It was a POW. As I’m sure you know the FBI has an interesting POW program that requires individual purchase guns to go through Quantico prior to being delivered to the agent. That’s where the ambi safety was installed - He mentioned the HD sights were added later.Originally Posted by HCM
Yes, they do the same thing with Glocks and POW carbines. The Bureau does not really have a field armorer program. Everything down to installing sites on a Glock requires a trip to the gun vault in Quantico or Huntsville.
My now retired DEA buddy is a .45 / 1911 nut and is kicking himself for not buying an SA PRO via the DOJ POW deal.
My current West coast carry gun…
I'm surprised at the wear from the tenicor holster. I haven't seen near that amount with mine.
On the ragged edge of the world I'll roam,
And the home of the wolf shall be my home - Robert Service
I'm gong to guess that your 1911 is either parked or cera coated.
The Black T is so thin....But supposedly a metal TREATMENT, like Tennifer, not a coating.
I've seen zero rust or corrosion.
"... And miles to go before I sleep".
I’m pretty sure Black-T is a coating/spray and bake. Their website even states that “Black-T treatment, is a unique coating…..”. I think Hilton Yam also covered this, I could be wrong but I don’t think so. Black-T in my experience was on par with cerekote and better than blueing or parkerizing in terms of wear resistance. YMMV.
The holster wear looks awesome though!
Black-T was a teflon based coating that Walter Birdsong in Florence MS developed in the late 90's & eventually sold to the Bureau for some of their HRT 1911's & MP5s. Known b/c I went to Walter's facility in the day to have a 1911 or 2 + a few AR's done in both Black & Green-T. Nice fella, gave me a tour/history of his facility & product, met his 2 son's working there & saw an ass load of Pelican type cases stacked w/ MP5's inside waiting for Black-T to be applied.
Getting a new Springfield Loaded 45 ready to go.
Last edited by Robinson; 04-01-2023 at 02:21 PM.
Today is the last day for grandfathered Pros and .40’s, except the G27. G27 will go away in September.
End of an era.
Black-T was good shit for the 90s. At the time if you wanted shiny/white you could get stainless or hard chrome and (by modern standards) have a good corrosion resistant finish. If you wanted black/NotShiny your options were more limited. Aftermarket, especially. Black-T was better than bluing or park, which meant it was better than 99.9% of the available options you had for a refinish. For nitride/melonite/tennifer/etc at the time it was Glock or maybe some boutique maker that built ten guns a year. It would take a couple decades before that finish basically took over as the default option and people had to stop worrying about proactive measures to prevent rust.
IIRC Benchmade had a production version of the finish on their knives. I think they actually called it Black-T (black tigold?) but I don't recall if it was actually affiliated with Birdsong.
I spoke with Walter Birdsong briefly about having an aluminum Colt done up with Black-T. I recall the conversation being kind of funny because there was a point where it sounded like he cut over to a taped version of what was basically the sales pitch. The days before email, I guess. He did mention that they left the anodizing on aluminum guns and finished over it, presumably for strength.
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