A Big Green 1911?

Cartoon from Penny Arcade

Well, our pal Jim Shepherd at The Shooting Wire is reporting a Remington 1911 pistol in the pipeline:

Is Remington getting into the handgun market?

Short answer, yes.

An "Organizational Announcement" from Chief Marketing Officer Marc Hill to all of Remington's employees confirmed the existence of a Remington handgun team by naming Tom Taylor to the position of Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product-Handguns.

That's a definitive answer to the question, and should serve notice to the industry that Remington has no plans to lay off what has been a torrid growth pace over the past year.
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And the Remington handgun strategy?

While attending the Remington 2010 product introductions, I asked the same question of Marc Hill. At that time, he declined comment, but it has been no secret in the industry that Remington has been "shopping" for a handgun company. Several names have been mentioned, but it appears the first product will be "organic" coming from inside Remington, rather than via acquisition.

A 1911 is in first-production testing, and may be ready for introduction at SHOT Show in January. That is a qualified date because the company seems more concerned in making a solid product before introducing it to the consumer public, eschewing other companies' practice of launching products and making adjustments on the fly.

Tom Taylor is a good guy and does indeed know a ton about handguns. It was under his tenure, I believe, that S&W successfully took a big chunk out of the 1911 market with their very successful product introductions. That introduction also seemed out of step with the market, until it worked.

This comes on the heels, BTW, of Ruger assuring me that they do NOT have a 1911 in the pipeline, despite lots of Internet buzz.

Steve over at The Firearm Blog notes that a new 1911 is not the slam-dunk new product that it was a few years ago:

I do find the suggestion that they are going with the 1911 platform odd. While the 1911 is a very popular pistol with civilians, police departments are not adopting it. Instead they are dropping the Glock in favor of other polymer pistols like the Springfield XD and Smith & Wesson M&P pistols.

We know Remington loves military and police contracts and that they are willing to delay consumer products in order to make a grab for lucrative military contracts. The constant delays of the Bushmaster ACR are a testament to this.

So is Remington making a 1911 because they know something we do not?

I don't think so, but heck, I've been wrong before. The whole SOCOM pistol debacle left a bad taste in a lot of Washington mouths. It did lead to a new generation of major caliber polymer-framed pistols, including the ostensible frontrunner, the FNH FNP-45, the S&W M&P .45, the Taurus OSS, etc. Frankly, I just don't see the money — needed in vast quantities for not only new guns, but a whole new logistics chain — coming from the present administration. If the money was available, I suspect it might be going to a new rifle caliber rather than a new handgun.

Years back I wrote a parody piece for a gun magazine that by 2011, there would only be 2 handguns for sale in America — 1911 and Glocks. Hmmmmmm.