I've owned a bunch of custom 1911s, still have several and they're all great guns, but they had all been built for someone else. Something I had never done was commission a custom 1911 build for myself. Last year I decided it was time. I had this full size ORM 1991A1 .38 Super that I'd picked up a few years ago and had an idea to have it built into an all around, do everything gun, something I could use for competition, self defense, hunting, whatever I felt like. I took it to my friends at Dietrich Gunsmithy in Otis, ME. Robin, the gunsmith, is a very talented young guy and has done lots of work for me on other guns, including a custom revolver build for my wife. He knows the kind of stuff I like and we discussed what to do with the Super. I gave him a short list of the things I was looking for, I wanted it to have three barrels - .38 Super, 9mm, and 9x23 Winchester, a 10-8 U-notch rear sight and a gold bead front, the roll marks removed from the slide, mirror polished flats and matte rounds, and I wanted everything black. He took it from there.
We spoke a number of times over the course of the build, he'd show me a little of this or that when I stopped in the shop for other stuff. I had my worries about whether I'd like it when it was done. We had set a price up front, it was going to be expensive, I could have bought a high end production gun instead, but I really wanted one built just for me. The finish ended up being a big issue because there isn't much available for a polished black finish and I didn't want it blued, I have a high polish blued custom already and I wanted something tougher and more durable. In the end we went with Ionbond DLC because it is pretty much the only black finish that doesn't hide the metal. Like a blued gun, if the bare metal is polished, then it will show the same polish after being finished. It is also very hard and scratch resistant. Every piece of the gun except the springs has been coated.
Anyway, after a year and a half, I picked it up today and it is perfect. The polish and finish are amazing, it is all jet black, just the way I wanted it. All of the internals are Wilson and Brown, naturally everything has been hand fitted. All of the checkering and serrations were done by hand. I got the grips from Wicked Grips, I need to do just a bit of fitting on them. I've only had time to shoot one mag through it and it shoots like a dream with the 9mm barrel. I couldn't be happier with it. Tomorrow I'll be trying out the Super and 9x23 barrels as well and will see what I can do with it at 25yds.
I'll be showing it off on a few different forums so some of you will see this post elsewhere.
Here are some pics-
This is what I gave him to work with...
This is what I picked up today...
We spoke a number of times over the course of the build, he'd show me a little of this or that when I stopped in the shop for other stuff. I had my worries about whether I'd like it when it was done. We had set a price up front, it was going to be expensive, I could have bought a high end production gun instead, but I really wanted one built just for me. The finish ended up being a big issue because there isn't much available for a polished black finish and I didn't want it blued, I have a high polish blued custom already and I wanted something tougher and more durable. In the end we went with Ionbond DLC because it is pretty much the only black finish that doesn't hide the metal. Like a blued gun, if the bare metal is polished, then it will show the same polish after being finished. It is also very hard and scratch resistant. Every piece of the gun except the springs has been coated.
Anyway, after a year and a half, I picked it up today and it is perfect. The polish and finish are amazing, it is all jet black, just the way I wanted it. All of the internals are Wilson and Brown, naturally everything has been hand fitted. All of the checkering and serrations were done by hand. I got the grips from Wicked Grips, I need to do just a bit of fitting on them. I've only had time to shoot one mag through it and it shoots like a dream with the 9mm barrel. I couldn't be happier with it. Tomorrow I'll be trying out the Super and 9x23 barrels as well and will see what I can do with it at 25yds.
I'll be showing it off on a few different forums so some of you will see this post elsewhere.
Here are some pics-
This is what I gave him to work with...
This is what I picked up today...
