You never fired an m1911 at a 15 yard target while in the national guard of any state in the United States. The first problem is its a m1911a1.

The third issue is you have the hand and arm strength to hold the weapon to begin with you will easily control its recoil with a single hand. I skipped the second issue on purpose assuming its a typo. Anyone who has served and qualified with any weapon will spot it in under 5 seconds.

Finally if you or your armorer were remotely competently trained, 50m targets are an easy shot. If both are weapon is very capable of hitting human size targets at 100 meters.

Colonel David Hackworth did a study on the effectiveness of the .45 M1911A1, other small arms and the small arms training standards of troops deployed to Vietnam. He found that the .45 was the cause of most casualties from accidental discharges.

This was probably due to many guns being issued at the mean end of service life, with safety mechanisms beginning to fail. This issue ,coupled with insufficient training given to draftees, and heavy recoil, made the weapon ineffective for all but eye to eye range. On the converse there is an account of an helicopter crew-member, who was into competition shooting with the .45.

When he was shot down in Vietnam, he managed to hold off at least a platoon of NVA killing many at pistol range with his personal .45(likely customized), until he was rescued. It is a fine weapon in trained hands. It’s not a Glock. It’s a classic from a different era.

I fired an M1911 .45 cal pistol at a range while in the National Guard. At 15 yards I could barely hit a silouette due to the recoil. Is it really an effective sidearm?

Pathetic, if not completely made up.

Recoil happens AFTER you fire the weapon, not before, so there should be no problem putting the sights on target due to recoil.

The reason you are missing the target is because you are not competent at shooting with pistols.

You mention recoil, so its likely you were flinching in anticipation of the recoil. This is a very common and easily correctable issue.

For someone who is skilled with the weapon, the .45 is quite effective.

Dont blame the weapon.

It hasn’t remained popular for over a century just because its pretty.