This post is dedicated to my good friend Chuckski (INGO member coronet67) who passed away in June.
He was truly a comrade at arms thru thick and thin and is missed.
It is also dedicated to everyone who let that one special firearm get away from them.
With diligence and persistence, sometimes they can return home.
So now the story…
My first pistol was a Springfield Armory 1911A1 that I purchased while in college around 1988.
It was an early one that you had to put together from a kit with a slide and a frame only.
I did quite a bit of work to that pistol, replacing many parts with Wilson brand items and having a couple of gunsmiths work on the barrel to get to feed HP rounds properly.
Despite the weight, I carried it often.
Well, I went shooting with a co-worker once at an indoor range in Elkhart and made the mistake of letting him shoot it.
He was a reserve officer on the Bremen Police force and was trying to find a duty pistol that would be reliable and functional, unlike the Bersa .380 he was currently carrying.
So for the next 3 months, every Friday I would get an offer for my pistol.
Finally, the price got up to the point where I thought I could get a replacement that might be better.
I was on a quest at that time to find the perfect carry piece and the 1911A1 had some definite limitations like weight and recoil, not to mention the parkerized finish rubbing thru in certain places.
After much research, which during the late 80’s/early 90’s involved books, pamphlets and many gun shows, I came across a new pistol Springfield Armory was producing called the Defender.
It had a number of features that I felt would make it a better carry piece, a stainless Commander/Champion sized frame, a Videcki trigger, skeletonized hammer, extended safety, beveled magwell and of course the compensator.
With the shortened frame and compensator added, the total length of the pistol was just as long as my previous 1911A1, so I could reuse my holsters.
So I got together with another co-worker who at that time had a FFL, I believe they were called kitchen table FFLs at that time who placed an order for me.
The pistol arrived a few weeks later and I was the now the owner of a much improved 1911.
It shot well, the trigger broke cleanly and the recoil was defiantly reduced.
I shot it in a number of bowling pin shoots at the closest range I could find and I held my own for the most part.
And it never gave me any real problems, but I knew it just didn’t fit the task I wanted it to accomplish.
Disassembly was very different from a standard 1911; you had to use a paper clip to hold the spring assembly back to get it broken down.
Depending on the load used, the venting of the compensator could envelope the front sight in a fireball that was blinding at times, especially at night.
If you have been around a long time, things can happen in your life that you have absolutely no control over, and for me that time was when my good paying job moved from Goshen IN to Milwaukee WI.
I knew I wasn’t going to make it there at all, so I ended up taking a temp job in Batesville IN.
In order to get down there and have enough cash to pay for the apartment deposit, I needed to part with a couple of firearms out of my meager collection.
Sadly, the Defender was one of them.
It was here that my good friend came into the picture.
While driving to the gun show, we began talking about the Defender and why I needed to get rid of it.
When we got there, he pulled the cash out and paid me what I wanted for it.
And so the Defender changed hands and every once in a while he would bring it along and shoot it, but he would never let me buy it back.
He was a true collector and was not the kind that sold pieces out of his collection.
So the years passed by and as I noted above, he passed away in June from a heart attack/car accident.
A few months ago, I was talking to his widow and she asked me if there was anything in the collection that I might be interested in and naturally I chimed in I wanted to bring the Defender back to its original owner.
So here we are.
One of the pictures shows it with my other Defender, which is a Colt.
The black pieces in the other picture is what is left of a rubber recoil reducer that I installed that didn’t make the ravages of time and basically disintegrated when I took it apart.
And so the prodigal son returns home again and it is nice when they find their way back.
He was truly a comrade at arms thru thick and thin and is missed.
It is also dedicated to everyone who let that one special firearm get away from them.
With diligence and persistence, sometimes they can return home.
So now the story…
My first pistol was a Springfield Armory 1911A1 that I purchased while in college around 1988.
It was an early one that you had to put together from a kit with a slide and a frame only.
I did quite a bit of work to that pistol, replacing many parts with Wilson brand items and having a couple of gunsmiths work on the barrel to get to feed HP rounds properly.
Despite the weight, I carried it often.
Well, I went shooting with a co-worker once at an indoor range in Elkhart and made the mistake of letting him shoot it.
He was a reserve officer on the Bremen Police force and was trying to find a duty pistol that would be reliable and functional, unlike the Bersa .380 he was currently carrying.
So for the next 3 months, every Friday I would get an offer for my pistol.
Finally, the price got up to the point where I thought I could get a replacement that might be better.
I was on a quest at that time to find the perfect carry piece and the 1911A1 had some definite limitations like weight and recoil, not to mention the parkerized finish rubbing thru in certain places.
After much research, which during the late 80’s/early 90’s involved books, pamphlets and many gun shows, I came across a new pistol Springfield Armory was producing called the Defender.
It had a number of features that I felt would make it a better carry piece, a stainless Commander/Champion sized frame, a Videcki trigger, skeletonized hammer, extended safety, beveled magwell and of course the compensator.
With the shortened frame and compensator added, the total length of the pistol was just as long as my previous 1911A1, so I could reuse my holsters.
So I got together with another co-worker who at that time had a FFL, I believe they were called kitchen table FFLs at that time who placed an order for me.
The pistol arrived a few weeks later and I was the now the owner of a much improved 1911.
It shot well, the trigger broke cleanly and the recoil was defiantly reduced.
I shot it in a number of bowling pin shoots at the closest range I could find and I held my own for the most part.
And it never gave me any real problems, but I knew it just didn’t fit the task I wanted it to accomplish.
Disassembly was very different from a standard 1911; you had to use a paper clip to hold the spring assembly back to get it broken down.
Depending on the load used, the venting of the compensator could envelope the front sight in a fireball that was blinding at times, especially at night.
If you have been around a long time, things can happen in your life that you have absolutely no control over, and for me that time was when my good paying job moved from Goshen IN to Milwaukee WI.
I knew I wasn’t going to make it there at all, so I ended up taking a temp job in Batesville IN.
In order to get down there and have enough cash to pay for the apartment deposit, I needed to part with a couple of firearms out of my meager collection.
Sadly, the Defender was one of them.
It was here that my good friend came into the picture.
While driving to the gun show, we began talking about the Defender and why I needed to get rid of it.
When we got there, he pulled the cash out and paid me what I wanted for it.
And so the Defender changed hands and every once in a while he would bring it along and shoot it, but he would never let me buy it back.
He was a true collector and was not the kind that sold pieces out of his collection.
So the years passed by and as I noted above, he passed away in June from a heart attack/car accident.
A few months ago, I was talking to his widow and she asked me if there was anything in the collection that I might be interested in and naturally I chimed in I wanted to bring the Defender back to its original owner.
So here we are.
One of the pictures shows it with my other Defender, which is a Colt.
The black pieces in the other picture is what is left of a rubber recoil reducer that I installed that didn’t make the ravages of time and basically disintegrated when I took it apart.
And so the prodigal son returns home again and it is nice when they find their way back.
