ltwguns.com

This is a bit of a re-run, but things have been a little slow here at LTW, and although I’ve shown this one before, I never showed the “guts”.

I believe I finished this in 2004. The idea was to see how high I could go on the backstrap. It started as an experiment, on a frame that was not really from a first-rate gun. That way, if it went bad, no heartbreak. But the experiment went well enough that I started a box with parts that just might go together.
The hammer. Everything that didn’t keep it in place one way or the other, or get pushed by the hammer strut, or whack the firing pin, or catch on the sear, was ground or milled off. The beavertail is solid to the frame and super-high… so high that the thumb safety pivot hole is no more.


The magwell, made from scratch. The grips—somebody gave me a ton of G10 years ago but it’s about the color of watered-down pea soup. I sent some to Blind Hogg and he fashioned a set of grips for me, which I then grooved along with the magwell. I dyed them black; the dye penetrates about .003”. Then I sanded them back down to pea green, except in the grooves, and dyed them dark green.


The slide and compensator. As you can see, the slide has been milled away on top so the comp rides over it. A lot of metal is removed from the slide. One might expect it to crack through there eventually. I don’t know. There are other slides out there where the spring tunnel is awfully short. In some designs, (no 1911 I’ve ever seen), that front part of the slide is a separate piece that is copper-hydrogen brazed in place. They seem to hold up.

The comp is 7075 aluminum. See the opening in the bottom? What an amazing high tech, performance enhancing mystery innovation, eh? Nope. Just a little miscalculation on my part! So—the recoil spring plug has a raised flat portion, that, when the gun is in battery, becomes the “floor” of the comp chamber. This retards the first part of the unlocking phase, greatly dampening recoil. OK, that’s just pure BS. It’s just a mistake and that’s how I plugged it! Works fine, just wipe the carbon off the recoil spring plug during cleaning and no drama.

Will the aluminum comp hold up forever? The front baffle is threaded in and made of tool steel. I don’t think here’s enough side action from the stream of gas and particles coming out to do too much damage to the inner walls, but…. you can see why I put “experimental” on this gun.


Top view, same area. Recoil spring plug / comp floor in place in the slide. This gun shoots fast and flat but at one pin match a guy commented that he was afraid it would start the suspended ceiling on fire!


The beavertail and safety. See? I toldja the thumb safety’s pivot hole was gone! It now pivots from the front. There is no grip safety—it is replaced partially by the beavertail and partially by what I guess we’ll call the upper backstrap, which is made from a piece of 7075 aluminum.


The upper backstrap piece removed. It is heeled in at the top and retained at the bottom by the (aluminum) mainspring housing. It kinda rocks in and once the MSH is in place, it can’t go anywhere.



Thumb safety—made from a thumb safety and a slide stop joined together. And, the upper backstrap piece inside view.

That is just nuts, insane.......lost for words.

Ned, your work is just well, insane.

keep the bare high!


have fun,

A

_________________
Anthony Durning
Owner/Gunsmith
Durning Defense Customs LLC
www.durningdefensecustomsllc.com
(405)229-9856

Two words come to mind...


"Mad Scientist."

I've seen that on your website, and wondered what the heck was going on with that pistol. awesome work.

That's crazy...why the front pivot?

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"Bones heal, chicks dig scars, pain goes away"

I think because the hole for the thumb saftey that holds the beavertail was ground away. Nice pics. I love seeing the work in progress. I know you guys are busy, but I wish more of the smiths here (hint hint Jason)would show pics of the progress of the builds. A short video clip would be cool too.

I've shot that gun, and seen others shoot it.

I've been watching guns cycle for decades, and have pretty good vision. I can usually see slides shuttle back and forth. This gun? The slide is closed, it is open, it is closed. It is that fast.

There's the right way, the wrong way, the Army way, and the Ned way. Ned is much more entertaining.

Insanely cool machine work. I am always amazed by your metal work, and finding a "different" way than it has always been done. This is why I love this place. Some days we see "classics" that are in reality better than any classic ever was...some days its this...and everything in between,

SUPER COOL.

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http://www.northtexastactical.com

Wow.

I was told there were no great smiths left. this site has taught me otherwise.

and this pistol in particular blows my mind. Bravo

Thanks Kian, and welcome to the oasis!

There are more great smiths now than ever!! Just look at the pics here. The quality of work is unreal. The attention to detail is so far above what the previous generation of smiths did. The pics are great but wait to you handle one in person!!!

Here's the page on my site where there's a 360 view of this thing:
http://www.m-guns.com/bowling.php

It is different in some ways, yes it is, but in large part that is the result of some influences as my own approach to pistolsmithing was in the early stages of development. Austin Behlert was a big influence on me and I felt honored to have him as a friend in the last five or so years of his life. I never met Jim Boland but was lucky enough to get with some California shooters in the mid-80's at the Second Chance shoot, and they had some Boland work that really dazzled me. In the California parlance of the mid-'80's, they were just fabulously bitchin'.

As this pistol resulted from an experiment that went well as opposed to a project that was intended to result in an actual custom gun, there are things about it that aren't all they could be. I would mount the sight differently (and use a more high-end one), for example. But dang if it doesn't shoot well. It's always surprising to see the effect on steel plates or pins because once you get over the noise, your hands tell you you're shooting a .22.... but things go over as if they were hit with a 9mm.

I was fortunate enough to get to know Austin a little. A really great guy. I got the last of his HiPower hammer/sear kits and bushings for the chopped HiPowers. My first thought when I saw this gun was that you got Boland's mojo. He built some wild ones.