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I though I would post a short review of a Steve Nastoff gun I recently acquired. I generally don’t like or spend money on comp’d or race guns but when the opportunity to own a gun built by Nastoff presented itself I jumped at the chance. After finally getting the gun out to the range last night I figured I would share my experience and some of my thoughts on the gun with my fellow 1911 junkies.
Although I’m not sure when the pistol was built I would estimate by it’s styling that it was in the early ’90s. The gun is chambered in 45ACP, based on a 5” Springfield Armory frame and slide, and finished in hard chrome. The slide has been cut down by about 0.5“ to accommodate Nastoff’s full-profile 2-chamber comp (his “Super Comp 2” I believe) that is fitted to a 5” Bar-Sto bull barrel. This comp works very well and appears to be a very efficient configuration on this gun. Although my experience with comp’d guns is somewhat limited, with full power 230gr FMJ loads the recoil was minimal and as expected follow up shots were noticeably quicker. No big surprises here, the comp does it’s job very well.
The frame has been hand checkered at 20lpi on the front strap and on both the front and bottom of the trigger guard. Additionally the MSH has also been checkered to match. This stuff is sharp too!!! It’s by far the sharpest checkering I have ever felt and even my hands, which are pretty well callused from regularly shooting a gun checkered at 30lpi, were a bit tender after 200 rounds. There’s no doubt that if I wanted to make sure I could keep hold of a gun this would be the checkering to have. I can easily see the benefit to ultra sharp checkering in the competitive arena or if one were going to regularly shoot with gloves on. While just shooting the gun from a rest the checkering on the bottom of the trigger guard dug nicely into the index finger on my left hand and would not let go. There’s a helluva lot of grip here and the best part is it’s done perfectly.
The frame also features a flared or “swaged” magazine well that is topped off with an add-on mag-guide that has been welded to the MSH. It’s obvious the amount of time that must have spent with just this modification alone. The rear “web” of the frame between the magazine well and the MSH has had a portion of it cut away and the MSH with the welded on mag-guide fill in the resulting gap. In flaring the magazine well it is my understanding the Nastoff would bevel the inside of the mag well and then heat up the frame, insert a mandrel, and pound the it into it’s widened form.
Although I’m not sure when the pistol was built I would estimate by it’s styling that it was in the early ’90s. The gun is chambered in 45ACP, based on a 5” Springfield Armory frame and slide, and finished in hard chrome. The slide has been cut down by about 0.5“ to accommodate Nastoff’s full-profile 2-chamber comp (his “Super Comp 2” I believe) that is fitted to a 5” Bar-Sto bull barrel. This comp works very well and appears to be a very efficient configuration on this gun. Although my experience with comp’d guns is somewhat limited, with full power 230gr FMJ loads the recoil was minimal and as expected follow up shots were noticeably quicker. No big surprises here, the comp does it’s job very well.


The frame has been hand checkered at 20lpi on the front strap and on both the front and bottom of the trigger guard. Additionally the MSH has also been checkered to match. This stuff is sharp too!!! It’s by far the sharpest checkering I have ever felt and even my hands, which are pretty well callused from regularly shooting a gun checkered at 30lpi, were a bit tender after 200 rounds. There’s no doubt that if I wanted to make sure I could keep hold of a gun this would be the checkering to have. I can easily see the benefit to ultra sharp checkering in the competitive arena or if one were going to regularly shoot with gloves on. While just shooting the gun from a rest the checkering on the bottom of the trigger guard dug nicely into the index finger on my left hand and would not let go. There’s a helluva lot of grip here and the best part is it’s done perfectly.

The frame also features a flared or “swaged” magazine well that is topped off with an add-on mag-guide that has been welded to the MSH. It’s obvious the amount of time that must have spent with just this modification alone. The rear “web” of the frame between the magazine well and the MSH has had a portion of it cut away and the MSH with the welded on mag-guide fill in the resulting gap. In flaring the magazine well it is my understanding the Nastoff would bevel the inside of the mag well and then heat up the frame, insert a mandrel, and pound the it into it’s widened form.


