I'm probably a few days away yet from having pics but I thought I'd take this chance to post a few details.
The customer basically told me to run wild. I took a pic of the gun as-received and doctored it up a bit to show him my ideas-- and they were maybe a little too wild (but I'll talk somebody into it soon enough
). So I backed off a little. On the face of it, this gun will not look very much different from some of my recent work, but I wanted it to be a little "differenter" than that, so I have made it a lightweight. Yes, it's all stainless but I have removed a little bit of metal in a lot of places and you can feel the difference. I don't have a number on it yet as I am not yet done whittling.... but it'll be a good couple of ounces-plus, which doesn't sound like much but put four 230-grain slugs in your hand and that's just over two ounces. There are a lot of places where metal can be removed without compromising strength, I have visited most of them now, I'd say. Some examples:
-under the barrel bed
-in the front of the mag chute, between the bottom of the feed ramp and the top of the trigger cut
Both of these areas are quite massive. Also-
-the root of the trigger guard, where it joins the frame-- I have hollowed this out from the inside
-under the grips, I have cut several pockets. They do not go all the way through, just for neatness' sake
-I cut slots in the frame just forward of the slots that receive the mainspring housing
-the mainspring housing has had a lot of metal removed, on either side of the spring hole
-the (Yost) hammer has been lightened
-slide stop (Colt original) and thumb safety(Wilson Combat) have small lightening cuts on the back sides
-frame rails, where they pass over the mag chute, are removed as in STI or Guncrafter guns
-a series of small holes are drilled into the frame rails from the top, where they are thickest.
-cuts are made in the slide something along the lines of Lightweight Commander cuts, but not in the crack-o-matic style that is done at the factory. Additional lightening holes go from the bottoms of these slots into the mass of metal between the rear sight and breach face. Three, 1/8" holes go forward from under the firing pin stop to within about 5/16 of the breach face-- these are at 11:00, 1:00 and 6:00 from the firing pin hole.
The slide is still heavier than a LW Commander slide, plus of course it retains the full-length O-model slide stroke, so no function issues.
The barrel is a Nowlin bull barrel, so there's some added weight there, but I have reduced its weight. it ain't exactly fluted and it ain't turned down. You'll have to wait for the pics I guess.
I made the reverse plug from a piece of stainless barstock; it has the little filler piece in front, in this case everything is actually fitted up so that it doesn't just fill the gap, it does make contact with and support the barrel upon lockup.
Sights are made from stainless. I will be dubuting a new sight at SHOT and although it will not be available in stainless, this is that sight. It is a copy of the sight I made for my Officers ACP in 1985, but made to fit the Novak cut.... I will be calling it the Shield Driver but it is not the same shape as the ones I've been making from the YoBo Pro-Grades. The sights have been blasted, treated with a chemical conversion process to blacken them, and then given a spray and bake to get them as black as black can be. Tritium front and rear.
Conamyds, front, rear, and MiniMyds on the angled mag catch. The MSH (Legacy Custom) has been reduced. The MSH has been welded out to the full width of the rails at the bottom, to alleviate the sometimes unsightly effect of reducing the MSH into the locating slots. Magwell is my FLH, that is, no added metal but still a Fairly Large Hole.
It has my two-piece grip safety.
The grips, ah, the grips. I have pretty much just discovered Esmerelda. I had seen a few of hers before but I ordered several sets with the agreement I could send back all but whichever set I selected-- what a job that was, they were all so beautiful. I kept two sets (cocobolo per Neil Blackwood who is using it on the companion knife), and fitted one to this pistol. They are thin grips and between them and the girth reduction your hand thinks it's holding a .380.
There's more-- some of which will come to me later, some of which I am purposely holding out for the time being.....
Pics coming in the next 2-4 days.
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