Quote:
Originally Posted by jyl
It is mankind's nature to forge ahead and make better. JMB, were he never-dying, would not have rested until he produced the phaser (Mk 2). He would never have said that his M1911 was the final word in personal lethality.
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You're right; he went on to design the Hi Power, which he considered an improvement over his 1911. Funny, though, in that some of his later designs that he considered improvements over his earlier designs were never accepted as such by the shooting community. Weird how that works sometimes, be it guns, cars, or whatever.
While me may not have seen much change or improvement in firearms design in the last century, we have seen marked improvement in manufacturing techniques and precision. I think that is the great "unseen" improvement of our lifetime. We now see a level of precision in arms that was formerly reserved for the best of the best match rifles or handguns in the off the shelf wares from virtually all manufacturers. Any cheap hunting rifle on the rack at WalMart will out-shoot a National Match Springfield 03-A3 from the '30's. Any well made 1911 clone will out-shoot the best Pachmayer custom tuned and fitted bullseye gun from the '50's. That's progress. Incremental, granted, but progress nonetheless.
Who know from where the next big leap will come. We have seen caseless ammunition. We have seen a bewildering array of new materials and protective finishes. But still no really radically new, course altering technologies on the level of, say, the black to smokeless revolution. We may not in our lifetimes. And hell, even if we do, I'm not giving up my Peacemakers...