This is very cool. It is a 1911 captured by the Vietcong, then converted to 7.62×25 in some very clever jungle work shop bubba( Nguyen?)gunsmithing. Then, captured by some GI who brought it back as a trophy since Anh didn’t need it anymore.
This is very cool. It is a 1911 captured by the Vietcong, then converted to 7.62×25 in some very clever jungle work shop bubba( Nguyen?)gunsmithing. Then, captured by some GI who brought it back as a trophy since Anh didn’t need it anymore.
Scattered Shots
That looks like a stock barrel with a .45 cal bore, not a 7.62 mm bore. I wonder if you could catch the pills coming out of that thing with your hand.
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If you look at the barrel photo, it almost looks like there is an insert in the barrel, but totally agree that it is/was an original stock barrel that was modified. It would be a fun one to study to figure out how it was done. I’m curious to how well it works.
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I don’t have a 1911 barrel handy to compare, but it doesn’t appear that either the chamber end or the muzzle end were modified for the Tokarev round. Though I am less sure of the chamber end, and of course there is the cutout on the chamber end, presumably because the Tok’s case is so much longer than the 45 ACP’s.
I’d love to get my hands on this thing to inspect it more closely. I can’t imagine that an unmodified chamber would generate enough recoil to cycle the action. Maybe I’ll dig out my 1911 and field strip it so I can eyeball a stock barrel.
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I agree with COtt – it appears (from the limited examination I can make from just pictures) that a barrel liner was soldered into the stock 1911 barrel. I can see the original chamber marking in the 6th photo (from the top) and it appears that the barrel hood and some chamber length was removed from the breech end of the barrel before the 7.62×25 barrel insert was put in there. You can see the joint line in the fourth photo from the top.
The real piece of work was on the magazine well and magazines. The 7.62×25 is a longer cartridge – by over 0.100″ on the OAL.
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Thanks. I see that now on the chamber end. On the muzzle end, does that look like a .45” bore or a .30” bore?
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I’m pretty good at doing those kinds of estimates when I have a gun (or machined object) in hand. I suck at it from pictures. I’d need something I know the measurement of in the picture to use as a reference “rule” to measure other things in the same pic.
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Well, I decided to stop pontificating on the Internet and dig my 1911 out of the safe. The pictured 1911’s bore has *definitely* been sleeved or something to make it 7.62 mm. A .45 caliber bore has way less material around the bore.
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I was wondering about that myself. I don’t have my 1911A1 handy to look, but the front of the magazine frame looked rather thin. Fascinating pistol and to the man that did the work, my hat is off to you sir. Still curious of the functionality of it. Would love to see a video of this firing and a takedown afterwards.
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