Oh My God!
Words fail me. 
A man receives a sunningly perfect Remington Rand M1911A1 from his father in law. His wife's grandfather had carried the pistol in WWII. He admits he is not a "gun person". Along with the pistol, he is given many artifacts from the era, photographs, a helmet, web gear, uniforms, knives, and even two Winchester made M1 Garands.
The gentleman takes the Remington Rand to agunsmith gun hack who looks it over and does not tell the fellow to preserve it as it is. Oh no........The hack nickel plates a pristine M1911A1 pistol, installs a three hole trigger, a Commander hammer, an Wilson drop in beavertail grip safety, and an extended slide stop. Then he charges the idiot for his work! But wait.......The idiot decides to improve things further. He gets a damned Dremel tool and grinds off the rear of the hammer and the beavertail. 
He then stencils a "rack number" on the grips. Dear God! Please, someone tell me it is a joke!
This has got to be a joke. The recipient might be that stupid, but no gunsmith is that ignorant. For those who do not appreciate such things, this is how you convert a $1800 collector's piece into a $500 piece of crap.
Of course the owner can do what he likes with his property, but dear sweet John Moses on a sugar sprinkled flap jack........This can't be real. A gunsmith would have offered a new Kimber in trade.........The idiot would not know about rack numbers and, and........damn. Just damn it all.
OK, It's a bogus story.......Whew....
A man receives a sunningly perfect Remington Rand M1911A1 from his father in law. His wife's grandfather had carried the pistol in WWII. He admits he is not a "gun person". Along with the pistol, he is given many artifacts from the era, photographs, a helmet, web gear, uniforms, knives, and even two Winchester made M1 Garands. The gentleman takes the Remington Rand to a
He then stencils a "rack number" on the grips. Dear God! Please, someone tell me it is a joke! This has got to be a joke. The recipient might be that stupid, but no gunsmith is that ignorant. For those who do not appreciate such things, this is how you convert a $1800 collector's piece into a $500 piece of crap.
Of course the owner can do what he likes with his property, but dear sweet John Moses on a sugar sprinkled flap jack........This can't be real. A gunsmith would have offered a new Kimber in trade.........The idiot would not know about rack numbers and, and........damn. Just damn it all.
OK, It's a bogus story.......Whew....
Labels: Frustrating Stuff, M1911's, WTF?
posted by Xavier at 7:28 PM
31 Comments:
That's super depressing...so sad to see, of all the things that 1911 is, a wonderful piece of history trashed and humiliated in such a fashion!
Good.
Gravy.
This is like buying an 18th century Victorian and slapping vinyl siding on it and putting laminate flooring inside.
Sick sick sick. Hell, I don't know a whole lot about firearms myself, but even I know not to mess with an original 1911 from WWII.
Someone needs to have their ass removed for defacing a work of art like that.
I'd have gladly given him a Springfield Mil-Spec + a couple bills for that thing, and he'd never know the difference.
tweaker
I hope it's a joke...I really do. What I collect, I collect for the history as much as anything else.
(Favorite: Mosin-Nagant rifle, made in 1910 with intact Russian Imperial markings..except where the damn importer stamped over one of them)
"This is like buying an 18th century Victorian and slapping vinyl siding on it and putting laminate flooring inside."
Not really, because both of those are fairly easy to undo. What he did to that poor gun is irreversible.
where was this shitforbrains wife when this went on? let alone the pristine beauty and collector's value, what about the familial history and meaning? somebody track his ass down before those garands meet a similar pathetic end...
xavier, i've mentioned to you before that i bought and sold thousands of firearms in my thirty ffl/pawnbroker years...among them were many family heirlooms that fell into the hands of ungrateful/ignorant/greedy heirs...sometimes i was able to instill some appreciation for what they had even if they had no interest in firearms per se, at least in the history embodied in them...but sometimes not, and i would pay them about half of what i knew my many knowledgable, appreciative collectors would pay...if the heir's benefactors couldn't be properly honored by the ingrates, at least the firearms would find a quality home, and i could pay my bills.
the only thing that really comes close to this kind of thing is the stories that my friend who headed the csi unit at the local sheriff's office told me...you see, the state of florida sometime in the eighties curtailed the sensible but politically incorrect practice of auctioning seized and unclaimed firearms a few times a year; each agency was directed to destroy them, and in my county that task fell to my csi friend tom...
yes there were plenty of junkers that deserved that fate, but tom, a lover of fine guns himself, described military relics, gold cups, ar's, even fine custom target pieces being loaded into his sheriff's office suv and making the trip to, i believe, hallandale, where a manufacturer of manhole covers smelted scrap steel to be forged...that's right, he had to personally place them on a conveyor belt and watch them all the way into the furnace...
how sickening, how wasteful, how ignorant and misguided a place the world can be...
regards, jtc
I just died a little on the inside.
You know, I have never really considered myself a gun collector - more like a shooter. As such, my guns are just viewed as tools to be used....
Yet even to my not so delicate sensibilities when it comes to this kind of stuff, that was pretty dang tasteless and I only hope that it's a joke.
Even I in my newbie glory recognize how he diminished that 1911. Eek.
I lost all faith in humanity. His woman should divorce him for shredding apart his grandfather's heritage.
You know, at first, I thought you were being a little harsh, calling the guy who owned the pistol an idiot. I figured, "Oh, maybe he just didn't realize he had a collector's piece." Then I read the thread. So many people sounded off and let him know what he had, so for him to go and ruin a 1911 like that is inexcusable. I think he needs a beating.
I picked up a similar "modified"
1911A1 a few years ago. Not near
as bad, but still it will never be as good as it once was. Only paid
-$200- and it does shoot sweet so all is not lost.
Here's the prescriptions:
For the gun:
A good soak in Ammonium persulphate with plenty of ammonia, then a good boil in phosphoric acid, he can save some money by buying the acid as milk scale remover from the nearest farm supplies place. the grips: stripping in methylene chloride and re finish with linseed oil, and hopefully its proper hammer, safeties and trigger back. and re homing with loving parents.
For the guy:
a good kicking and a quart of castor oil down his throat. hopefully in future he'll stick to hanging fury dice from his rear view mirror.
Doc
Go check out the thread from that forum again. Turns out the guy was a troll. He bought the nickel plated GI at a gunshow.
Phew! Follow the thread to the end. 'Donny' is a troll. A hoax. Can go back to me breakfast now.
Nah, check the end of the thread.. This twit is a well traveled troll, looking to get a rise out of people.
Even if this is a wind up, the nickel plated one has a near identical rust pit under the mag release.
I it should be known. It turns out it was a prank. He was just trolling around. Check the link to the forum again, go to page 4, scroll down to a user name "Briman" and in his response, there are a set of links where this guy was on other forums trying to find a nickel plated pistol, WWII relics, and other 1911 related stuff. We've been had as it appears.
I think it's a joke/hoax.
Methinks the owner of the Remington Rand found pictures of an ugly gun on the internet and posted them as his own.
The OP seems to know too much about the collectors value of his inheritance to go mucking around with it.
This makes me want to go down to my gunsmith and have him cut down the barrels on my grandpa's Parker Bros. 12 gauge. I'm thinking maybe 12".
I am in the process of getting my Father's 1911 that he carried during WWII - It too is a Remington and you can rest assured that it will not meet such a fate.
I already have a Springfield inc 1911 mil-spec and couple of other not historic 1911s that my heirs and assigns can butcher, if I have not already pimped them out enough before then.
I plan on detailing the history of this gun and include a copy in a display box along with the holster and associated gear. He even has an "issued" box of ca. 1945 cartridges with 7 missing, the only magazine shot through it since the ending of hostilities.
I do believe in using all of my guns, so I figure I will start a tradition of putting a magazine of new ammo through it every Father's Day after he crosses over the divide. The rest of the year it will be on secure display in the den.
Maybe this will help instill in my grandkids the respect for history and give them a physical link to a man who spent some of his youth 30000 feet over Europe in the tail of a B-24.
YHBT.
Look at the last post on the link.
This troll never owner said pistol ... he was just yanking people's chains.
This may be an interesting post latter.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6c0_1203151776
Click through to the thread...fortunately, this idiot has been exposed as a troll. There are references to his threads where he talks about buying the nickle plated gun at a fun show.
according to the linked forum thread, its a fake. Thank god!
That can't be real. From the last couple of posts it seems that someone was just trying to stir the pot. They did a good job I must admit. I really felt angry at first...but I didn't want to believe it. I don't think it was real....thank goodness. I hope he posts some new pics so we can all have a sigh of relief and he can have a good laugh at our expense.
Xavier,
I followed the thread on the old gun post site. Looks like the guy was pulling the collective leg of the board. Wow, talk about whacking the hornets nest. They did everything but call him a commie!.
My uncle related a story to me that occurred during the late 70's. Someone ran a small classified add in the Ardmore, Ok newspaper for a 1953 Chevrolet fiberglass sports car, V-8 motor, runs good 500.00 o.b.o. The number referenced in the ad was disconnected. This local paper was read by most of the personnel at Altus Air force base ( a known car hobby hot spot). My uncle told me that there were over 200 people crawling all over Ardmore looking for this 1953 (Corvette's 1st production year and first fiberglass production vehicle) 'sports car'. No one confessed, but he was sure that they spent the better part of the day watching Air Force criss crossing the town looking for this pile of hens teeth.
If this is a hoax, why did Donny post it at all?
He sure didn't impress anyone.
DoubleTapper
DoubleTapper@gmail.com
http://DoubleTapper.blogspot.com
Doubletapper: The point of trolling is to stir up crap, and make people angry.
He wasn't trying to impress ... he was trying to freak everyone out, and get attention. Even bad attention is a win for a troll.
Having formerly worked at a gun auction house, I can say this sort of thing is pretty common.
A friend's coworker inherited a 1911 that was at Omaha Beach. That would have some real value except...it was refinished. The guys at work lost interested when "ref--" came out of my mouth.
I was working the line about 20 years ago when I saw about the same thing happen to a Union Switch and Signal 1911. And in Pittsburgh, where I live, that's pretty much sacrilege (Swissvale, PA is a suburb of Pittsburgh). I felt the compulsion to take the pistol from the nitwit and beat him senseless with it, but I realized there was no sense to beat. And if that wasn't bad enough, the fool was proud of the hachet job he had done and couldn't understand why I was so disgusted. Well, nothing is idiot proof to a skillful idiot.
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