Para apparently has a new "retro" 1911 for Wild Bunch-class shooters in Cowboy Action shooting.
It would seem to have a giant, laser-etched, "SASS WB .45" billboard down the side of the slide in modern, sans-serif, block letters, in a contrasting silver color, just like William Holden's Colt didn't have in the movie!
Target demographic fail.
Fugly....
ReplyDeleteWell it's still less inappropriate than the TAURUS logo on the side of the Gaucho SAA.
ReplyDeleteWhat I like is the retro beavertail grip safety and the retro lowered and flared ejection port.
ReplyDeletePara Sux!
ReplyDeleteBTW Robb's Gunblog .45 is rusting, Joe's has holster wear down to bare metal and he's tossed it in the safe.
How's your 9 holding up?
It must really stress manufacturers out when they see an unmarked 1911 slide. That nice flat, smooth, long surface, without any tacky engraving.
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, if I already bought the gun, I sure all hell don't need it advertising to me every time I pick it up.
Colt's done a good job with their orginal pistols, the Series 70, and the Deltas. Outside of those guns, I like a blank slide.
"How's your 9 holding up?"
ReplyDeleteFine.
WRT the finish wear on Joe's gun, it doesn't surprise me. Guns wear. It happens.
My two daily 1911s are both coated: the Colt with Durakote and the Pro with Black-T. The Colt has bare metal showing along the edges of the slide, some around the corners of the ejection port, and a few places near the muzzle. The Springer's beavertail is almost metal-colored, plus assorted other wear marks consistent with use.
My Para, by contrast, lives in my range bag, and so doesn't have holster wear, although I'm surprised that sliding around in the nylon Waller bag along with ear muffs and a K-22 and a 22/45 hasn't scuffed it up more.
"What I like is the retro beavertail grip safety..."
ReplyDelete??? :S
The gun in the picture at the link has the vintage GS.
First off Thanks for the link ;=}
ReplyDeleteAs too my Paras they are holding up well, The Gun Blog 9, the Tac 5, the Carry 9, The P-18 etc..
Meh... A feller wearin' that would be "all hat an' no cows".
ReplyDeleteA real "Wild Bunch" retro gun should be a 9mm, just like William Holden's Star Model B in the movie.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imfdb.org/index.php/The_Wild_Bunch#Colt_M1911.2FStar_Model_B
The phrase is "all hat and no cattle".
ReplyDelete90,000 blank rounds were fired during the filming of The Wild Bunch according to imdb.
ReplyDelete"A real "Wild Bunch" retro gun should be a 9mm, just like William Holden's Star Model B in the movie"
ReplyDeleteI disagree. This--
http://www.imfdb.org/index.php/The_Wild_Bunch#Browning_M1917
would make Wild Bunch class frikken' awesome.
It's a para. Just paint over the laser etching.
ReplyDeleteIt's retardated. Also, could you not, like, get a real slide put on it?
ReplyDelete...OTOH, as Og sez; haul it down to the paint & body shop, Bondo that ugly lesion over, sand, prime, paint... Oooo, can I get pinstripes?
This suddenly crashes into reality -- some durable instruments of the time were "japanned," a thick, shiny, black baked-on finish, quite often dressed out with gold lines & corner flourishes. It would not, actually, be all that non-period, other than, well, er -- guns are spozed to be blued.
...I'm also bothered that there is a "monkey peeler" in the Stuff You Need Amazon sidebar. I ain't never et a monkey in my life or cooked one, either skin-on or peeled. Ew.
Wow, does it come with a free bowl of soup?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Para are a bunch of tools. They hired a bunch of full-time gunsmiths when they moved out of West-France into North Kakalaki. The full time guys (who knew their shit)would tell Para that the parts they were using to put their guns together with were horse shit. Para solved that problem by firing all the full time guys and hiring part time help that didn't know what a good gun part was. Para is just one more company making bad 1911's for the price of a good Polymer pistol. It sucks, but its the truth.
As a design-side guy one of the reasons I've actually stayed away from some newer 1911's is the freaking billboard of poor lettering on the side, with the curtsy-flouncy Kimber among them (but chiefly because I once knew a girl named Kimber and I just can't go there) - they had room for a nice cameo etching of William Holden and they backed off?
ReplyDeleteOne of my shootin' pards buddies did that to one of those duded-up gold-plated commemorative scrollworked John Wayne .45's - he threw it in a hot-tank and stripped it and re-parked it dark gray. My hero.
"The full time guys (who knew their shit)would tell Para that the parts they were using to put their guns together with were horse shit."
ReplyDeleteYeah, I knew one of those guys. You could tell it hurt his soul. :(
Yeah, I knew one of those guys. You could tell it hurt his soul. :(
ReplyDeleteNot only that, after he was fired we found him with an empty bottle of Wild Irish Rose and a blow up doll of Carol Channing. The image is seared in my mind.... you can scream now.
they had room for a nice cameo etching of William Holden and they backed off?
ReplyDeleteNow, if it were Ernest Borgnine...
Looks like they took a GI model & threw on a flat mainspring housing and a long trigger. It's got an A1 style bevertail vice the shorter M1911 style, and has the indexing grooves behind the trigger guard. Also, no lanyard loop on the bottom of the nainspring housing.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M1911-M1911A1.JPG
Once upon an idiom, there was a popular phrase -- "Unclear on the concept". Many gun-co. execs should have it tattooed on their foreheads in reverse.
ReplyDeleteI really want to like my P-14 still, but after 5000 or so rounds, the grip safety wore a groove into the trigger bow, causing it to disengage one time out of four.
ReplyDeleteThe replacement trigger bow didn't help things much.
The Kimber Custom II have just puts my P-14 to shame with fitting tolerances, but it's rear sight won't stay put, no matter how tight I screw in the set screw.
I'd like to try a Nighthawk, but thats a lotta quid to spend to try something...
Beaumont,
ReplyDeleteDon't give them ideas.
Their next venture may be a 1911 with "Unclear On the Concept" engraved on the slide with reflective lettering.
Reverse lettering on the other side, of course.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteNeither Para nor Kimber are known for their high-grade small parts, although Kimber sells a pretty fair frame/slide/barrel kit.
The 1911 was designed to be made out of certain materials to certain tolerances, not to be assembled from a range of plastic, cast, and MIM parts made to a wide range of tolerances by eleventy different subcontractors.
If I was planning on spending less than ~$1,100 or so on a gun, I'd go buy a used Glock.
how about a springfield? I have not heard about their quality?
ReplyDeleteWalt
how about a springfield? I have not heard about their quality?
ReplyDeleteWalt
I own three 1911's. One is a chromed Norinco (Cylinder and Slide action work- paid for before I bought it) that shoots beautiful groups, but is too pretty to carry. I consider this my "dress" gun for special open-carry events. The second is a project gun that I assembled myself, in 400 Cor-Bon, to learn more about the inner working of St. JM Browning's designs. Shoots well, but not as reliable as I want for a carry gun. Peter Pi makes some HOT loads! My last one is my everyday gun, a Springfield alloy frame (they made them for a few years) that eats anything I feed it without a fuss. I've been shooting it for close to 20 years without a major problem. Replace the springs every few thousand rounds and it keeps on ticking. Accuracy isn't up to the Norinco's, but the reliability is better than any other autoloader I have ever owned.
ranamacar