With the redesign, mixing, and evaluation of each of its components, the Ballester-Molina pistol (poor old Rigaud was left out in the end) was a handgun that Colt couldn’t say it was an unlicensed copy. Both the Ballester and the 1911 do have the same 5-inch barrel, same short-recoil operation, and same single action operation. Also, since the Ballester was based in large part on the Model 1916 Colt, which was based on the original Colt 1911, which did not have a beavertail grip safety (which was added in the 1911A1 model), the Ballester does not have one either. The trigger pivots on a roll pin, rather than slides which is different from the 1911 and was borrowed from the Spanish-made Star Model B 9mm. There was only a very slight difference in dimensions the Ballester being just a hair longer overall and weighing in at about 40-ounces unloaded while the Colt made inspiration came in at 38-ounces. HAFDASA produced a training model of their 1911 (seen here) that could swap out the. The result was a gun that looked like a 1911, felt like a 1911, fieldstripped and shot like a 1911, but in the end wasn’t. Each individual part was looked at, simplified for ease of production, and set to the side. With their chief engineer, Rorice Rigaud, Ballester, and Molina started with an old imported Model 1916 Colt and reverse engineered it. The two heads of the company were Arturo Ballester and Eugenio Molina, and in 1937, they took their manufacturing skills and turned them to the task of making a cheaper Argentine-built 1911. Buy DGFM-FMAP Argentine Army 1911 Sistema Colt 1927. (HAFDASA), made many of the bestselling trucks and cars on the streets of Buenos Aires. The European company’s Argentine partnership, Hispano-Argentina Fábrica de Automóviles S.A. In the early 1920s, the Hispano-Suiza name was internationally known as a maker of some of the best automobile and airplane engines on any continent. And that’s when a local carmaker named HAFDASA seized the moment. These are known today as the Colt Systema Modello 1927.īy the 1930s, as the US Great Depression turned global, the Argentine government was looking for more of the same gun, only cheaper. Unsurprisingly, they liked those so much that they asked for 10 times as many of a slightly modified version from Colt. In 1916, Argentina ordered 10,000 Colt 1911s from the US for their military. Argentine soldier with Ballister-Molina 1911 pistol.