Okay, so you’d like to shoot your 1911 Government, but the cost of the manly .45 ACP ammo is eating into your Booze Fund. What to do, what to do…
Well, in the past you could always just buy one of those ACE conversion kits, but they were spendy and anyway, you were too lazy to do all the mechanical work involved in stripping and reassembling. So you just never bothered. Far easier, therefore, just to buy a .22 pistol like a Ruger or Browning. (This paragraph, by the way, describes me perfectly.)
But in fact there are now a couple of alternatives that enable you to shoot cheaply and keep your eye in with your Colt 1911. Here’s one: the Walther-Hammerli 1911:
…or, if you want to take away that long 5″ barrel for a lighter gun, you could go for the Combat Commander-style shortie:
Finally, of course, if that modern “cheese grater” look grates on you [sic], you could always just go for the Walther-Hammerli “Made under Colt license” 1911 model:
And the best part? The above two retail (ATOW) for about $350, and the licensed model costs only forty-odd bucks more.
No need to wait for those winning lottery tickets, in other words.
That matchless Colt 1911 trigger in an affordable .22 LR package: irresistible.
Note: just as a point of interest, Hammerli’s own .22 pistol (called by the romantic name of “X-Esse”) costs well over a grand. Yes, it has a 6″ barrel:
But in the dictionary under “Tack Driver” you’ll find this pic.
Here it is, in its competitive “Sport” iteration:
