Recycling...

[Rob1125]

Back in 1994 I had my last open gun built by Dan Ruff at Competition Gun Works. Dan had built every gun I had shot in competition. I was friends with Mike Voigt and was able to get a very early SVI frame, slide, and magazines for the project. I shot the gun for a season and it was amazing.

I was transferred at work and had weekdays off. This, combined with getting married, competition burn out, and other stuff, severely impacted my ability to compete. The gun slowly made its way to the back of the safe.

Fast forward 20 years. Several of my friends are shooting 3 gun and one was actually a Pro on 3 Gun Nation. I had a chance to shoot a couple of 2011 9mm's they had built. I started getting the itch to compete again. I tried a S&W M&P Pro at first. I liked the gun, but just couldn't make friends with it. Then one day I was digging around in the safe and came across my old friend and the 10 old SVI magazines I had for it. I did some more digging and found a bald Caspian 9mm slide and several other parts. This started me thinking about recycling my old friend into something I would use.

I spent a lot of time researching gunsmiths on this site as Dan was no longer in business. I like what I saw from Glenn at Lone Star Innovations. I contacted Glenn and discussed having him build a 9mm limited upper for my old friend. Glenn agreed to do the job and I shipped the old lower and a box of parts off to Texas.

Some time went by and Glenn and I exchanged several emails. I received a call from him last week and he said he had a package ready to ship. UPS dropped off my package a few days later and I excitedly opened it. Inside was my old friend, redone to exceed my expectations. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

[Rob1125]

Couple more pictures

[Rob1125]

As you can see, Glenn does incredible work. Here are some of the specs:

SVI frame and mag well

Caspian 5 inch slide

Schumann 9mm AET barrel

Dawson sights

Grip stippling done by Glenn

EGW internals

Edited March 17, 2016 by Rob1125

[Rob1125]

Beauty aside, the proof is in the performance. The target below is the first 5 rounds at 7 yards. The second target has a total of 75 rounds, 5 at 7 yards, 45 at 10, and 25 at 15. The one flyer at 7 o'clock was all me.