Wilson and Baer

[dakota1911]

I was waffling over this decision early this year and sort of decided on a Baer. A 5 inch with adjustable sights. Then the news from Colt so I have been buying Colt XSEs that are not going to be produced anymore even when Colt probably survives its third (or is it the fourth?) bankruptcy.

 

[tark]

Drail, thanks for the kind words. I took up checkering when I first started working for Les. Everyone hated doing it and I figured; here is a way to make myself valuable. Become good at something no one else liked to do.

Been doing it every since, but have no desire to do it after retirement! I haven't checkered a gun since.

I think that my best job was on the engraved, presentation P-II that was on the cover of Handgunner a few years back.

Les gave me that gun as a retirement present. Some day it will go to my son.

 

[mikemyers]

.......Been doing it every since, but have no desire to do it after retirement! I haven't checkered a gun since.......I think that my best job was on the engraved, presentation P-II that was on the cover of Handgunner a few years back.....

Just curious - how many hours/days does it take to do the checkering on one gun? It's beautiful. I didn't know until recently that you did it by hand!


A relative of mine has a Wilson and a Dan Wesson. If both of those were on the table, along with a Les Baer, it would be hard to choose. Two months ago, I'd have said, hey, that's easy, I'll take the Wilson. Two days ago, I'm not so sure - the more I read/learn about Les Baer guns, the happier I am that I now have one.

 

[GoldieMI]

the more I read/learn about Les Baer guns, the happier I am that I now have one.

caught myself looking at the price list on the website for a 5" Les Baer 38 Super
shame on this thread for making me want one

I was happy with having a 38 Super in 1911- now I want one from Les Baer

 

[another pake]

I'm not saying I'd never buy another brand, but I do love my Baer UTC.
It functions right. It feels right and because it does I shoot better with it.

 

[tark]

I pretty much checkered and fitted all day long, every day. And they were not done from scratch, the frames were roughly checkered when they were machined. And I do mean roughly. It took a half hour or so to clean up the checkering on one frame. When it came in the diamonds were flat and the boarders unfinished.

Now, I HAVE checkered several hundred guns from scratch. All 20LPI guns were done from scratch. All checkering on the trigger guards I did from scratch. All checkered mainspring housings were done from scratch. The arched ones were the more difficult, and housings tear up checkering files much faster than frames. A from scratch job takes about two hours.

I consider myself average at checkering. There are much better, Look at Richard Heine's work if you want to see master craftsmanship.

 

[HankB]

A few years back I took a pistol class with a fairly high round count. A number of guys were shooting Wilson guns, and by the second day of the class they all had band-aids all over their hands from the nicks and scratches they picked up during gun handling. Maybe current Wilsons are better, but they used to have a lot of sharp edges that really only made themselves felt after some hard use. (One of the Wilson guys also had some malfs, but I don't know if they were gun related or ammo/shooter induced.)

I've got a Les Baer myself, and it's been 100% reliable, dead accurate, comfortable to shoot, with great features, sights, and trigger . . . WHAT ELSE do you want in a 1911? Everything on the outside that should be polished is . . . as is everything on the inside that should be polished. I've compared it to Wilson and Ed Brown, and, honestly, I don't see anything in the latter two to justify their higher - sharply higher - prices.

(Wilson makes some really nice magazines, though . . . )