Many of you are familiar with the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) firearm sales programs for M1 Garands and Model 1911A1 pistols. I missed out on round one and round two of Model 1911A1 pistol sales when they were done. So, when round three of M1911A1 sales was announced in September of 2022, I jumped in. Cutoff for round three of sales was initially set at September 30, 2022.
When I initially researched round three, I noticed that the CMP had four categories of pistols available. They were:
- Service grade – $1250
- Field grade- $1150
- Rack grade- $1050
- Range grade- $1100
- Auction grade
I wasn’t sure what grade that I wanted so I started researching what pistols from each of the grades looked like by looking at images in groups on Facebook and pistols listed for sale on Gun Broker. A couple of Facebook groups were worth their weight in gold as they provided me detailed information. Once I saw the first four or five ‘Range Grade’ pistols, I had a feeling many of these guns were going to be special.
Going back to at least the period of ‘Operation Eagle Claw’ in April 1980, there has been discussion of modifications to Model 1911A1 pistols for modern day special operations use. I became vaguely familiar with the features of some of the ‘modern’ special operations M1911A1 pistols after getting the excellent Vickers Guide 1911 Volume 1 Second Edition. There are several pages of photos in the book that show Delta Force modified M1911A1’s.
On YouTube, Larry Vickers has a video that discusses Delta Force 1911 modifications. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NETedj13ZA0
After seeing just a few photos of Range Grade pistols guys were getting, it was obvious that these pistols were ‘special’ based on the visible modifications. So, I thought I would roll the dice, sign up for a CMP M1911A1’s purchase and select range grade if it was offered when I got contacted by the CMP.
I submitted my purchase packet to the CMP on September 29th, 2022. On February 9th, 2023, I picked up my CMP round 3 ‘Range Grade’ M1911A1. Overall, I am extremely happy with it.
Here are pistol features from research that I have conducted:
* Remington Rand National Match frame
* Caspian slide
* Bar Sto barrel- serial numbered to the frame
* Videki trigger
* Ed Brown hammer
* fitted safety
* extended safety
* GI grips
I photographed all of the production marks that I could find. If there is something that I should look for that isn’t shown, let me know.
Being curious about the service history of the pistol, I submitted a FOIA request. The FOIA response received was very disappointing and very generic.
Many online conversations from people in the industry and the firearms community has shown a significant belief that this pistol resided in Delta Force sometime between 1991 and the time it was received in Maryland in 1998 based on its features and modifications. An interesting comment that I received on my Instagram page came from a guy that mentioned INSCOM was the receiving agency for weapons going into units like Delta Force.
Unfortunately, all I can do is speculate about the history of this pistol before the FOIA’s first public entry dated July 2, 1998 shown above. Having said that, I feel like this pistol was a smoking deal for $1100 and will undoubtedly go up in value. I’m excited to have a 1911A1 in my collection with documented military provenance.
Scattered Shots 
When CMP opened up Round 4 for previous purchasers (I got a mostly original but worn Colt in Round 1), I too rolled the dice for a Range Grade and received:
Remington Rand frame and slide with the usual FJA and faint Ordnance “wheel” that you’d expect. None of the usual rebuild marks anywhere. However, the left hand side of the frame is stamped just in front of the slide stop with what kinda looks like a faintly stamped bird and BH. I haven’t been able to find those in any list of US marks or rebuild facilities.
Rubber Lasergrips with dead battery. With new battery, the red dot is about a foot to the right of sight picture at about 12 feet and I haven’t tried sorting that out yet. The activation buttons are on the side of the grips, not the wrap-around front and cover for the left hand button shows a lot of wear and tear where a right handed shooter has pressed it down often. It’s basically a hanging flap.
Long, unmarked aluminum non-adjustable trigger.
Extended thumb safety, left hand side only, unmarked.
Unmarked night sights with dead vials front and rear. Front is staked and brazed in place and rear did not require any modifications to the slide to fit up.
TZ barrel marked .45 AUTO over 7791193 over 85.
Barrel bushing, grip safety and mainspring housing are all GI parts, the MS housing appears to be Colt and has the rack number of 9 in light green paint. The lanyard ring has taken a good hit and gotten bent forward, but I’m not fixin’ it.
Lots of finish wear. It’s been someplace and done something but no telling what. I haven’t gotten around to a FOIA yet and don’t expect much more than what you got, but it certainly wasn’t a NM gun that got modified and it certainly didn’t get those mods in “big army” use.
Near new USGI replacement magazine and I bet CMP put that in themselves.
I put one magazine of hardball thru the gun and it runs 100%. All in all, I think I got my money’s worth and would roll the dice again if presented with the opportunity.
By the way, time from CMP calling me for payment and my FFL receiving the gun was three days. Lighting fast, for CMP.
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