Fudd Friday: Winchester 1911 SL - Was the "Widowmaker" Really Deadly?

Fudd Friday: The Winchester 1911 SL - Was the "Widowmaker" Really That Deadly?

Welcome to another edition of Fudd Friday! Today we're tackling one of the most notorious shotguns ever made: the Winchester Model 1911 SL, infamously known as the "Widowmaker." Is this reputation deserved, or is it just another tall tale from the gun shop counter? Let's rack the... well, not the charging handle (because there isn't one), and dive in!

Fudd Friday @TFB:

• Fudd Friday: Buy Baikal, "The Other B-Gun"
• Fudd Friday: Bring Back Pump-Action Rifles
• Fudd Friday: Colt's 1911 Competition Government Review
• Fudd Friday: Stevens 325 - When Bolt Actions Met .30-30

Patent Wars Create a Monster

Our story begins with a business dispute. John Moses Browning, the patron saint of gun design, had a falling out with Winchester in 1899 over royalties for his new autoloading shotgun design. Winchester, being too stubborn to pay the man properly, said "no thanks" to what would become the iconic Browning Auto-5. Browning took his design to FN in Belgium instead, creating one of the most successful shotguns in history.

Yes, you read that correctly. To load the Winchester 1911 SL, you had to:

1. Point the gun in a safe direction (hopefully)
2. Grab the knurled portion of the barrel
3. Pull the entire barrel straight back toward the receiver
4. Let it slam forward to chamber a round

Winchester's official instruction manual recommended either resting the stock against your hip with the barrel pointing away, or holding the stock with your off hand. What could possibly go wrong?

The Anatomy of a "Widowmaker"

The Model A1911 SL was a 12-gauge, five-round, long-recoil operated shotgun weighing about eight pounds. It featured:

• A 26 or 28-inch barrel with that infamous knurled charging section
• A tubular magazine
• A takedown design allowing the receiver and barrel to remain together
• Laminated wood stocks (necessary because standard wood would split from the recoil)
• Fibrous buffer rings instead of metal ones (another patent workaround)

These buffer rings would wear out quickly, allowing the gun to develop what period writers described as a "hammering recoil." Not exactly a selling point, but hey, at least it wasn't a Browning design!

So Did It Actually Kill People?

Here's where the Fudd mythology gets interesting. Despite exhaustive research, there are surprisingly few verified historical accounts of the Winchester 1911 actually killing its users as the nickname suggests.

The danger supposedly came when shells became swollen (common with old paper shells) and jammed in the chamber. Users, not knowing better, would allegedly:

1. Place the butt of the gun on the ground
2. Push down on the barrel (pointing the muzzle at themselves)
3. Meet their maker when the gun discharged

But how many documented cases exist? Almost none that can be verified. The "Widowmaker" reputation appears to be classic gun counter lore that grew with each retelling.

A more common and documented problem was injuries to hands when operating the action. If the user forgot too push the bolt hold open button before firing the final round, they would be forced to rack the gun manually when reloading. This meant you were potentially putting your mitts on a toasty barrel. Famous gun writer Elmer Keith described a helper getting his thumb caught in the ejection port when the bolt went forward, driving the extractor through his thumbnail. Painful? Absolutely. Fatal? Not so much.

By modern standards, the Model 1911 SL's charging system is completely alien. No semi-automatic shotgun made in the last 75+ years operates this way, so when people encounter one today, they're dealing with what might as well be Martian technology.

Commercial Failure, Collector's Dream

Winchester produced approximately 82,774 Model 1911 SLs between 1911 and 1925, a decent number but nowhere near the millions of Auto-5s and its variants made over nearly a century. The awkward operating mechanism, recoil issues, and that pesky reputation for being difficult to handle safely all contributed to its limited success.

Today, these shotguns are prized collector's items precisely because of their unusual design and infamous reputation. Even commercial failures can become treasured pieces of firearms history.

The Verdict: Dangerous Design or Dangerous Users?

Was the Winchester 1911 SL truly a "Widowmaker"? The evidence suggests that while it had an unusual and potentially hazardous operating mechanism by modern standards, it wasn't inherently more dangerous than other firearms of its era when handled properly.

The real issue was that it violated what we now consider basic principles of safe gun handling - namely, never point a gun at something you don't intend to destroy. The charging method practically invited users to sweep themselves with the muzzle, creating a situation where a mechanical failure or user error could have catastrophic consequences.

In the end, the Winchester 1911 SL represents both the ingenuity and folly of firearms design. It solved a patent problem but created a user problem - and in firearms, the user problem is always the more dangerous of the two.