First - it's 100,000 - not 900,000...
As of 2 December 2015 - this 'just' in from the CMP...
The NDAA 2016 has passed.
We have no further information concerning the status of the 1911s.
We will update our customers as we know more.
Please do not email or call with questions regarding the 1911s.
Our systems are overloaded.
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Here's the deal as I understand it, and I know folks within both ends of the disbursement of these unicorns that 'somehow' manage to cost money by lying dormant on shelves (which is a line of BS if you've ever heard one, so file it away).
The Army does control them - they still have unstated uses for them - they'll continue to have uses for them, and don't anticipate wanting to release 'any' of them to anyone for any reason - no matter 'what' the NDAA might say - possession being 9/10ths, and all that.
However, any regime change, no matter how anticipated and hoped for, will have its hands full for the next seven years (assuming the winning of a Second Term) digging out from the quagmire that 'this' regime managed to create will put this issue so far back into the Priority Cave that the guy who uses the Segway to go to the far end will have to look at a postcard in order to know what sunlight is supposed to look like.
Sad, but true.
They'll be 'so' busy attempting to restore some form of balance to America, and figuring out how to rescind practically every edict, that the term 'taking a back seat' just doesn't cover it.
Besides, if you've looked at the CMP and their business practices lately, an 'average-condition' M1911A1 - a Remington-Rand, say - will 'not' be cheap, nor will they be plentiful, and will likely be put onto one of their auctions.
It'll make the ones seen currently on 'Gunbroker' seem like the bargains of decades past, and all that's netted will be a 'Certificate of Authenticity' from the CMP that's exactly like the ones given for the M1s that they build from parts - you know, the ones with the new Boyd wood and 'CMP cartouche' and brand-new Criterion barrels that never felt the heat of Lake City M2 Ball, but they still sell them as being authentic Government rifles.
Sounds a bit cynical, I know - but I've seen a lot of the .45s currently in storage a few years back - of course my natural sense of curiosity made me look - and what I noted was the fact that they were rebuilds from the Army's 'Clean and Repair' Program, with receiver dates as late as mid-'70's through 80's- they weren't in-the-wrap, brand-new WWII production.
That doesn't mean that the receivers were built in the mid-70's through '80's for you literalists out there - they were 'rebuilt' and dated through those dates with the lettering around the right side of the trigger guard (example: 'A.N.A.D. 7-75') and the phosphate surface color wasn't the darker-color type seen on the post-WWII rebuilds that everyone's familiar with - it was a type of 'grey' like the color of condensation on a stainless steel faucet, for lack of a better term.
While there were the regular WWII slides, there were also a lot of the 'part number' slides used for replacement parts, and that was also true of the small parts as well, like hammers, barrels and slide stops and safeties.
There were a few thousand M3A1 'Grease Guns' in the building that were redone the same way - they must have been using up all of the spare parts. (I will say that in all my years of service, I had 'never' seen a rebuilt Grease Gun - never saw a brand-new one, either - but never a rebuild.).
As to the never-ending M1911-M1911A1 nomenclature business, what can one expect from the CMP, really?
They're a non-Government business building their own M1s and Carbines using non-issued, new wood and commercial barrels - yet inferring that they're 'Government-issued' - they surely can't be expected to tell the difference between iconic Service Pistols...
As this whole affair unwinds in the distant future, the pistols will be what they'll be - but the true treasures may well lie in what spare parts come to light, and believe me, there are a 'lot' of boxes and chests tucked away that no one's even looked at, much less opened.
Even the guys helping out in the M1 clean-up and sorting at Anniston haven't found them all, yet - and the marked crates haven't all made it out to their car trunks.
As to 'other firearms' in Government hands - like the myriad of revolvers and trainers and bolt actions used by Marksmanship and MWR facilities the world over - nope.
Those are long gone, and the pistols left are currently issued, and deemed 'Mission Essential', and besides, needy LE agencies have fist crack at those, as they do on shotguns.
Even the old Model 12s from the MWR program have been gone as well, and the CMP already got the standard .22 trainers and the air rifles, with the M12s being sold off when they'd surface.
The thing was, those sales were never really publicized - in order to buy - you had to 'know a guy' who'd tell you when, and those guys had needs.
Figure out what those needs were and fulfill them, and a happy man you would be...
Scouts Out!