The Wild 1970s
The ’70s was a wild decade for the 1911. On the west coast, shooters and gunsmiths were pushing more of a practical shooting style and gun. Jeff Cooper and his group of Southwest Combat Pistol League members were making defensive shooting more realistic than ever before. Gunsmiths like Frank Pachmayr, Arnold Capone of Kings Gunworks and Armand Swenson raised the bar with accurate and ergonomic features. The ’70s saw ambi thumb safeties for support hand shooting, magwells for speedy reloads, low profile sights for a snag-free draw and squared trigger guards for two handfed holds.
For this build, I chose to build a Swenson(esk) clone. This would be the most difficult in the series. Armand Swenson was known for a few special features, including a slide top texture to cut down glare and use of the S&W revolver sight. I started with a 70 Series Colt and went with machine checkering on the front strap and MSH for neatness. With the help of my son Nick, we forged the trigger guard square and hand checked it in Armand’s style.
As Swenson did a soldered in a filler piece at the rear dovetail, I had to figure out how to replicate his slide top texture. I asked a few folks for clues on how he did it, and as you might imagine, they were tight lipped. I practiced for about a year on and off with various tools and methods and finally realized after looking at a few originals that there was a lot of variety — Armand didn’t do them all himself. I settled on using a file. The rear sight was something not done a lot today, so I called John Harrison — the last smith I knew who had done one. It required a special cutter of which he only had one, so I had to design a custom cutter for the rear sight slot. It was nerve racking, but I managed to make the cuts without any breakage. Swenson used a custom stud along with the sight tang screw to ensure the sight would not shoot off due to heavy recoil. It also had the owners’ initial punched in it. I finished this pistol in a glass beaded hard chrome and period Colt grips.