Category: All About Guns

Springfield Armory is proud to announce the release of the new Operator 1911, an all-black pistol with some stainless steel highlights and machined G10 Army Green Alien grips by VZ.

“Springfield Armory 1911 pistols are renowned for their performance, strength and capabilities,” said Springfield Vice President Steve Kramer. “With this new Operator, shooters get a duty-grade 1911 with the features they expect from a premiere fighting pistol.”

Chambered for .45 ACP, the Operator feeds from slightly extended 8-round bumper magazines, and it comes with a very modern set of upgrades and features that really make this a “duty-grade” 1911.

The slide has classy, straight serrations front and rear, with small engravings on the sides that read “Operator” on the left side and “Springfield Armory” with the logo on the right. As far as controls go the Operator has extended ambidextrous safety levers and an extended beavertail grip safety with a memory button.

It also comes with a skeletonized, adjustable medium-length trigger with a serrated trigger face and a skeletonized hammer for a fast, accurate lock-up. Every operator is built around a 5-inch match-grade, hammer-forged stainless steel barrel and they use a conventional G.I.-style bushing and recoil assembly.

For sights, the Operator uses a tritium-powered front night sight and a tactical ledge-style white dot rear sight. Every Operator has a matte black Cerakote finish on the slide, frame, and small components and they all ship with two 8-round magazines.

The Operator was designed and built from the ground up to be a hard-working pistol for self-defense, with features that will make it perform just as well at the range. It’s also an all-around good-looking 1911, in a fully modern layout that doesn’t cut corners.

With a suggested retail price of $1,099, it’s likely that shoppers will be able to find the Operator in stores and online for $999 or less. For more information about the new Operator along with the rest of the Springfield catalog, head over there today.

The Franchi LF-58 is a gas operated, selective fire carbine that was the product of Italian domestic arms design after the Second World War and during the 1950s.

Development

Following the end of the Second World War, the Italian Armed Forces were equipped with weapons donated and/or sold to them by the United States of America, such as the M1 Garand, as their main service rifle. However, as there were other militaries beginning to develop assault rifles and modern battle rifles, both with larger magazine capacities and increased volumes of fire, the Italians naturally pushed for a more modern service weapon.

The M1 Carbine was well-liked among various Italian military circles and the development of the German StG-44 assault rifle chambered in the intermediate 7.92x33mm Kurz cartridge had already given several militaries notice. The Italians^[who?] decided to design a select-fire weapon chambered in the American .30 Carbine round, being close enough to an intermediate cartridge and easier to acquire than others at the time.

Two large Italian arms firms, Pierto Beretta and Luigi Franchi, then began experimental work on improved automatic carbines chambered in the American .30 Carbine cartridge. Despite NATO announcing standardization towards the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge, the firms continued development under the belief that it would take some time for the NATO cartridge to come into widespread use.

Both firms developed service rifles to adhere to NATO’s standards. Both designs were finished in 1958, resulting in the Beretta Model 57 and the Franchi LF-58 (which was not publicized). Both designs saw limited production and neither official adoption nor commercial success. The Italian Armed Forces then replaced the M1 Garand with the BM-59 battle rifle in 7.62x51mm NATO and the LF-57 submachine gun chambered in 9x19mm Parabellum