Loophole AAR, Highway 86, and the Feds: A TMR twofer

(1) The deep Colt blue was mostly gone. Long ago, in the era of home-accurizing GI 1911s,  someone stippled  the frontstrap and mainspring housing. Otherwise it was a perfectly straight and decent WW1 1911, and at a negotiated $650, I was a buyer.

Then the federal government jackbooted my butt. Neither of the two Iowa FFL dealers I know was at the Sioux Falls show, nor were any CR holders. So I walked away, money sadly in pocket, pistol still on the Salt Lake City dealer's table.

Thanks to the feel-good FFA of 1968, my masters denied  me the privilege of  a perfectly harmless transaction. No irony exists in the fact that if the show had been held ten miles to the east, just across the state border, I could have bought the old war horse perfectly legally -- in the same state which officially  permits me to buy, own,  and carry about anything short of an NFA machine gun or whippit.

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(2) Not far from me runs Highway 86,  connecting I-90 with this little resort area. It's an ancient, hilly two-lane. It arguably carries enough traffic to justify planned rehabbing.

The Iowa DOT recently held a meeting to "seek public input" (Stop that disrespectful snickering, right now!) on the plans. Landowners along the route were there to input displeasure at the eminent domain procedure which would take strips of their land  on one side of the road when government already owns the land on the other side.

Our Iowa bureaucrat explained that the public land was DNR/USFWS-owned for the benefit of mosquito ponds, snakes, tadpoles, and swamp grass.  True, the relatively tiny reduction would amount to a fart in a hurricane in terms of wildlife habitat, but federal law prohibited diversion of even one square inch of it. Sorry folks.


Federal law pays far less attention to forced seizure of folks' front yards. In other words, If you're a snail  darter you're gold. If you're a taxpaying citizen, piss off.  

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The good doctor Ron Paul proposes to shut down about half the federal government. Sir, that would be a reasonably good start.
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Ugly gun progress

So my buddy and his son came for coffee, bearing surprise gifts. Not one, but two, arched GI mainspring housings for the 1911A1 which is being carbinized. I needed only one spare to butcher, reserving the original  to put the old Colt back into GI shape.

The ensemble includes one mainspring but no caps, plungers nor pins. The latter I'll make, but I suppose I should get cracking on a search for the caps and plungers. Yeah, I could make them too, but it's awkward when the best lathe I own is a Makita 3/8 electrical drill.

Buddy's son claims they were mine in the first place, that I gave him a box of 1911 parts more than 20 years ago. I don't remember it, but maybe so. Military junk was cheap at the time. Heck, in the 70s you'd sometimes find a GI hammer in a dollar grab bag at the shows. But I hereby publicly thank you anyway, J. 

I'm still trying to find out who built the walnut  stock and 16 1/4-inch barrel.  Decent-enough quality, but no ID marks.

This is going to be one fearsome looking piece when finished, mostly a gawker.  I like that in lethal weaponry; like a Texas debutante with several pounds of hair and three ounces of eye shadow. I'm still trying to figure out a practical use for it. The gun, I mean.