1911 Government Model

100th Anniversary Limited Edition

Hi to all ,

We have gotten our polishing methods perfected.  My lead man on the build of the guns has now shown the rest of my smiths how to properly polish the pistols.  My lead man will continue to do the builds and three of my smiths will polish one gun per week.  My lead man will also polish one gun per week.  We are scheduling  4 guns per week.   Each pistol takes 16 hours to hand polish.  We are building the pistols in the order that they were sold.  We have completed 4 pistols and have 4 more ready to ship to be charcoal blued.  I appreciate your patience.  You will be receiving a museum quality 1911 when your pistol is delivered.  

The Booklet that I have been working on that will be shipped with each pistol is ready to go to the printer.  This booklet has the history of the adoption of the 1911 written by Dr. Walter J. Kuleck as well as descriptions and pictures of each of the original parts that were changed over the years.  I feel that this booklet will be a good documentation of your pistol and its significance.      

The reproduction of the original tool that was furnished to the military for the 1911 has been completed.  I am waiting on the first samples to arrive.  I will have a price on them soon.  I will offer them in high polish fire blued and standard polish tank blued.  I will let you know what the price is as soon as I can.  This tool is L shaped.  The short arm of the L is a hollow ground screwdriver blade that is used to remove the grip screws.  The long arm of the L was rounded and the size of the end of the hammer strut.  This was used to remove the magazines catch on the early pistols that had the dimpled magazine catch lock as well as to push the mainspring housing pin out.  

Roy Huntington and I traveled out to the John M. Browning museum in Ogden UT in October.  We were interested in viewing the hammerless 45ACP prototype and the 1910 prototype pistols as well as seeing just what the museum was all about.  I can tell you that if you’re  a John Browning fan you have to go to the museum.  There are examples of all of the commercial firearms that Browning Arms has manufactured as well as the prototypes of most of them.  There is also a complete display of all of the military automatic firearms that Browning designed many of them are prototypes.  There are even 2 gas operated pistols that he designed.  I have never read anything about those!  Anyway,  the curator of the museum had the two prototype pistols that Roy and I wanted to see removed from the display cases when we got there.  I asked permission to disassemble them so that I could see the internal design.  I just about fell over when she said “SURE”!!  Those pistols are in the white so I carefully oiled them inside and out before I gave them back.  I now know the progression of Browning’s design that lead to the 1911 based on my knowledge of the earlier 1900 38 autos and the progression to the 1905 45 auto with the progression to the hammerless and then the 1910.  Bottom line is that once I have completed delivering the 100 anniversary pistols to you, I plan on building a limited run of the 1910 prototype pistol.  There are some unique parts that the 1910 had that the 1911 didn’t but now that I have had the pleasure of examining and measuring those parts from the original prototype  I can reproduce it.  If you are interested in being put on the contact list for the 1910 send me an email and I will put you on the list to be contacted when I am ready to start making the 1910.   I would have loved to do a reproduction of the hammerless but that will never happen.  The design of that pistol is such that a reproduction of that would be easily in the 5 figures. 

Roy is going to do an article on our visit with photos of both pistols.  As soon as that article comes out I will be putting many pictures and some descriptions of the pistols on my web site.  I will let you know when that information is available.  Roy took pictures of all of the internal parts of each pistol while I had them disassembled.  

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas.

 

Thanks again for your patience,

Bill