Remington Rand was awarded its first order on March 16th, 1942, for a total of 125,000 1911A1 pistols.  The company had no experience building pistols at the time it was awarded the contract. Remington Rand formed a new division (Remington Rand "C" Division) to take charge of building the pistols.  Remington Rand "C" Division converted a vacant plant into a modern pistol manufacturing facility.  The plant was located on Dickerson street in Syracuse, N.Y and was once used for building typewriters.

Initially some manufacturing equipment was not available. This caused Remington Rand to acquire parts from other sources to complete the early pistols. They purchased barrels from High Standard, Colt, and Springfield Armory; Disconnectors  from US&S; Grips safeties from Colt; and Slide stops from Colt and Springfield Armory (2,865 left over from WWI). Remington Rand "C" Division inherited much of the documentation, tooling, and machinery that originally was used by The Singer Manufacturing Co. in their Educational Order.  Consequently some of the parts of the early pistols were made using Singer supplied tooling and fixtures.  Careful examination of Early Remington Rand pistols will reveal striking similarities in some of the parts to Singer made parts such as the triggers and mainspring housings.  The first 255 production pistols where accepted by ordinance inspectors in November of 1942. 

Initial shipments appeared to perform satisfactorily, but subsequent tests performed by Ordnance Inspectors revealed serious problems with parts interchangeability.  In March 1943 James Rand Jr.,  stopped production due to a high rate of Parts Interchangeability Test failures.  Only after a change in management and a thorough review of the inspection and manufacturing operations was production finally resumed in May of 1943. When Remington Rand did resume production the line from under the "O" in  "NO" in front of the serial number was removed (see IMAGE at LEFT), this transition started at approximately 955000 and either prefix can be seen as late as serial number 1016000. Throughout production Remington Rand aggressively attempted to innovate and improve the production of 1911A1 pistols. According to Charles Clawson books the ERRS (Experimental Remington Rand Series) pistols were created by Remington Rand for conducting experiments to improve their product. They were later presented to officials and employees of the company (see IMAGE marked "ERRS 61").

By March of 1945 they where building the lowest price pistol in the war effort and quality was considered second to none.  By the end of the war Remington Rand had produced over 875,000 pistols, almost as many as Colt (628,808) and Ithaca (335,467) combined.  Reference Charles Clawsons “Colt .45 Service pistols”.

Note: Since Remington Rand manufactured more 1911A1s then any other military contractor and the fact that the quality was considered second to none, it is not uncommon to find many Remington Rand receivers as the foundation to the National Match pistols used at the Camp Perry National Matches. Seen pictured at left is a 1964 National Match .45 pistol with a Drake slide.

There are three slide variations in the Remington Rand series. Type 1 is the rarest and only found on 1942 and very early 1943 production, followed by the type 2 which was only used in 1943, and then the Type 3 used in 1943, 1944, and 1945.  Only the type 1 slide stamp has "New York" spelled out, Type 2 & 3 is abbreviated to "N.Y.". Click on images for larger version.

These are the markings you will find on a USGI Remington Rand. There could be other markings applied from arsenals, other inspectors or even field units, the three below are the required markings for the pistol to enter service. Arsenal and barrel marking details can be found in the "ID Pages" section of the site.

Remington Rand Parts