Don McCoy top Navy M1911 & M1 builder dies

Mac passed away yesterday at his home in Santee, California. He was 92 years old.

Mac's first claim to fame was when he was recognized as a Pearl Harbor Survivor. He watched the planes come in bombing the ships that fateful morning.

He told me years ago one of his favorite moments was having a picture of him holding a match conditioned .45 ACP M1911 pistol put on the cover of American Rifleman. He was a very good pistol shot on the USN Pistol Team.

His Chief Petty Officer's uniform was adorned with both the USN Distinguished Pistol Shot and Distinguished Marksman (Rifle) solid gold badges when he retired from active duty.

He then worked at the US Navy Small Arms Match Conditioning Unit in San Diego, California rebuilding M1911 pistols for competition. Charlie Frasier (Chief Avaition Ordnanceman, USN, Retired) was the Unit manager and liked Mac's work on pistols. He asked Mac if he would like to work on M1 Garands, too. Don McCoy said, yes, he would.

This single change of jobs is the main reason the USN rebuilt Garands were more accurate than those of the US Army, US Marine Corps and the US Air Force. They never did quite catch up. Even after they began converting 30 caliber ones to 7.62 NATO, the M14NM's of the other services took a while to catch up with the Navy's M1's.

The rest is history.

"If you ain't shooting a Mac M1, you're just shootin' a rack grade gun."