I was just trying to grasp how many 1911s there are. Anyone know how many 1911s there are out there and how many are sold every year? Is it the most popular handgun, or would that be a Smith revolver? I’m doing what I can to keep the numbers up, but I think you guys have a few too.
Anectodal, but selling firearms, I would estimate 1-2 out of every 10 handguns I would sell were the 1911 platform. And most 70ish% were the Sig sub-compacts.
I only recently purchased a 1911 RIA in 9mm because I had no 1911 in my collection.
Now if the CMP offers the mil surp 1911s as rumored, I’ll be getting one of those for certain. They’ll likely sell out in weeks.
I’m interested to see if such a number is available. The 1911 and AR 15 platforms are made by most gun manufacturers, so the numbers have to be huge.
PB
I see more small handguns sell out of my LGS, although he does sell a lot of Kimbers. Cool question OP, looking forward to any answers as well!
I bet industry wide 5 glock 19’s are sold for every 1911. I’ve worked on and off at an LGS for 13+ years that averages 5K firearms sold each year and 1911’s were never a top seller. I cant remember where I heard this but in 2016 over half of the handguns sold were single stack 9’s such as the shield and Glock 43.
IDPA used to put out the exact numbers for guns used at the nationals, not sure if they still do. It was Glock and 1911’s [of some sort made by several manufacturers] that topped the numbers as I recall.
Yes, for competition use, yes, with some CZ75 platforms thrown in there for third place.
The 1911 will always have a following, but industry-wide, they have a tough time competing with much lighter, less expensive striker-fired poly guns.
According to the ATF Colt alone produced over 60,000 pistols in 2015. Probably over 80% of those pistols are 1911s so Colt alone is probably producing 50K+ 1911s per year. Probably Springfield and Kimber are producing similar numbers. This combined with numerous other manufacturers, I would not be surprised if 200K-300K M1911s are still being produced per year.
OP - if you really wanted to put in the effort, you can look for the number of firearms produced and sold by mfgs by year online. It’ll be easier with 1911 specific companies or a company that mostly sells 1911s (Colt, Kimber, Guncrafter, Ed Brown, Les Baer, RIA, Wilson Combat, NightHawk, Caspian, etc.). Springfield Armory may be problematic to count…haven’t looked it up.
Maybe on a local level or regional, it may look like the 1911 is not a big seller (i.e., regions where government agencies rule). My guess is that there are lots of 1911s being pumped out there… If you did the math, I’m sure the 1911 rivals the majority of firearms in terms of revenue brought in.
I had this talk with my dad the other day, and we both said there has to be a couple million 1911s out there… and I’d say 50k get sold every year… and I think it’s because the model has a rep for lasting a long time and working in a lot of conditions…
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