IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!

IT'S HERE IT'S HERE OH WOW IT'S FINALLY HERE IT'S GORGEOUS OH WOW IT'S REALLY HERE . . .

There. I'm okay now.

Yes, my custom built Wilson Combat 1911 finally arrived. Yes, it is absolutely wonderful.

One hundred and seven days from ordering to delivery. All black Armor-Tuff. Smooth, not stippled as they usually do, Ed Brown bobtail. Single-side tactical safety. Tritium night sights. Two sets of Wilson logo grips, one in aggressive G10, one in smooth slim Dymondwood for carry. Not a MIM part to be found anywhere. People can say all they want that Wilsons aren't "true" custom guns like a Nowlin or Clark Custom. This is a true custom gun.

Excuse me while I go breathe into a paper bag.

It came with a quality control checklist with every production step initialed by master gunsmiths, another sheet with all of their names including who shot the test target, two instructional videos, and paper documentation for everything from the Armor-Tuff finish to ammunition selection.

The care-and-feeding manual is very emphatic about not cleaning the gun until 300 to 500 rounds have been shot. Anyone who knows what a clean-gun fanatic I am will wonder how I'll handle that little detail.

Must . . . resist . . . urge . . . to . . . clean . . . gun . . .

AAAAAGHHH!

I was tempted to shoot it right away, but being tired at the end of a rotten work day is hardly the way to do it justice. Better to wait until the weekend and do it right. In the mean time, I can watch both DVD's that came with it, read the manuals and documentation about fifty times, and field strip and reassemble it over and over again. With a heavy bushingless barrel and a full-length two-piece guide rod, it's about like trying to take a Browning Hi-Power apart and put it back together without using the safety in the takedown notch to hold the slide. Oh, joy.

The test target, benchrested at 15 yards, is a sub-1" five shot group. Off a Ransom Rest, the gun is guaranteed to shoot 1" groups at 25 yards. I believe it. Nothing like "being worthy of your gun" as an incentive to improve your shooting skills.

So the range report will follow shortly, hopefully with a few more "keeper" targets for my office wall. Stay tuned . . .