I got to looking around and saw duplicates of several guns , so I went a trading today and came up with a new Rock Island GI in bright nickel. It just about defies cell phone photography and I'm gonna have to dig out a camera to do it justice.

When I was a kid, you'd occasionally see USGI surplus .45's that had been handed off to cousin Larry who worked at Acme Chrome Plating. Larry would sneak it into work, throw it in the prep vats and run it through with the next batch of 58 Edsel stuff that went through. Eventually they'd find their way into gunshops where kids like me would slobber all over the display case looking at them. I think I am genetically predisposed toward redheads and nickel plated handguns.

Got a box of 'Precision Cartridge' 45 ACP with the gun and ran a couple of mags through it this afternoon. Or tried to. Bang, choke, bang-bang-choke-choke. Lotsa fail-to-fully-return-to-battery and the extractor tension was obviously way tight. Cold, windy and I was pissed. 20 yard group reflects that but at least shows it shoots a tad right. Trigger pull is clean but measures at 7 pounds.

Speaking of sights, the Filippian who polished it thoughtfully turned the front sight into something resembling those mirrored-ball ornaments you see on pedestals in little old ladies' yards. The goon who assembled it must have been mad at his old lady because when I tore it down, the extractor was so tight in its tunnel I that I had to drive it out with an old aluminum cleaning rod. I think what happened here is that they didn't account for surface build-up from the plating on both parts, so instead of buffing the extractor shank, numb-nuts just drove it in with his little leather hammer.

So I pulled it, worked the shank down on a 400 grit diamond stone, reset the tension, pulled the firing pin and reassembled the gun. Ball and 230 Golden Saber hand-cycled OK and were downright slick when fed from a decent magazine. RIA factory mags are pretty sorry.

More to come on this one. It is decidedly un-tactical and I like it. I'm gonna make a good solid 1911 out of it, before I'm done.