This has been highly debated. It has even been reported that he used a picked up Luger to shoot the Germans with instead of a !911. Fascinating history. Almost every account, including his own for the movie about him (played by Gary Cooper), has conflicting details.

Hackathorn went with the M1903 on this day but we discussed the debate and the next time we did the same scenario we actually used an Enfield just to be fair.

The original M1911 is a bear to shoot, especially if you have bigger hands because the beaver tail is too small and the slide will bite your skin bad. Some of the shooters who were not extra careful of this were bleeding after their turn.