Victory has a Thousand Fathers, but Defeat is an Orphan

Greetings and Salutations!
So yeah…
The Battle to Hydrodip the 1911 is over.

For now.

My patience has run out, primarily as the 1911 has been deadlined for so long. I’d like to keep trying, but honestly, I need the 1911 as my EDC. And yes, being as large/fat as I am, I can easily conceal a large frame automatic without too much effort. Before I got the 1911, I was running my Smith and Wesson 669 which is truly my absolute favorite handgun out of my collection… in fact it is point-blank period full-stop my favorite handgun ever.

So far.

For those unfamiliar, this is it:

This was the first 9mm semiauto I ever fired.

The one I fired, it belonged to my “Uncle” Fred, one of my ‘rents BFF back in the day. It was made from 1985 until 1988 and was essentially a weird mid-frame chopped version of the more famous Model 59.

This particular one is the second one I’ve owned, with the first one suffering the results of that ugly police encounter some years ago where due to the circumstance at the time, I lost ALL my firepower. After that incident, one night I was bemoaning the loss of the first one, as it was my absolute favorite of ALL my weapons. The discussion was with my bros, and Gretchen was listening. This happened while we were dating in our first year. In fact I was still on the “Thou Shalt Not Possess Any Firepower” prohibited list. Gretchen being Gretchen however, found this particular one on Gunbroker from an estate sale. It’d been a safe-queen, and pretty much like new. In fact like new-new.

She bought it under her name and her parents Addy so it was all nice and legal so to speak. Any wonder why I married this chick?

Like I said, she got a new-new piece. Any and all wear on it is from me. For a broad, she knew what she was doing… I’m still pretty impressed…

It -was- my daily carry until I got the derringer and then the 1911. The reason I don’t want to carry it anymore is mainly that they’re getting hard to find in pristine condition, and I would purely hate to have to use it in a self-defense scenario, and lose it to the fuzz as well. It’s a ’emotionally significant’ weapon now, not that I wouldn’t hesitate to use it if needed. It’s my immediate ‘bug-out-bag’ pistol, and when I travel, it goes as the ‘backup-to-the-backup’ piece.

That and it’s a cool fucking weapon.

Movie and TV famous.

It was Sonny Crockett’s ‘backup pistol’ on Miami Vice, and it was also in like ALL the ‘movies from the 80’s’ like Beverly Cops II, Last Action Hero, and Superbad. In fact there’s a bunch of articles out there that talk about the “Guns of the 80s” and this’s usually mentioned frequently as an Iconic Pistol.

So yeah, I need to get the 1911 back up to speed.

The final pics of how the dip went are as such:

Yeah
It could have gone better.

I still have no idea how I kept having it go wrong. The plan now is to just strip it, and refinish it in a plain Olive Drab Duracoat for now. I’m not giving up on the Hydrodipping however. I’ve got more than enough ‘stuff’ to keep practicing and experimenting, so I’ll do that, until I get what it takes to do the .45 on a first-time go. Maybe try using a $9.99 Faux-Yeti and ‘do the dip’ that way? Something… either way I’m not giving up per se… just ‘refocusing the efforts’ because as I said, I need to have the 1911 FMC i.e. fully mission capable.

I mean for real… even looking as bad as that does right now, you can tell that IF or I should say WHEN I pull it off, it’s going to look Pimp As Fuck as the youngin’s say. With all black accents? Meaning the slide lock, safety etc? Oh yeah. Even in Olive Drab I think it’ll look the shit. Y’all will see sooner rather than later as I’m going to start the strip-dip tonight.

So that’s the latest here.
I’ll have some ‘other news’ later as I did do a purchase today (on the DL from Gretchen who’s forbidden me from any more toy purchases… keep that under yer hats mmn’k?) that may-or-may not be affected by the Tariffs in the immediate future. I’m not sure if the item in particular will be, as Turkey is looking at a minimum 10% tariff on Turkish firearm imports.

Buy ’em while they’re cheap gang.
Jes’ Sayin’

So More Later
Big Country