My amateur photos:

 

Wow, totally fantastic! Love the front sight contrasted with the whole black gun. Very James Bondish...

 

It's not the typical painted-on orange sight. Jason actually cut a notch in the steel, filled it with orange, and then covered it with some clear (lacquer?) to make it super bright and very easy to keep clean.

 

OP, it is like meeting a super model in real life...

 

VERY nice !

 

Looks awesome. Why the grip change?

 

I'm a huge fan of the VCD grips.

 

Righteous gun Todd! What magwell was used?

 

It's an S&A so Jason could do the checkering by hand. I would have liked the new Wilson but they're not available without checkering. The majority of the rest of the parts are Wilson except for the grip safety (EGW), frame & slide (Caspian), and barrel (Kart).

crashoverrideplik, it's a custom version of the Joe Watson HiTS knife. It was a separate gift from Darryl "nyeti" Bolke.

I have very, very cool friends.

 

Not a thing on that gun I would change. Just perfect. Congrats.


DakotaTex

 

Saw that one up on FB and immediately fell in love! Jason did an awesome job (as always) and I'm sure that it will be a treasure to own. If I may, what rear sight is that? It doesn't look like the usual HP rear slimmed down by Jason?

 

I will have to ask. It's probably on the build sheet but I don't have that at hand at the moment. He widened the notch on it significantly for me.

Any chance you can write up a comparison on your initial experience shooting the pistol vs. the Gov't Warren 9mm?

Curious to see split time differences and your thoughts on it's recoil impulse.

I'm sure I'll end up writing a comparo at some point. Split times won't tell the whole story especially since my elbow has suffered some issues since I was shooting the Warren thousands of rounds per week. But I can shoot them side by side, let some friends do the same, and synthesize something that at least sounds interesting.

 

Hey Todd,

Any chance you can write up a comparison on your initial experience shooting the pistol vs. the Gov't Warren 9mm?

Curious to see split time differences and your thoughts on it's recoil impulse.

Sweet piece btw!

 

Another great example of full in-house custom work. I love to see the rear sight serrations matching LPI with the rear slide, and love to see the serrated ejector. Great stuff you'll never see on production or even semi-customs...

 

Absolutely fantastic work and look - I know you're going to enjoy this!!

 

The other high end feature I like here are the grip screws.
The threads are at perfect lengths to allow the heads to align in the same direction.
A subtle, and often unnoticed feature.
Most makers use hex, or allen typen screws so it doesn't matter where the head torques out.
Very, Very nice touch.....

 

Wow... very nice.

 

Perfection!

 

Very nice gat.

 

Beautiful piece of work.

 

Mr. Green:
I knew in the past you've shot Berettas, HK (read about the torture tests, etc.) and other handguns. In short, what made you switch to 1911s at this time? Many instructors have put down the 1911s as old design, too heavy, not enough capacity, "king of the feedway stoppage", etc. What changed your mind? Especially with the 9mm 1911s. Some instructors have said that the 9mm 1911s are not serious guns.

Thank you.

 

In short, what made you switch to 1911s at this time?

(The TL;DR version is that after shooting a different gun each year for seven years, the 1911 was the one I enjoyed the most. It was the most foreign to me, the one I had the least faith in, and the one that surprised me the most. Might I choose something else some day? Sure. But for now this is a passion I intend to embrace.)

The process was weird. It began with Ken Hackathorn telling me many times how much he loved shooting his 9mm 1911s and eventually leading to me choosing a 9mm 1911 as my annual "test gun" on my website. Before then, I had never owned a 1911 (unless you count SIG GSRs when I worked for SIG). I didn't now how to detail strip one. I believed they needed mondo maintenance and their extractors bent in strong winds. I was fully prepared for the Warren/SACS guns to fail and prove my long held beliefs about 1911s true.

But instead the gun ran well, it was easy to shoot well, and I simply enjoyed it in a way few guns have ever made me feel. In truth I didn't shoot it as well as a Glock and if I was being purely rational I'd go back to a gun I shot the best (HK P30 or Glock 17... of which the P30 is still the gun I'd recommend to anyone wanting the best 9mm on the planet). But a variety of things in life made me decide it was time to trade a fraction of performance in favor of a big increase in enjoyment when I practice.

The weight is meaningless to me. I carry aiwb in purpose-designed holsters (most of which I've had a hand in designing or improving).

The capacity, yeah, I'd be happy if I could magically fit twice as many bullets in there. But from a practical standpoint, it's a compromise I'm willing to make. Rationally I know that 11 is enough. And if it's not, I'll die as an example for others to learn from.

 

What a beautifully built pistol you have there Todd, & a true 9mm Commander to boot. Good to see a professional seasoned shooter such as yourself has taken a great liking to the 1911 platform & to also have one of the greats build such a pistol. Job well done.

 

Beautiful pistol, beautiful photos!
I also like your knife.

 

This is the way a commander should come. Perfect!

 

Thank you sir. The 1911 is FUN to shoot. Anyway, one should familiarize himself with all weapons. Sounds like you have an open mind to experiment. Best.

Oh yes, the gun is awesome. Jason is a mad pistolsmith !

 

Really an outstanding 1911....

 

Todd,

What an awesome looking pistol. Truly worthy of the "heirloom" name!

I watched your "unboxing" video on YouTube. One of the first things out of the box was a couple of Dawson Precision magazines. In the video you said that Jason custom modified the mags for you. Can you elaborate on that?

 

BangSwitch, Jason would be better suited to explain the details but they start life as Dawson 9mm 10rd mags (which are themselves essentially badged Metalform mags with Dawson metal floor plates).

Jason tunes the follower to provide more reliable lockback -- a failing I found in both the Metalform and Dawson mags I have -- and uses a more powerful spring.

 

they start life as Dawson 9mm 10rd mags (which are themselves essentially badged Metalform mags with Dawson metal floor plates).

I wasn't aware of that. ...so I had to look it up & verify and found a quote from Dave Dawson himself on Brian Eno's forum:

Just a friendly heads up, while Metalform does make the 9mm mag tubes and followers, they are to Dawson standards. We do final adjustments, polishing and assembly in our shop, this includes quality checks and live fire testing.


I guess it's fair to say contract manufactured by Metalform?

I'm always looking for good tips. If there's any special magic Jason does to his 9mm mags, I'd love to learn how he improves an already great mag.

P.S. I went back to those pix again - just wow. wow.