Iver Johnson 1911A1 Carbine

I have written a number of books on the 1911 and it is by far my favorite handgun. I know how to use and maintain a 1911 and any problem I run across is like an old friend in anew dress. On the other hand, I sometimes wonder why makers cannot seem to get the 1911 right after over a century! I have a number of proven firearms I bet my life on. There are also quite a few that are just fun guns that do not require a task to fulfill. The Iver Johnson 1911A1 Carbine is one of the latter.

However, coming across a 1911 that wasn’t a handgun piqued my interest. There are plenty of precedents in history for shoulder-stocked handguns. The type seemed ideal for mounted troops to dismount and fight with. Sure, it wasn’t a rifle but it was better than trying to fight a fast moving battle with along gun on horseback or hoping a stored rifle was still in the scabbard. Stocked revolvers for cavalry later morphed into stocked selfloading pistols.

It’s important to point out the problems with legal issues this has posed since the 1934 National Firearms Act was enacted. Due to this, you cannot simply mount a stock on a pistol, although there have been attempts at non-fixed braces. Generally speaking, you cannot legally shoulder stock a pistol. For the most part we should have a pistol in a holster and a rifle in a sling, but then this Iver Johnson is a fun gun. As for stocks, hinged types and slots and connectors were used.

A shoulder stocked pistol with along barrel, however, becomes a carbine, kind of like the Taurus Circuit Judge. Just the same, the Judge is more permanent being along barrel revolver. For this reason, do not change the configuration of the Iver Johnson 1911A1 Carbine. It comes dismounted with the stock on one side of the shipping box, so that seems all right, but once the carbine was put together in the shop and I filled the papers out I have not dismounted it.

So what we have is a simple wood plank extension with a connector from the stock to the mainspring housing. This is actually a neat trick and one that was outlawed for use with pistols since the 1934 NFA. Suppressors, fully automatic firearms, Short-Barreled Shotguns, and Destructive Devices were also proscribed, at least without a ton of Federal paperwork and a tax. A shoulder stocked pistol is a Short- Barreled Rifle and also demands a tax stamp and paper work.

And it isn’t worth the trouble in my estimation if this piece is any example. The Iver Johnson 1911A1 Carbine features a 16.25 inch barrel. So, in There is no difficulty.

Just the same, it should not be roughly handled. keeping this assembled you have a carbine, not a Short-Barreled Rifle, and the seller can check the rifle box on your paperwork with no additional BATFE requirements. Iver Johnson Makeup This Iver Johnson firearm is a rebranded SAM. Shooters Arms Manufacturing of the Philippines makes close copies of the GI 1911. The pistols feature a cast frame and forged slides. In general, my impression is that their 1911 firearms are not quite up to the Rock Island Armory brand.

On the other hand, a friend of considerable experience has the opposite opinion and I changed my view of the piece as the testing and work progressed. The firearm component of the carbine is a GI-type 1911A1. This means small sights and controls. The grips, however, are nicely checkered. The sights are not true to the GI type, and this is all to the good. They are at least as tall as the Colt Government Model Series 80 or Springfield Mil Spec. I applaud this decision.

Small sights are true to the GI but should be larger, so no harm there. The trigger action isn’t bad and perhaps above average at a 4.9 pound compression on the Lyman registering trigger pull gauge. There was no creep or grit at all in the action. As for the finish, I have to admit it is a bit above the average Rock Island in my gun safe. There are no runs, no buffer marks, no tool marks. Should one of these carbines come into your shop there are several things to know.

The warning on not fitting another barrel is first and foremost. Don’t monkey with

it! There are serious penalties. Second, understand the differences between this gun and a GI gun. The 16.25 inch barrel is most noticeable difference and features the standard swinging link that was a design point of the 1911. I cannot imagine the difficulty the engineers had in designing a working pistol that would feed and cycle with the extra weight of a 16.25 inch barrel Bottom: The carbine failed to feed properly, however, after a minimal feed ramp polish the problems were cured. hanging off of the muzzle.

The issues in lock time and cycle must have been extraordinary. Just consider the difficulty in convincing an Officers Model to function and the long slide 1911 as well. The magazine spring housing is modified in order to accommodate the shoulder stock and is made of polymer. The shoulder stock… well, I suppose it is more than a plank but most of us could have fabricated a better stock in a high school shop class. The shoulder stock attachment is sheet metal and I’d caution against rough handling.

The curve of the stock is geometrically best as possible for this lash up. The butt of the stock is uneven and stays in the shoulder as a result. Again, the greatest respect for the engineers who designed this and managed to have it sell for a price point a little above a standard GI 1911. The stock has a nineteen-inch length of pull, which is quite a bit longer than most carbines. The pistol weighs a solid four pounds even on my scale when unloaded.

This is a heavy shoulder-stocked pistol, but actually it is a light carbine! It isn’t that difficult to swing around quickly. I don’t know how you would sling the piece, but it needs one for the field, but not for home defense. As for the sights, using this as a carbine puts your eye closer to the sights than a standard 1911 pistol. Coupled with the tall sights this results in a good sight picture. I did have to paint the front sight to improve visibility. The grip safety must be addressed properly.

There isn’t much room to depress the safety. Lay the thumb across the safety as if racking back the hammer of a single action revolver, keep it planted, and it works well. I am certain that a simple cure well within the boundaries of the legal requirements would solve this problem. By taking a grinding tool across the metal of the stock and relieving the stock to an extent—right side for a right handed shooter and left side for left handed shooter—the grip safety problem would be alleviated.

I think an inch would be ideal. I did not do this as the carbine may be traded at a later date, so making improvements would be okay but not personalized customizations.

Above center: The work was easily accomplished with a ".45 caliber" Sharpie. The work was not difficult. Test Firing The carbine was well lubricated prior to firing. All magazines were well used and proven in other guns. I used a good mix primarily from Wilson Combat. All magazines locked in place and functioned including Mec-Gar, ACT-MAG, Brownells, Chip McCormick, and Colt. The initial loading was the Black Hills Ammunition 200 grain lead semi-wadcutter. The first shots were uneventful.

Recoil is very light, lighter than most any pistol caliber carbine I have fired, including my Specifications: Importer: Iver Johnson Arms Manufacturer: Shooters Arms Manufacturers (S. A.

M.), Philippines Model: 1911A1 Carbine (IJ01RIFLE) Action: Single-Action Semi-Automatic Caliber: 45 ACP Frame: Carbon Steel Finish: Olive Drab Sights Improved fixed sights, larger than the standard GI Barrel: 16.25" Trigger Pull: 4.9 pounds Overall Length: 35" Height: 5.25" Slide Width: 0.92" Weight: 4 pounds Capacity: 8+1 rounds, also accepts 7, 10 and 11 round magazines Twist: 1:16" RH, 6 grooves MSRP: $650 favorite Winchester 1892 in 45 Colt. I fired one hundred twenty rounds fairly quickly and it was great fun.

There were no failures of any type. Accuracy was surprisingly good. At 25 yards groups of 1.5 to 2.4 inches were the norm, but slow-fire groups were the exception. Most of the shots were fired at dirt clods and clays on the berm and rapidly at man-sized targets. Had I left well enough alone that would be the end of the story. But that isn’t what I do. The next session I took along several jacketed hollow point loads. None would feed.

The Hornady Critical Duty, Black Hills Ammunition 230 grain JHP, and Speer Gold Dot hung up on the feed ramp The bullet noses were banged up badly in the cartridge case. These loads feed in my old Argentine Modelo 1927 and some, but not all, feed in the SDS/Tisas GI gun. The feed ramp was free of burrs and tools marks. Not to lose the day, I fired a number of the Black Hills 200 grain loads and the pistol began to short cycle. Nonplussed, I heavily lubricated the pistol and it began to function again.

My friends, GI guns need to be lubricated well and may not feed some hollowpoints, but the SAM carbine took it too far. But then again, this was anew gun with less than four hundred rounds through it. At this point I also fed the carbine with an eleven round Mec-Gar magazine with perfect function. One thing I confirmed—and it would have been a hard nut to crack if the factory had not got it right—the recoil spring combination was correct.

Cycle reliability and function was good with all loads even if feeding sometimes was not. Back to the shop. Polishing I carefully polished the radius of the feed ramp. The process for polishing a feed ramp starts with