POTD: Bigger Grant Hammond – The Grant Hammond Military Trials Pistol
Sam.S 12.28.22
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have another Grant Hammond Pistol (I covered a 32ACP model earlier). This particular Grant Hammond is a 45 ACP military trials pistol that saw hands-on testing in 1918. Mr. Hammond thought it would outperform the M1911 that was continuing to lead the military handgun race. It was found to be a lovely pistol and wonderfully accurate. It had one main issue, unfortunately. The internal parts were subject to constant and consistent breakages in too short of a time.
“Developed in the mid 1910s by Grant Hammond of the Grand Hammond Manufacturing Company, the Hammond Pistol (aka the Liberty Pistol, due to the use of plant space owned by Liberty Motors in manufacturing) was one of the post-1910 rivals to Colt’s Government Model/1911 pistol. Brought to the attention of the Small Arms Division of U.S. Army Ordnance in 1917, the Hammond was subjected to multiple rounds of evaluation by individual officers, small groups, and finally formal trials by both the Army and Navy. For the men who tested it, the Grant Hammond was something of a heart-breaker; it was often described in glowing terms by those who shot it, but had issues that were never fully corrected even after multiple rounds of feedback to the manufacturer. Almost universally the testers loved the handling and the accuracy of the pistol, though chronic issues were experienced with the magazine, and the novel bolt mechanism, which could be pulled out quite easily for basic cleaning, was much harder to deal with in a detail strip scenario, and would be more complicated than the Colt’s slide to maintain. “
Lot 447: Grant Hammond .45 Acp Military Trials Pistol – Very Rare Grant Hammond .45 Acp Semi-Automatic Military Trials Pistol. (n.d.). Rock Island Auction Company. photograph. Retrieved December 27, 2022, from https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/87/447/grant-hammond-45-acp-military-trials-pistol.
