S&W'S enduring masterpiece: approaching its 10th birthday, the Model 945 has a devoted coterie of fans. And it's not a 1911

Guns Magazine, Nov, 2007 by Massad Ayoob

Smith & Wesson finalized their Model 945 in 1997 and formally introduced it in 1998. Though the firm had quietly produced various 1911 pistol components over the years, S&W back then steadfastly refused to copy a gun with the trademark of Colt, their archrival for well over a century.

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

They finally capitulated in 2004, with the introduction of the excellent SW1911. Oddly enough, the SW1911 did not sound the death knell for the Model 945, which on the occasion of its largely unexpected survival to its 10th birthday is more than deserving of a feature article in GUNS.

Historical Background

For decades, S&W fans had pleaded with their favorite company for a .45 automatic. The company answered in 1983 with a stainless, double-action-first-shot service pistol, the Model 645. It looked like a Model 39 9mm with a gland condition. Back then, the 645 was a hit with police chiefs leery of cocked-and-locked guns. Sig's double action P220, originally dubbed the Browning BDA, had proven a DA .45 auto could work in American policing yet some chiefs were still reluctant to buy "foreign guns." S&W was the market leader in service revolvers, and the chiefs were comfortable with the brand, so the 645 sold reasonably well.

"Civilians," however, did not care by and large for long, heavy first-shot trigger pulls on autoloaders. Couldn't Smith make them a single action .45? S&W responded with a somewhat waffling answer--the Model 745. Introduced in the mid-1980s, it was 1 modeled off famed S&W shooter Tom Campbell's unique "Supergun II," a 645 modified to cocked and locked single action only with an upward-flipping slide-mounted manual safety. Totally reliable and reasonably accurate, it still didn't fit the 1911 paradigm. and sales didn't soar, they crawled.

In the 1990s, S&W took a one-two punch at the single-action auto market. One blow was in the form of the Model 845, dubbed the "Bull's-eye" model when run as a special edition for Lew Horton Distributors. The 845 "was for approximately l0 years on the S&W drawing boards. According to the authoritative Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson by Jim Supica and Richard Nahas, this was a virtual duplicate of Campbell's pistol, but it didn't catch on among bull's-eye or IPSC shooters.

If the Model 845 was the weak left jab of S&W's one-two punch at the single-action auto market, the Model 945 would be--the company hoped--the strong right cross.

The 945

It had become clear American shooters, after nearly a century of habituation to the Colt-Browning single action .45, wanted such a gun to have a grip safety and a frame-mounted thumb safety going off on a downstroke rather than an upstroke. In the 945, S&W obliged. However, S&W was still not ready to put their logo on a clone of a Colt. The 945's slide was grafted from the 645's 3rd-generation successor, the excellent Model 4506 and the frame would not be the least bit Colt-ish.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Hand Filling

The 945's frame turned out neither Colt-ish nor coltish. It is massive. Its grip angle is more vertical, niched out sharply at the area of the web of the shooter's hand, and then making a precipitous descent straight down to the butt. The 945 feels "fuller" in the hand than a 1911, and pays a bit of an homage to the Bren Ten's rendition of the CZ 75 design a decade before. It doesn't feel quite like anything else in the hand.

Since the new gun was almost expressly intended not to have parts interchangeability with the 1911, Wilson Combat was reportedly contracted to produce the proprietary grip safety, which is indeed ergonomically correct for this particular pistol.

Criticized by 1911 purists as a caricature of their favorite pistol, the 945 nonetheless developed its own small but devoted base of shooters who consider it their favorite handgun. A Performance Center gun from the beginning, it has always been identified by certain hallmarks of quality. The 945 generally has an excellent trigger pull, smooth working safety, comfortable recoil, and outstanding workmanship and finish.

Thus, the 945 is unique unto itself, a crossbreed with a frame 1911-ish but not truly "1911" in spec or in grip angle. Just as you can't plan on swapping its internals with generic aftermarket 1911 parts, don't plan on doing so with magazines. When S&W stamps the mags "MODEL 945 ONLY," they mean it. Magazines from the Model 645 or 4506 will not work in the 945. Nor will 1911 mags.

Rock Solid

These are solid guns. Over the years, the Model 945 with 5" barrel has been listed as heavy as 44 ounces (Ned Schwing's Standard Catalog of Firearms). Supica and Nahas note, "Weight (is) 43.5 ounces in 1998 manufacture, 42 ounces in 1999 and later manufacture ..." Current spec is 40.5 ounces. My test sample, unloaded and with magazine completely removed, hit only 38.6 ounces on a calibrated scale.

I get the sense the market did not respond positively to a 5" all-steel pistol weighing more than the traditional 39.5 ounces of a Government Model, and Smith & Wesson trimmed the 945 accordingly.