John Travis

The long-awaited demo, brought to you by our own Hunter Lee Elliot. First, a little background on the pistol. The slide and frame are castings from Essex Arms...the supplier of castings for Thompson Auto Ordnance, and...to my understanding...formerly for Dan Wesson. The set was a gift to me some years ago, and I threw a pistol together from various new and used parts that I had layin' around. The problem was that the frame is made to GM-size specs, and the slide to Commander...which resulted in less slide travel than a Colt Commander has. Rather than drive the 70 miles to access a mill so I could cut the frame impact abutment and rails a tenth inch further back...I opted to thin the guide rod flange to .050 inch and regain half of the lost travel. I may do the machining one day if I can ever find one of those increasingly rare Round Tuits. I used a FLGR because I had one and didn't see a reason to pony up the bucks for a Commander guide rod and plug. On a couple of the rounds not shown, I tried to hold the slide but was unable to keep it from moving due to old man Arthur Itis making it hard for me to get a tight enough grip to keep it from slipping. It didn't move much, though. It's also apparent that Hunter looped a couple of the same shots. I'm sure he has his reasons, but I haven't talked to him since he posted this on Rangehot.com. Maybe he'll post here and shed some light on it. My guess is to let the video run longer so nobody would have to back it up or restart it to watch it over and over. Ammunition used was Sellier & Bellot 230 ball. Language alert. I said a bad word. Anyhoo...Here 'tis. Let the discussions/arguments/flame wars begin.

I thought this might be of interest to all you Wild Bunchers. Detail stripping a 1911 without tools has been mentioned a few times, and the other day, Hunter Lee Elliot made the 90-mile trip from the state capitol with his most excellent video camera to record the event.