Springfield's Ronin 1911

10mm Auto Handgun Loads

- Patrick Meitin

I handled my first 10mm Auto while wild boar hunting behind hounds about 1990. The borrowed 1911 acted as backup during a bow hunt – which, it turned out, I would actually need. Those northern California boars were especially ill-tempered and dogs have a way of turning up the temperature. To make a rather long story mercifully short, at the end of a gruelingly long chase I stopped a full-on charge by pumping three quick 10mm slugs into the point-blank, grunting blob. The boar staggered onto its side only feet away. The 10mm Auto had lived up to its reputation as a serious thumper, on an animal that later pulled a ranch scale to 368 pounds gutted.

The 10mm Auto was designed by Whit Collins, John Adams and Irving Stone, with input from Jeff Cooper of Gunsite Academy fame. Cases were created by cutting down .30 Remington brass. The pistol was introduced in 1983 by the California company Dornaus & Dixon via the Bren Ten pistol, with Norma producing the factory ammunition. Dornaus & Dixon soon encountered financial problems, with Colt taking the baton in 1987 and introducing the 10mm Delta Elite on a beefed-up 1911 frame. For a short time, the FBI believed the 10mm was the answer to inadequacies demonstrated during the infamous 1986 Miami Florida shootout, where several agents were killed by bank robbers, who inflicted casualties after absorbing several shots from standard-issue handgun cartridges. Yet, it was soon discovered many agents couldn’t handle the 10mm Auto’s recoil.