Chinese Norinco 1911A1

[Marcus]

Another piece of 1911 history from my collection.


These were imported briefly in the early-mid 1990's period before BJ "Pay no attention to all the spots on that blue dress - Look over there! Slobodan's killing kittens over in Kosovo, we have to stop him!" Clinton banned the import of most firearms and related items from China.

It's a pretty well made and finished pistol, made from high quality steel. The grips are genuine original U.S. WW2 Bakelite, everything else about the gun is original.

There were several versions of this pistol imported, this one has the high polish blue frame with Parkerized slide.

[Tuna]

Still imported into Canada I think. An excellent pistol and known for accuracy. In fact Clark the custom gun maker down in Louisiana stated that he could not get a better barrel then the ones found in the Norinco's.

[Allen]

Also, what I hear, the frames and slides are forged.

[RETREAD123456]

I should have bought the COMMANDER version.

[Sunray]

"...Clinton banned the import of..." George Bush started in in 1989. Clinton just expanded it to include Uzi, FN/FAL, HK-91, HK-93, the Sig-550, Norinco AK's, M305's and Polytech M-14s. He didn't shut out Norinco shotguns or hand guns as I recall. There being no U.S. Norinco distributor did the rest.
"...Still imported into Canada..." Yep. $399Cdn. for a Government Model clone with or without adjustable sights . $379 for a Commander. Used a lot for building race guns and entry level shooting game pistols. No exports.
"...blue frame with Parkerized slide..." Don't believe that's original. Nothing like it is currently available if it was.

[Marcus]

Polished blue frame with Parkerized slide is absolutely original. I've actually seen more of them than of the ones that are all Parkerized. There were a lot of versions of this gun offered when they were imported.

The Clinton ban didn't apply to things like shotguns and such, but did apply to any handgun that was military issue or a copy of a military issue firearm, such as the Makarov and the Tokarev pistols.