Saw a write up about a Texas Ranger and a real crazy way to carry a 1911!!!!

4

45automan

New member
Hey guys was at a store today picked up a gun rag and was reading along. Anyway this Texas ranger whos name i can't remember carries his 1911 at half cock Mexican carry,no holster! It gets worse he was attacked from behind once by a loon with a knife and couldn't depress the grip saftey so after that he tied it with a piece of rawhide to keep it permanatly depressed! So he carried his 1911 at half cock with both safties off?!! Opinions?
Thanks,45automan

P.S. I wonder if he ever had any kids! LOL!!
 
Sounds like Lone Wolf Gonzales?

It must've worked for him, eh?

------------------
Make mine lean, mean, and 9x19!
 
To each his own. He might figure that the half cock is safe from discharge caused by inadvertent trigger pull, his or someone elses. It wouldn't be my first choice.

------------------
You have to be there when it's all over. Otherwise you can't say "I told you so."

Better days to be,

Ed
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by C.R.Sam:
Wade....going off half cocked? Or half is better n none?

Sam[/quote]

Sam, don't know the answer to that one and I'm not sure I want to!!! ;)
 
If I remember right, Lone Wolf Gonzaullas also had the trigger guard cut off his 1911

He died at age 85 in 1977.

[This message has been edited by dvc (edited September 10, 2000).]
 
The report 45automan is referring to was Sheriff Jim Wilson's "Gun Smoke" article in the Oct Shooting Times. The Ranger was Charlie Miller. He joined the Texas Rangers in Dec. 1919 when he was 21 (having been born in June of 1898) and remained with them, except for 11 months spent with the U.S. Prohibition Service (the mother of the BATF), until his retirement in 1968 and passed away in 1971.

[This message has been edited by John Marshall (edited September 10, 2000).]
 
I carry mine like that sometimes, but my trigger guard is still intact as well as my grip safety.

[This message has been edited by PreserveFreedom (edited September 10, 2000).]
 
Skeeter Skelton wrote of a TR who carried like that,and when asked by a rookie, "Isn't that dangerous?" replied, "You're damn right it's dangerous"....
 
MANUEL ("LONE WOLF") TRAZAZAS GONZAULLAS
1891-1977

Manuel Trazazas Gonzaullas was born in 1891 in Cádiz, Spain to a Spanish father and Canadian mother who were naturalized U.S. citizens.

He served as a Mexican army major at age 20, worked five years for the U.S.Treasury Department, and joined the Texas Rangers in 1920. During the '20s and '30s, Gonzaullas enforced the law in the oil fields and on the border.

Known as "El Lobo Solo" (the Lone Wolf),he pursued bootleggers, gamblers and drug runners alone.In 1933, Governor Miriam Ferguson fired Gonzaullas and other Texas
Rangers. In response, the Texas Legislature created the independent Department of Public Safety in 1935.

Gonzaullus was appointed Superintendent of the D.P.S. Bureau of Intelligence and created a crime laboratory second only to that of the F.B.I. In 1940, Gonzaullas resigned from the Bureau and rejoined the Rangers as Captain of Company B in Dallas. After distinguished service, he retired in 1951, becoming a technical consultant for radio, motion pictures, and television shows such as Tales of the Texas Rangers. He helped found the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in 1968.

Captain Gonzaullas died in Dallas in 1977 at age 85, leaving his scrapbooks and personal papers to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum.

I hope this clears up the misconception that Lone Wolf didn't know his way around firearms.

Regards,

Richard.
 
Dave Mc C, I think we're talking about the same story. Way I remember it was the FBI sent a young whippersnapper firearms instructor down to teach the Rangers how to shoot ( loud guffaw at THAT idea ).

Supposedly on the firing line the FBI guy spotted an oldtimer with a 1911 shoved inside his belt, no hoster, cocked and UNLOCKED. The guy went up to the oldtimer and tactfully asked if carrying that way wasn't dangerous? The old Ranger's response became a legend. His reply?

"Son, if that dayumed old thing wasn't dangerous, I wouldn't be carrying it!"
 
Richard, MANUEL ("LONE WOLF") TRAZAZAS GONZAULLAS carried a pair of 1911's with the trigger guards removed and trigger shoes added. Also, the grip safeties were deactivated. He carried the pistols cocked and UNLOCKED. I have personally seen the pistols in the Ranger Hall of Fame in Waco. He is reported to have killed a man for every year of his life. I don't know if that is true, but he did kill several back during the 20's in the east Texas oil boom towns.

------------------
Never do an enemy a minor injury. Machiavelli
"Stay alive with a 45"
 
"Half-cock" is an inadviseable way to carry a 1911, due to the potential of the hammer being "forced" and the pistol discharging if dropped so as to land on the hammer spur. If the hammer is fully down, the 1911's inertial firing pin should prevent firing and, at full cock, the grip safety's tang protects the hammer spur from such a blow. There are also risks associated with manually lowering the hammer to half-cock, over a loaded chamber. The primary risk of this carrying on half-cock is that one's response to a deadly threat will be too slow. That 1911 hammer is not positioned for easy, reliable, and quick cocking during the draw.

The grip safety is another matter entirely. Jeff Cooper found that about a quarter of his students could not reliably depress the 1911's grip safety, due to their hand size and grip style. The grip safeties that feature a "speed bump" on the lower portion thereof can be a big help in this regard, but there are still folks who don't get it depressed 100% of the time (I know. I'm one of them). For these people, deactivating the grip safety renders the pistol no less safe than Browning's later design, the P-35...and certainly no less safe (probably more so) than a Glock. The main thing with any pistol is to not pull the trigger if one doesn't wish it to discharge. Those who cannot comply with this simple requirement are well advised to stay on the porch.

Rosco
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top