Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Building a retro 1911 a la' the Pachmayr Combat Special?

I remember that!, Swenson couldn't remember how to take it apart either as he had put a long barrel in it and had made some kind of barrel bushing to fit to the slide. It had 2 ports cut parallel with the muzzle. I was shooting downstairs at the Bullet Hole w/Roy when the strip of metal between the ports broke off. Armand wouldn't tell him what kind of barrel it was; just kept saying, "it's a custom barrel laddie." !!!! :-). Good times, those.

I can recall in the early '80's when it wasn't uncommon to see someone compete and be competitive with a box stock 1911. I used to be a serious competitor but I lost interest when the "limited" stages were 40+ rounds long. And what killed it for me was the 2 hours of waiting in-between stages at the larger events. Oh, and the IPSC snobs, there were a lot of them. The whole thing got a bit clique-ish and a little exclusive, and that turned me off right quick.

They were often welcoming of a brand new shooter, in a condescending way, but as soon as they saw you as a threat, the nice wore off right quick.

"Practical" was a word that was debated intensely at the beginning as most clubs previously called it "combat" shooting (SWCPL, OCPL, etc.) and the word "combat" was considered too provocative in the post Viet Nam era. If you consider "practical" as a black and white absolute (measurable) standard, you're probably correct. If however you consider that in 1976 the ONLY other forms of organized pistol shooting were PPC, Bulleye and Metalic Silhouette shooting, IPSC was extremely "practical." Cooper sent out regular letters to the section coordinators urging us to design courses around actual shooting events; however, at the major events, they had to increase the round count and add more athletic elements simply to extend the standard deviation and better identify the best performer. In the early days, on a local basis, we frequently ran "The Saint Valentine Days Massacre," "The Sgt. York shoot," etc. A lot of them were based on actual events. "Practical"???? Maybe not, but certainly more so than any other event available at the time.


Maybe we're splitting vernacular hairs here, but I couldn't disagree with you more. In fact, IMO the MOST practical element to "practical" shooting is the timer (aside from man-on-man events). The timer adds artificial stress to shooting; in fact, a number of combat vets have mentioned that they felt more stress when the timer "beeped" than they did in actual combat. Obviously not all, but enough to be statistically significant. Granted, since the targets don't shoot back, the entire experience is artificial to some degree; however, man-on-man events bring an element of "practicality" that even supersedes simunition training at creating stress. Cooper was a huge fan of man-on-man. Obviously starting with the Big Bear Leatherslaps--the early events always ended with the top shooters competing in the man-on-man. In fact, Coopers idea was that all of the courses in the match were designed for the sole purpose of determining the top shooters that would enter the shoot off and then the Champion would be determined SOLEY by the shoot off. If you've ever gone to Gunsite, EVERY class has a man-on-man shoot off---some have one every day---purpose: to add an element of stress (practicality) to shooting.

Sorry for the bloviation -- end of soapbox.

JMO---of course, I could be wrong.

Kevin----on a different subject-----are you back in the gunsmithing business? If so, will you do trigger jobs on Smith revolvers?

$850 in 1984 is about equal to $2000 in 2014 (which is about what you'll soend to have an STI tuned up and ready to go). My point is that nothing has really changed. Guys were spending a lot on the benefits of better gear back then just like they do today.

I don't know if there were divisions when it all started, but now at least you're competing against guys who have spent roughly as much money as you. There's only so much you can spend on a Glock for Production Class or a 2011 for Limited Class before you get into greatly diminishing returns.

I'm sure there are guys who've spent $3K on a Glock. But the guy who spends $650 on a Glock isn't competing against them.

ETA-I drove to the Area4 Championshio this year with a guy who beat a GM and placed in the top 20% with a box stock M&P. 20% isn't amazing, but it shows that a $500 gun can be competitive.

The religion of the day was that a box stock Colt 1911 wasn�t as reliable as a Glock would be considered today, and that some modifications needed to be done to make it reliable. The 1911 also came with skimpy sights of a type that are superseded by those on a lot of pocket guns today. Another issue is that shooters were using different kinds of loads for different kinds of shooting and the 1911 of the day wouldn�t run the lead 200 grain SWC loads without some modifications. (My Glock 30 won�t run them even today.) I think that the technology has improved and that stock factory guns are better than they were back in the day.

It was kinda goofy starting a �practical� match from the surrender position. In the real world the average competitor would have been dead before touching the firearm.

Gmoats, we're on the same page.

What I meant was that a guy's competitive nature (when presented with a timer and rankings) will make the match impractical, not the actual timer and rankings themselves.

For example, if you said "Let's go shoot" I'd probably grab my duty gun and Level3 holster. But if you said "Let's go shoot and see who is faster and more accurate" I'd most certainly grab my Dawson sighted, Bluedreaux-trigger-jobbed, 5" gun with mag pouches and holster tweaked to fit my draw. It's my competitive nature that makes it impractical (because I know a timer and score sheet will be there). If that makes any sense....

I've made about $3K dollars shooting this year. The practical aspect of it is long gone for me, I treat it like a sport. And fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view) the matches have catered to the sporting aspect of it. I've got two big matches left this year and they're both "practical-stock gun" oriented matches. But I just finished reading one of the rule books again so that I can be legal, but show up with every advantage that I can. I'll never cheat to win, but I figure that if "Gun X" wasn't welcome, it'd be real easy to say in the rule book "Gun X isn't welcome". If there's a prize table, I'm gonna show up to win.
________________

I've never seen a guy who treated shooting as a sport look down on or mock the guys who treated it as training. But you can bet the "training" guys will scoff at the "gamers" all day. Not directed at anyone here, just an observation. It's really the opposite of what I'd expect.

I'll send you a PM

Hi all,
Craig Wetstein here.
At Pachmayr and at my shop, The Auto Shop, I would build up weld with a TIG welder on the grip safety. Then would radius the frame on the mill and cut a matching radius into the built up beaver tail to be.
It would then be rough formed on the belt sander and then filed to shape and fit the frame.
I am not gunsmithing anymore. I closed my shop in 1986 because of the poor economy and having carpal tunnel in both hands.
I knew Roy Erwin and he came to stay with us for a couple of matches, Bianchi Cup or Steel Challenge or something.
After all my years being around firearms, I just discovered this year the joy of black powder shooting.
You are welcome to ask me any questions, but I cannot trust my memory to be fully helpful.
If I can't remember or don't know, I will tell you.

I've never had the privilege of owning any of your work but your talents are certainly appreciated by those with ability to recognize real artistry.

Were any of these guys working at Pachmayr while you were there: Tim Barrett, Mike LaRocca or Les Pitman? I know LaRocca had his own shop at one time, but what about the other two gentlemen?

I'm glad to hear you're doing well.

Thank you so much for the kind words.
I don't know any of the names you mentioned.
I came to work for Tom Dornaus in 1976 at Pachmayr Gun Works.
Tom taught me everything about working on 1911's.
He was an excellent teacher and a great guy.
When he left Pachmayr to develope the Brenten, I was left in charge of the .45 shop.
I built on his teachings and developed my own style which I carried over eventually to my own shop in 1980.
When Tom left, Pachmayr hired a great talent to work with me. His name was and is Harry Ruffel.
Harry continued at Pachmayr until he was hired on to the Border Patrol.
Harry and I stay in touch.
He just retired as assistant chief.
I better stop now, I'm even boring myself.

Please keep on keeping on, Sir. Your two post have more relevant value than the last 26,000 in this section of the forum.

Comparatively speaking, how many full-house Combat Specials were built versus individual a la carte custom services back then?

ETA: Your comment about the economy back in 1986 is provoking. If you were building pistols today, someone of your reputation would likely have a backlog measured in years - not months. Funny how things can change in a relatively short period of time.

+1

Craig, you're not boring us at all!
Great to hear from you after all these years.

Pete

At Pachmayr, beside all the 1911 work we did, we were a warranty repair station for several manufacturers like Colt, S&W and others. The .45 dept was really the handgun dept. For the custom 1911's we would try to work on guns in groups, machining of the signatures, for instance. We would do porting of all the groups barrels at once, ejection ports, sights etc. Then we would take one gun at a time and do the slide tightening (which is a whole other dissertation), cosmetics, like checkering and trigger jobs. It was at that point that we stamped our initials and date on the bottom of the slide.
I don't recall how many "full house" guns compared to a la carte guns we did.
I hope that's helpful.

Talk some about slide tightening; peening vs. welding up and fitting or any other methods.
Thanks

At Pachmayr and my shop, The Auto Shop, we never welded rails, only peened. If a customer ever saw how we would pound the crap out of a slide, they would be horrified. I'm sure the methods are much more advanced and sophisticated these days.
Since you brought it up, here is my philosophy about slide tightening.
It is only relevant if you intend to test the gun in a machine rest. In my opinion, here is why.
Accuracy is simply having your sights, slide and barrel coming consistently into battery each cycle.
The sights and slide are fixed so the only other challenge is to get your barrel up into the slide consistently.
This is accomplished by a proper fitting barrel bushing, the barrel hood fitted and lastly the proper fit of the barrel bottom lugs fitted to the slide stop.
If the relationship of the sights to the slide and the barrel are all fixed, or as one solid unit, to me it does not seem to matter if the slide moves slightly around on the frame.
I proved this many times by the accuracy of my guns being shot off the bag, not out of a Ransom Rest.
Again, this is just my opinion.

Laughin' here.

Yeah, it takes a lot of pounding to move a hard slide much.............

Back in the day when I was doing work on 1911's, I used a lead mallet for the peening on the slides.

What did you use?.

MM

ball peen

I'm certainly a believer in that notion. I have a stock Colt with a lot of slide play that still shoots 2" @ 25 yards with the factory barrel and a custom fitted bushing.

I happen to believe that more advanced doesn't always mean better.

Thanks for your insight.