It had begun life as a Colt-manufactured service pistol. Like me, it was no longer pretty and had lost the blush of youth. The blue was worn, the gun very much used. It was an old (1968) Clark-built match pistol having among its other desirable characteristics the ability to repeatedly place 200 grain Hensley & Gibbs #68 bullets or Federal match ammunition into the 10 and X rings of a 50 yard slow fire target, provided of course the shooter did his job of sighting, holding and trigger control. I had a 1911 on my desk in which he took a polite interest. It came to pass that the great man visited one day. What exacting standards he did set, looking down on other 1911 owners from his olympian heights! How could lesser folks even live as they did with their crude substandard weapons? A accomplished man he was, erudite in the wisdom of the gun magazines, secure in his bastion of knowledge. He sneered at the notion of anything less than a custom pistol by a big name pistol smith. He spoke knowledgeably about barrel bushings, rod guides, 32 lines to an inch hand cut checkering and so forth. He was a purist of the highest standards, a 1911 snob and a name-dropper. Such were for lesser beings than himself. He could, he professed, never be bothered with "inaccurate" and "out-of-the-box" 1911s. He held forth in various webpages and discussion forums, extolling the perfect, state-of-the-art 1911, custom made from custom frames and slides of the sort used, he said, by elite FBI units.
I once knew a fellow who waxed authoritatively on the subject of 1911 pistols. Form.īefore reviewing the Colt Gold Cup Trophy, please bear with me for an edifying moral tale.