What should I do with this old colt?

[Trigger Time]

I'd restore it to original and then sell it to me
no but seriously, this is a nice gun! I saw it in the classifieds and wanted it but it was too far away. Think of all the history this gun had seen. Maybe even a mobster carried it?

 

[AllenM]

new pics added to original post. Gun is now done at least I think so

 

[Trigger Time]

Allen you Sir are a master artist! I give you my sincerest complements on a job well done and for keeping it true to original

 

[WilsonMD]

 

[ghitch75]

new pics added to original post. Gun is now done at least I think so

looks as it just left Rock Island Armory......

 

[AllenM]

Ready for the next one now

 

[AllenM]

I seriuosly appreciate everybody's input in this thread. I am glad that I went this way instead of what I was originally planning

 

[partyboy6686]

Looks good Allen. Now all you need is one of those $180 lanyard loop magazines from the guy who hit the crack pipe at the Indy 1500.

 

[churchmouse]

I like it.

 

[citizenkane]

Looks good, I'm glad you didn't have it reblued.

 

[AllenM]

Looks good Allen. Now all you need is one of those $180 lanyard loop magazines from the guy who hit the crack pipe at the Indy 1500.

Actually that wasnt far off from the original ones I have seen online

 

[Mark 1911]

Very nice work!

 

[rockhopper46038]

Looks awfully good Allen!

 

[AllenM]

Thanks guys,
I am really happy with it

 

[ModernGunner]

Very nice work on it, Allen. Looks great!

MY - If ya (whomever) REALLY wanna 'honor' that sidearm, and the memory of the men who are responsible for it, Sam Colt & John Browning, don't keep it as a 'safe queen' or 'semi-safe queen' now that you're done all that work on it. Carry it, shoot it, use it.

Colt & Browning certainly liked 'pretty guns', but they also understood the PRIMARY purpose of a handgun: it's a tool. That piece of iron ya got there was designed and built so a man could wear it and defend himself with it. A 'working man's' gun, if you will. American.

Who knows exactly where that particular piece has been? Good guy, MAYBE even outlaw, 'cause we have 'em here! But whoever bought it or had it issued to them, we know from Sam and John that it was built as a 'fighting gun' for men to use.

So the 'best' thing ya could have done with that 1911, with all the possibilities at your disposal, was exactly what you did with it. Restore it as a 'workhorse' and let it do it's 'job', defending the man wearing it. "The old guard dog returns to duty".

'Romanticized'? Of course.

'True'? Absolutely.

 

[st33da]

great job bringing it back to life!

 

[STEEL CORE]

Justice was served brother, what a story, you don't know how much I envy you and wished it was me, then again it was me about twenty some years ago, deja vu.
I remember as a kid in the early sixties (shows ya how old I am) a knock on the front door of our house in Detroit (15341 Washburn Google it, you need a gun to live in that house now), it was the mail man, and he wanted to know if my dad was home, he was (usualy he asked for mom, and funny I look just like the guy) ?!? Anyway dad gets a square brown paper wreapped package from the mail guy and opened it right there before my eyes in the living room. An arsenal refinished 1911/1911a1 WWII/Korea if it only could talk .45 pistol that yes back in the day, he ordered off the back of the NRA magazine for $25 surplus shipped!

He kept it in his sock drawer until 1989, when my brother sneaked it to me and I had it blued and returned to him. I have it now and the ol boy is 84, so I should take it up to the cabin this summer or deer camp this winter and reunite the two ol GI's (Dads a Korean War Vet). Wished I would have parked it now.