and magazine shrinkage, without sacrificing design simplicity, magazine capacity, or accuracy in a non-polymer gun that was recoil-comfortable, and with maximum safety for the shooter. While 1911s have been downsized before, mostly by wildcatter gunsmiths, none had been manufactured for the mass market, largely because of retooling cost and both design and manufacturing difficulty. Until now.
Beginning not with a gun that fired the common .45 caliber cartridges or other variationsthat required greater strength in a larger size frame to handle recoil (and, thus, become unwieldy as a concealed carry weapon) Springfield, instead, made the gun to accommodate the cartridge. Thus, the smaller 9mm became the foundation for the new Springfield Enhanced Micro Pistol (EMP). Built from the ground, up, the EMP inaugurated a whole new class of pistol, the short-action 1911. Already in production or in the design room are EMPs in .40 S&W and.45 GAP. Like many other firearms industry products that have gone upscale in recent years, performance is the key needed to attract, not just CCW permittees, but even competition shooters responding to new shooting classes that focus on self-defense guns.
But how does it shoot? At 25 yards, right out-of-the box from our own non-competition efforts are revealed in the target shown on this page; the 9-ring first shot followed by the next three in the 10-ring. To accomplish all this required not just building a new gun, but manufacturing  smaller parts identical, except in size, to a standard 1911: slimmer grip and 9+1 9mm magazine, slide and frame to accommodate the stainless steel 3-inch match grade micro barrel. Sights are Tritium three-dot fixed, low profile combat rear and dovetail front. Grips are thinline Cocobolo hardwood. Height of the EMP is 5-inches, overall length is 6.5-inches.Weight is 26 ounces with an empty magazine. Truly a one-of-a-kind pistol, the EMP may well be—in power, capacity, weight, size, and performance, the ultimate in concealed carry. And it’s a beauty, to boot.
Bob Rogers, Editor in Chief
Shooting Sports Retailer
January 2008
|
.jpg "Image"){kind=small}
Fiocchi's Extrema .32 Auto XTPTM is a Top Performer for Self Defense
