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Bill Laughridge and I have been working on what we have come to call the "Trident" series of 1911's this year. I've built a few guns for co-workers in my "spare" time since taking Bill's gunsmithing course. I was quickly swamped with more order requests than I had time to build. I asked Bill if C&S would be interested in adding a 1911 to their product line which was pretty much the gun I was building for my buddies. I also wanted to work with him to slightly improve a few 1911 components for military maritime special operations use.

SEAL pistols can get beat pretty badly while we stand between the bolster seats on our way to a seaborne target. I had a rough ride one night that rubbed a flat spot along the whole right side of my SIG once (and probably accounts for my sore back and legs). I've also seen pistol front sights smashed over from rough handling, being dropped during force on force training, or not being padded well enough while in transit. So Bill designed a stronger front sight.

I wanted a slide stop that was slightly larger and shaped a little differently than a stock slide stop for use with neoprene or tactical gloves...and again Bill came through. The gun is finished in the FailZero coating. We put 1200 rounds through the prototype without a drop of oil and without cleaning it and it ran without a malfunction. There are a few more bits and bobs, but for now I'll let the pictures do the talking. Photos are by Mrs. Frogman.

Frogman

From one "FROG" to another...

HOOYAH!

FROGMAN....that is one great bit of "kit" you and Bill have come up with! Also, I love the background display! THANK YOU AND YOUR BROTHERS (and sisters) in arms for all that you do!! Wishing you a safe and blessed New Year! Best regards--John

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"There is a true glory and a true honor, the glory of duty done, the honor of integrity and principle."--Gen. Robert Edward Lee

Frogman,

Well done on the photos. I had a chance to play with the Trident last month when Uncle Bill came to visit. For all the LTW crew, there is far more to this pistol than meets the eye. A whole lot of thought, based on real world experience, went into this one. There are a lot of shops turning out "tactical" pistols. Not to knock them, but many are way too tight to run in the real world of SOF personnel. They are great for LE and SWAT applications but not for the world that Frogman and his partners run in. I love my Springfield Pro and I have run it hard in a LE environment. But, I would not trust it in the harsh world!

The current photos do not give you a close up of Bill's new front sight. All of us know that the standard front sight can be easy to break. Bill designed the C&S Strong Front Sight to help with that problem. The base of the blade is built up to strengthen it without interfering with the sight picture.

Look for more great photos from Frogman. I won't steal all his thunder on this one. Someone does need to ask him why the Trident does not have a mag well on it. It is a great story.

If you are going to SHOT, this is one you need to see!

I will be getting the Trident back after the SHOT Show for an article for Harris.

Everyone have a safe and happy New Year.

Rob

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We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. George Orwell

Nice looking 1911 with some nice features . Thanks for sharing it with us and thanks for your service to our country. On a side note what kind of timepiece is that ?

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GO-FOR-IT

Thanks, Rob. I'll get a pic or two up of the front sight details.

The timepiece is a Kobold SMG-1.

Frogman

Here are a couple black and whites from the front to give you some idea about the front sight dimensions until I can get some close ups.

Frogman

Great looking no-nonsense 1911.

Front sight and side stop are very interesting.

So, since it was mentioned earlier:

Frogman, why doesn't the Trident have a mag well?

Thats pretty cool-expecially the fail zero coating-I am very interested in that-it seems to wrork great on AR's. How m uch is the EXO finish on a 1911?

That is the new Greider tactical slide stop..I have one in a SA 9mm. I like it.

Surprised by the smooth trigger, but everything else looks GTG.

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"The most effective armor is to keep out of range"-Italian proverb

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Frog, that's nice bro. PM inbound.

The Trident doesn't have a magwell because...

I was building a couple identical Caspian 1911's for two friends and was putting S&A magwells on them both. I had them all blended into the frames and everything and was taking them out to test fire them both in the white.

I shot the first gun...no problems. Dropped the mag and started with the other...

Shot two rounds (that's all that was loaded) and couldn't drop the magazine. I couldn't pull, tap, or halfway hammer the mag out. WT$? I tore the gun apart around the inserted empty mag (boy, was that fun). Tried to tap the magazine out from the top of the frame. No luck. I finally figured out that the magwell had one of its sides pushed over a slight bit and had crimped on the magazine base. It was most likely from a trip to the vise at one point or another, but who knows for sure?

My bad, but for grins I pinched another S&A magwell I had and could feel it move. Yikes!!! I had never realized how easy it was to move those things. I tried to imagine how I would have gotten that pistol in action if something like that had happened in the field. That kind of swore me off of them for combat use.

The FailZero (nickel boron) finish adds about $400 to the price of the weapon. This is due to the tedious prepping of the weapon before and after the finish is applied, as well as the finish itself. The finish is bead blasted overall to dull it and the rail surfaces are polished. Then the gun is reassembled and test fired. I know it's pricey, but it does perform very well.

The Trident is offered as either a parkerized or FailZero finished weapon.

Smooth triggers tend to work better with gloves in my experience.

Frogman

http://www.cylinder-slide.com/Trident%2 ... tion-1.htm

?!

So do you actually operate it without lubricant or is it just marketing speech?

In the really dusty places, I would probably operate it without lube. I would keep a small bottle of lube with me to add lube if necessary. Elsewhere, I would use it with less lube than normal for a 1911.

Frogman

If you have been to the C&S web site or talked to Bill about running a 1911, he has always preached lube, lube, lube!

When I handled the Trident, and Bill explained the finish I started to believe. Frogman has used and abused this one so I think his word is good. The parked version is about $300.00 or so cheaper. Don't hold me to exact dollars. When the guns come back from having the FailZero finish applied they are butt ugly and mottled. Bill does a very light bead blast to give it the satin gray look.

I'm glad this is getting so much traction here on LTW.

Thanks Guys,

Rob

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We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. George Orwell

The following narrative and photos are what got me moving in this direction with weapons finishes in the first place...a few years ago I was cleaning my weapons next to a teammate just after being extracted from a hot mission. We were picked up by UH-60's and CH-47's. We were blasted by moon dust as the helos pulled pitch to land on us.

My SIG P226 was dusty when we got back to base but still cycled ( I used the thinest amount of XF-7 that you could apply for lube). My buddy removed the magazine from his P228, and muscled the slide back to clear the chamber. He dropped the takedown lever and said, "Take a look at this!".

Here's what I saw,






There is no magazine in the weapon. The slide is being held back by "moon dust" friction.


My P226 looked like this when I field stripped it,













This is what his looked like when he got it apart,




Again, I barely applied XF-7 to the barrel, barrel hood, and a tiny bit on the rails. My buddy used a light coat of oil (as we usually used) inside his weapon. The difference is huge. My gun wasn't clean, but it worked. His did not. Sometimes when it comes to lube in combat environments, less is more. It depends on where you're fighting.

The FailZero finish on the Trident is an attempt to give this weapon a chance to run in these type of dusty environments, as well as on the high seas, or in the jungle, or in some smelly 3rd world city.

Frogman

Frogman,

Great pics and info. Thanks for sharing, it's appreciated.

And, of course, thank you for your service and keeping us safe.

Have a Happy, Healthy, and Safe New Year!

John

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NRA Endowment Life Member
I may be big, old, and slow, but so are the ball rounds in my 1911.

Excellent thread & pics! Thanks.
What style grips are on your Sig 226?

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"Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue."
- Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, US Navy, 16 March 1945.

Those are standard P226 grips with a soldering iron treatment.

If I remember correctly they were/are popularized in the Teams initially by "Rod," one of the shooting instructors at MID-SOUTH Institute.

Correct. Those grips came off of Ross's pistol. We swapped grips when I was out there training prior to deployment.

I still have them, too.

Frogman

Did you throw in a bottle of Crown on that deal? That was Ross's "poison."

Rod was churning them out for a little while too.

Oh, yeah. There was Crown involved at some point. Rodney made them for Ross. Ross and I had known each other since he was the maintenance guy there. I had been wounded the year before and was still limping around on that trip. I asked him about his grips and he concluded that it would be faster if he swapped his for mine and had Rodney melt the set I gave him sometime later. I made two deployments with those grips and Lord knows how many rounds I've fired with them.

Frogman

Frogman - I love the pistol, it looks awesome. On the magwell issue, have you considered using a weld on or solder on like the Heinie? Once it's attached and blended, there should be no flex in it because it is supported by the frame.

Everybody else - For all you disbelievers out there, I will confirm Frogman's ideas on weapons lube. I found the same exact thing during my experiences on missions overseas.

Frogman:

1. Thank you for your service. Having guys like you guarding the gate is a good feeling.
2. I like that new slide stop.... an attractive and useful shape, looks like.
3. Moon dust? Now everybody knows, helicopters can't fly on the moon.......
4. I'd like to know about that picture that appears to be a SEAL shooting a SIG underwater.

Ned,

The "pistol" in the photo is an HK P11 designed to shoot from underwater. Google it and you will get more details.

Here are a couple of photos the the Trident with a parkerized finish.





Happy New Year.

Rob

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We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. George Orwell

Ned,

Rob beat me to it but here is a link to more info on the HK P11:

http://hkpro.com/index.php?option=com_c ... s&Itemid=5

Ron,

I did consider a weld on magwell. I certainly wouldn't get in the way of someone who wanted that feature included on their Trident as an option. I have one gun that has a weld on well and enjoy the feature, however, I have broken that weld twice and had to have it re-welded. For this reason, and because it would have added significantly to the price, I opted to omit it as a standard feature.

Ned and all, you are welcome for my service. I'm proud to have spent many years along the watchtower. I'll have some U-boat stories for you this year at SHOT, too, Ned.

Speaking of U-boats, the photo was taken in Eckernforde, Germany while training with the German Kampfschwimmer Kompanie in 1991. It is an HK P11 that belonged to that unit. The weapon had two modules; a land and a water version. Both modules are electrically initiated and must be reloaded at the factory. The underwater version fires tungsten steel darts. It's cool to watch the bubbles from the surface and see the little smoke circles pop out of them.

Frogman

How do you like that Kobold?

I like the Kobold a lot. It's a very nice watch.

Frogman

Frogman,

Thanks not only for your service but your experiences and how they effected your choices on a great looking 1911.

Couple of things that I found intriguing about this, first, correct me if I'm wrong but it appears that the project started out as a Springfield GI.45. Unlike most upgrades to the model, rather than lowering and flaring the rear bottom ejection port, the more modern Colt series 80 method of opening up the bottom front of the ejection port was incorporated. Do you find this method more reliable?

Stippling instead of checkering? Very cool, I've always felt checkering was prone to damage and lean to other metal treatments. How's the stippling working for you? Most of the high speed 1911s being marketed have some pretty aggressive checkering.

Do you have a problem finding holsters for that work with the over sized shelf on the slide release?

Ok, you fielded the watch question, how about the knife?

Love what was done to the Springfield!

Frogman, Thanks for your service and for posting the cool pics. The ones of the Sigs are quite the eye opener.