CUSTOM IS AS CUSTOM DOES

One-of-a-kind never goes out of style.

- PATRICK SWEENEY

This gun is perhaps one of a kind. It certainly has a unique build history.

We like to think of custom as bespoke, purpose-made dream guns, if you will. However, this one just sort of happened.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a serious and persistent competition shooter. Each year, I’d shoot at least two club matches a month, the Second Chance Pin Shoot, a couple (or more) USPSA Nationals and The Steel Challenge. I was shooting a lot, and I was winning a lot. One of the prizes (I think from a USPSA Nationals) was a certificate good for a hi-cap frame from SVI/Infinity.

Well, I already had a slew of hi-cap frames. So, I put on my best smiley face, good-guy, serious competitor look and asked the Infinity guys if they could, pretty please, do it as a single stack. In .40 caliber. Because at the time the Single Stack Nationals was getting spun up into being as a USPSA Nationals, and all the big dogs were winning it with .40s. I later found out that the big dogs were winning with .40s not because it had any inherent advantage, but because they had all been loading and shooting .38 Super and .40 ammo for so long that they either no longer had a .45, or they couldn’t find the dies and components in their loading rooms.

While talking the project over with the builder, I mentioned that I already had a basket full of SVI/Infinity parts, and I was going to build it up with those, once the frame arrived.

“What do you have?” he asked. Oh, a slide, barrel, a selection of grip safeties, some odds and ends, enough to assemble a 1911. “Forget that; box up what you have that is SVI, ship it and we’ll put in the rest.”