Springfield Armory EMP 4

from Survival Blog:

When the first Springfield Armory EMP series of shrunk down 1911s came out, I took a wait and see attitude before requesting a sample for an article on SurvivalBlog.com. I was really impressed with that little gun. It was darn near the perfect packin’ pistol, as my long-time friend and fellow gun writer, John Taffin, has been searching for all his life. The little EMP sample I had was in .40 S&W, and it was a very snappy pistol in the recoil department, very snappy! There wasn’t much I didn’t like about it.

Last December, my super-secret contact at Springfield Armory sent me the newest list of firearms for 2016, and I was under threat of torture and/or death not to reveal it to anyone until their newest guns were revealed at The SHOT Show.

I went over that list several times and requested some samples of the newest handguns from Springfield Armory, and we’ll have reports on some of those guns on SurvivalBlog.com coming along soon. However, going over that list numerous times, I failed to pay attention to the new EMP 4 model. My eyes just skipped over it. I thought it was just the original EMP model that got included on the list by mistake. You see, I’m smart, just not all of the time!

Just prior to The SHOT Show 2016, I was going over the new Springfield Armory newest product list and looked closely at the EMP. My eyes were opened! The EMP that I thought was an older model wasn’t! The newest EMP is called the EMP 4, and it comes with a 4” Bbl; the originals came with a 3” Bbl. Here’s the skinny and specs on the newest EMP that you can find on the Springfield Armory website; I don’t like boring our readers with a rehash of specs that they can read for themselves, so direct them to the specs at the gun company’s website.

When the original EMP came out, it really shook up the 1911 industry. The EMP isn’t just a cut-down, compact version of the full-sized 1911. Nope! Instead, what we have is a 1911 that appears to have been tossed in a hot dryer and shrunk down in all dimensions in size. It isn’t just a simple cut down 1911; it’s an entirely different creature. There are no less than 17 different parts in the EMP that will not fit into the original 1911. They are proprietary parts that only fit in the EMP, and the corresponding parts from an full-sized 1911 won’t fit into the EMP.

Springfield Armory designers, under the guidance of Dave Williams who runs their Custom Shop, came out with a smaller and much more comfortable 1911 that is much easier to conceal and is available in 9mm or .40 S&W. It came in slightly different models, too. The 9mm and .40 S&W are smaller rounds than the grand ol’ .45 ACP. As such, they don’t require a platform the size of a 1911 that shoots .45 ACP in order to fit into it. Yes, there are full-sized 1911s that shoot 9mm and .45 ACP ammo as well as other calibers. However, there is that “wasted” space in a full-sized 1911 that a 9mm or .40 S&W doesn’t need. Hmm?

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