One of the roughest weapons of WitW yet. The IRA Colt M1911A1 with firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson 

Matt Vye kindly reminded me about a BBC archive report from 1972 on IRA weapons captured by the British Army that shows another (complete) example of this type - it looks like there was a large U-shaped metal plate wrapped around the front strap and slotted under the cutouts in the grips- on this example there was then another guard on the front of that, making it *very* awkward to use. Presumably this plate was the fire selector. It's also the real reason for the undercut on the trigger guard and not, as I assumed, to accommodate the firer's hand.

Can I just say that I'm always massively impressed by how much information Jonathan goes into with pieces like these where the origin or mechanics are scarce.

Given the estimated date of the seizure of this homebrewed weapon, there is a greater than 0% chance whoever tinkered with this may end up watching this video lol

An interesting "meet you heroes" moment having seen and read about this gun in the Observers Book as a kid and eventually being in a position to see it for real, and in Jonathan's case actually handle it.

To me this is a pretty impressive job given the resources that likely were there to do it. As crude as the end product appears compared to a proper factory job (especially the dubble magazine and making it select fire) the work here took real skill for it to not just blow up.

When you fully upgrade the starting pistol in a video game...

The slide may be Remington Rand but the frame appears to be an Ithaca. They stamped the "M 1911 A1 US ARMY" in larger letters than Remington Rand or Colt did. BTW if you're willing to accept some constructive criticism, the lighting in these videos is too dark making it hard to see any details.

Not sure if it's my phone but the video seems quite dark. Great content as always though.

I remember seeing either this or a very similar weapon when I was in the British Army in the '80s. I was told, and I don't know if it's true or not, that they were often used for close range assassinations, as they fired so fast you couldn't possibly hope to hit anything at more than point blank range, but the idea was you would walk up to the person, either in the street or while they were sitting in the car, and be able to dump the entire magazine into them in a split second, basically guaranteeing the kill. I really don't know if that's true or not, but it would make sense.

Interwebs says cyclic rate is around 900--1000 rpm on other full auto 1911's

I put in as much research as I could back when I found one of the Lehman guns in a history book. Specifically the Dillinger gangs weapons as recovered by the FBI, a fairly famous photo. The fact that they were all modiefied by hand with no set factory standard makes them very interesting in their variety, especially in the magazines. Some are reported to have hand made mags, made by folding thin sheet metal with bars, and many are like this with 2 or 3 standard mags attached together, with some variety of quality. The front grips are all wildy different, including those hand carved, and even many had compensators, some as simple as a pipe weldedto the barrel with some cuts hacksawed in the top. I saw somewhere there is a museum with an example featuring a CUTTs compensator, although this may have been a re-creation, there is no reason this could not have been done. Fascinating pieces of tech, and the stories behind them are just as strange. How do I even do real reasearch on this type of thing? As an average pleb, I have no museum collection to look through :P

There is a full auto 1911 in the FBI museum that dates to the days of Al Capone and Dillinger. It is probably the one taken from Dillinger.

While I am certain that my father (a WW2 veteran) was exaggerating, he used to claim that every American GI and sailor during that war knew how to make a 1911 fully automatic.

Has the vibe of a video game pistol with upgrades for capacity, fire-rate and stability

I also remember this from the same book. Ian Hogg's books really got me interested in firearms. Fascinating to read, always interesting peices and a very dry wit.

The Dillenger reference makes me wonder if there is any documentation of overlaps between Irish American gangsters, American supporters of the IRA and the IRA where a design like this may have been transferred to Ireland.

There are photos in various books regarding the sort of Kitchen Gunsmith contraptions that you have described here and yes, it was done by both sides. My late partners father worked all his life in Harland & Wolfe shipyard in Belfast and another contraption that they had was a still, they were distilling a crude form of alcohol, a sort of Poteen, that was being sold in the local Drinking Dens, with the various organisations getting their percentage. Very entrepreneurial 👍👍

I feel like that 1911 came straight out of a modern CoD game. That poor thing.

Can you show off one of the IRA square tubing Stenguns? I am sure there is one in the collection as it was part of a larger manufacturing operation that was busted..

Actually there's a few variations of this weapon I've seen. another popular one uses stock from a hi power or something similar added to a 1911 and a round knob front grip from a vehicle shifter grip I think and there's a designed one with a narrow plate between the grips and a rather crude board style stock like last ditch ww2 arms

I knew this one as soon as I saw the silhouette. I had that exact book as a kid in the 70s!

Thanks Jonathan and team, it was amazing to see that very obscure firearm.

Have to give credit to the people/person who did the modifications. Even if they didn't get everything perfect before the weapon was seized, that's a clever and skilled bit of work.

It’s Hyman LEBMAN. The family had a hardware/saddle store in downtown San Antonio TX near the courthouse on Flores St. it operated until 1976. My father remembered as a kid meeting a large man in the store and later being told it was Machine gun Kelly, who had a house not too far from there.

I agree,Jonathan seems to be able to puzzle out how some of these obscure firearms might've worked,bring in Ian and those two would be unstoppable!

Call of Duty's Most Authentic and Period Accurate Weapon Depiction:

Never thought I would see a Syracuse NY manufactured firearm in the British Royal Armouries, but here we are

Im a gunsmith so i can envision how the missing components would have functioned. Whatever your opinion of this thing's origin, you have to admit that this is a very cool example of home gunsmithing in an active combat zone.

Remington Rand was the largest producer of 1911a1s during WW2 as I remember

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

In the Thirties in the US, when full auto weapons were effectively removed from the civilian market, this kind of machine pistol appeared in the hands of various gangsters.

Thanks for sharing. I’m aware of this IRA used conversions since the early 80’s. Always intrigued by it. But never saw it in so much detail 👍🏻

What an interesting gun to showcase. Lot of history involved

Very clever engineering for the ability they had at the time, designed for a particular use at a particular time It all tells you the story about what and why

The Observer's book of Firearms was the first time I set eyes on this as well 😂

External automatic disconnector. I believe that the original retractor was removed because they weren't understanding how to actually adjust those. But it's also possible that the original external extractor was also originally used as the mechanism for the automatic disconnector. Interesting application, a number of years ago I got to look at and shoot a Browning P35 that had been converted to a selective fire. That was a fascinating firearm you actually held it laterally and it had a grip above the firearm and you helped the firearm on its side. And the sites were on the right side of the slide. And you held it that way with your right hand turn to the left and your left hand vertical. It functioned flawlessly. What surprised me is it seemed to have emanated out of Central or South America. But it was a really well-done piece. It looked like it could have come out of fabriq Nationals Factory. This piece looks like it worked fairly well.

Thank you

Greetings from Syracuse, New York! Well, more specifically Phoenix, New York but we're close by. My father has two of the Rand 1911's from WWII and if I'm not mistaken I think one has wooden grips and the other has plastic grips and I believe those plastic grips are original (correct me if I'm wrong though they may have been swapped onto that one)...I've told him MANY times that when he kicks the bucket the wooden grip one is mine ;) sadly Syracuse has become a shadow of what it was which seems to be typical of small Northeastern cities post-war but we still have a few factories here and perhaps soon a new chip fab as well...tough to imagine what wartime manufacturing must have been like but I'm betting it was a very different place back then!!! Thanks for your work by the way!!!

Failure to extract is an extremely common issue with 45acp locked breech firearms with a really high rate of fire. It has to do with the way the case expands to seal the chamber then springs back slightly upon firing. There is a tiny window of time between the pressure drop and the case shrinkage. If you attempt to extract the case during that window, it still has beau coup friction with the chamber wall and is extremely difficult to extract. It doesn't happen with blowback firearms because they start moving immediately upon firing due to pressure. A blowback sub gun will usually run with no extractor.

We need to see it firing!

Slight correction, at 0:28 the gun is listed as a 9mm when in fact it appears to still be .45 cal. While there have certainly been lots of 1911A1's chambered in everything from .22LR up to some of the custom .50 cal cartridges, including 9mm and 38 Super, the barrel and magazine both indicate it is still in .45 ACP. Also, Remington Rand, only ever made 1911A1's in .45. I truly would like to get my hands on the bubba who did that to such a beautiful weapon, while he did a better job than someothers I have seen, he still defiled what many consider to be the greatest handgun of all time.

"I don't know what it's been done with, but it's not good." My new catch phrase.

I appreciate your attempts to make sense of this insanity..

I had a 1911a1 with a Lebanese shoulder stock and with an extra long mag many, many years ago. Awesome shooting rapid fire at a police range.

Nice retro watch there Jonathan!

Kind of reminds me of a rough version of john dillingers 1911

The banner that came up in the beginning of the video said " 1911A1 9mm". Very cool piece of history.

*Talk about an external extractor!* Actually, I wonder if they didn't tack on that monstrous claw because they managed to bust the original internal extractor? Internal extractors work, but they have precious little flexibility and can suffer a lot from certain handling, for instance you really should not load the chamber from the ejection port or slam the slide home on an empty chamber very much, it takes a lot of stress from that. The cartridge is supposed to ride up into the extractor with its groove, not have the extractor forced to flex and snap onto the cartridge. There's a reason you don't see internal extractors much on later pistols, and why you now virtually only see it on 1911s, and even then some modern 1911s (like by Smith & Wesson) are redesigned for more modern external extractors for that reason. Some of those end up featuring a decorative plunger on the rear of the slide, where the original internal extractor would have protruded.

One of my first books back in the 80s was a firearms book it had a 1911 and a colt 45 on the cover ,the amount of times i read that ,well looked at the photos ,i still have it lol ,and better still you review some of the weird and wonderful guns in the book 👍

Reminds me ofJohn dillingers custom 38 super 1911 machine pistol.

The weapon name plate says 9mm instead of .45 acp

Thanks again for an interesting review on another rarity. Any chance of working against a lighter background please?

I love the Spitfire shirt, where could I find one?

Lebman was a gunsmith in San Antonio, Texas. I think he would make those conversions for anyone who wanted one. It was not highly regulated back then.

Can something be done to improve the lighting in these videos?

Congratulations to Zoiders! 4:34 I would've never guessed that it's just a spring-pulled system and not a screw of some sort. Also, the thickness and design of that mounting block is surprising to me: from such wobbliness of the stock I was expecting a modification of the main spring housing with rails on the outside of it, which the stock would be dovetailed onto. That would allow the pistol to be used as such without a stock and relatively easily concealed, but, I guess, I'm expecting too much gunsmithing out of a workshop limited by both time and craftsmanship available. 9:41 The grips aren't original either, wartime M1911A1s are supposed to have synthetic chequered grips.

I suspect the extractor modification is to haul the empty case out fast enough to stop stovepipes, because that slide is going to bounce and resonate, potentially increasing its velocity significantly.

That thing is insane

Interesting video. Perhaps it's for conservation reasons, but the lighting could be better, it is hard to make out the details.

Hymam Lebman was not "an armourer to the gangsters", as often misquoted, he had an open to the public business at business at 111South Flores Street, San Antonio, Texas, a block from city hall and across he street from the sheriff's office, had many customers in law enforcement, lots in general public, and obviously some bad guys that misused merchandise he sold, selling expensive guns on first floor, cheaper on second floor, and a machine/gunsmithing shop in the basement. Prior to July 26, 1934, there were no restriction on fully automatic firearms and a number of these conversions were sold, some even to law enforcement. Records were kept and some from criminals were traced by law enforcement using Lebman's records to prosecute the criminals. Far from the crude conversion of example in your video, Lebman was a professional machinist/gunsmith and his conversions quality. The .38 Super round was specifically developed to pierce the thicker gauge steel of the the car bodies, that resisted the .38s, .45 Colt revolver and .45 ACP as the common handguns of law enforcement of era. These car bodies also resisted lead buck shot and law enforcement of era often substituted steel ball bearings for lead shot. (Reference law enforcement at the Kansas City Union Station Massacre among others) Comparing that IRA complicated attempted conversion to the sleak and effecient conversion of Lebman, reminds me of Henry Ford's quote, trying to simplify automobiles to make them both more affordable and reliable compared to expensive complex autos of era. "Anyone can make something work by being complicated. it's the genius that can simplify something and still make it work." (Or something to that effect as I'm certain a You Tube Karen will quickly correct me for not being 100% accurate in quote.) I also forgot those Spanish 1911 Star variants that were also factory made as full auto. Never very popular for obvious reasons, they intially made for Chinese market to compete with Mauser 312, and the Astra 'broomhandle' copies , both selective fire and maybe marginally easier to control. Anyway, You've become one of my favorite channels, and I've referred folks from my collector's club to you.

Anyone else notice the glaring mistake at the start of the video where it says that it's 9mm?

As an American teenager in the 80's i vaguely recall reading an article on FA pistols that briefly mentioned an had a photo of the "Chicago" variant. Similar in appearance hut i cant recall details on the stock attachment point.

"Who did this, who are they and why did they do this?" Well that would be Call of Duty Devs I would say. With the amount bull attachments they put in their games

Wow. Johnathan, I was kinda surprised when you seemed to be at a loss for words on the disfigurement of that 1911.

Any correlation between Remington rand and the infamous rand corporation of U.S. defense note?

Did I miss something with the video? The chyron said “9mm” but nothing was mentioned to my ears about converting caliber from .45 ACP.

Are there any SMGs using a 1911 or 1911-based operating system?

The UVF and UFF also bodged various firearms and they also had a fair few that were actually knocked up in garages.

US firearms author BIll Holmes details in one of his books how to convert a 1911 or Browning HP35 into a select fire weapon, in a very similar manner, although Holmes managed it without using wheelbarrow parts, with far less cludge mongery and ineptitude

Reminds me of a WW1 artillery Luger.

For a full-auto 1911, if you look up "Non Standard M1911A1" you'll find a video from 2007 with one being fired. It's hard to judge exact RPM, but it seems to be around 700-800, which fits with info on the Colt experimental 1911 from the 1930's. As for the stock on that IRA example; coming from someone of Irish heritage, my people probably fought half smashed; the stock wobble helped negate their own wobble!

looks like a ejector pin from diecasting that is holding the front gip in place.. i feel i may be a bit wrong though laddy

John Dillinger would not be proud of this! His was in 38 super if I recall correctly.

It's like when you want a SMG and your mum says "we have an SMG at home"

I think I have a picture of that one (or one exactly the same) in a French book printed in 1985: it is written there that this Colt was stolen from an American base in West Germany, and modified to full automatic like that in Ulster. THANKS for showing!

Don't forget "The Man from UNCLE" TV show. That had a trick P38, that could take a silencer, longer magazine & stock. Might have been an inspiration.

In 19 hundred and sixteen the forces of the Crown, to capture orange-white-and-green, bombarded Dublin town! *happy Wolfe Tones noises* :)

I imagine that the 38 super cartridges would help with controlling such a weapon when used on full auto. The problem for the user would be ammunition availability in the province. The CZ Scorpion would have been a better choice.

There's a pic of that in (I believe) the pistol section of "The Encyclopedia of World Military Power" one of those big hard backed book club books from the 90's. Got a funny feeling the pic in the book is of that self same pistol on the table there. Absolutely everything is identical & I can't imagine these were mass produced to set pattern. Fascinating to think there's so few examples of some of these "workshop" guns that the exact same guns get wheeled out of the collections again so many years later.

Bank robber desperado John Dillinger had one with the foregrip during the 1930s. The Lebanese Christian Militia had 1911s with shoulder stocks. All before 3D printing and CNC machining.

Tosh Creggan, rough conversion

Nice. And in Four Five to be sure to be sure.

Amd somethings gone horribly wrong here! You sir are correct. A collector would cringe and love this at the same time.

Looks like the IRA took inspiration from Hyman S. Lebman, the Texan gunsmith that converted 1911s to machine pistols back in the 1930s. His also had an extended magazine and a foregrip, though the foregrip on his was that off a Thompson submachinegun. It also had a compensator and did not have a stock attached. Not to mention Lebman's 1911 was fully auto only because part of the process of converting the pistol was modifying the mainspring.

It would have taken a very small group to make this weapon. The front grip looks as though they took it off their grandmas table! If I was in the IRA back in those times, I would have suggested to manufacture homemade Sten guns. It would have been easier to manufacture. By all means it's a very interesting piece at the time of The Troubles.

Hello Jonathan. I was wondering if you had anything on the NAACO Brigadier. It seems a similar design. It was scrapped as a result of NATO standardization, but I have always found it interesting.

Talk about an unsupported chamber…

Please more detailed pictures or close up video

I’m having ‘nam style flashbacks to his review of that one call of duty game…..

Looks very similar to the 1911 Baby Face Nelson had.

didn't the UK Action man have one of these?

Ooh ahh

As much as i respect the 1911 as a technical achievement for its time ive never wanted one...until now 😍

Reminds me of Sniper Elite series

While you're doing odd ball PIRA stuff, what about that hideous grenade launcher "thing" with the packet of biscuits!?

Seems like you could put a lever cam off the side to be hit by the hammer coming full back to trip it automatically

Never seen a video from Jonathan I didn't like, but this is such a cool piece. Perhaps the best What Is This Weapon yet.

i love how confused johnathan looks the whole time

i assume when you say it used to be full auto that it has been rendered inoperable? if not take it down to the basement range and put a single round through and see what happens to the case. THe forward grip reminds me of the foregrip on a small rifle, attached vertically. it is possible the person who made this thing is still alive and well in Ireland or the US if they left. maybe the maker could comment on its acquisition, production, and use.

Seems easier just to make a blowback tube style smg using thompson mags.