Gordon Davis

We were saddened to learn of the passing of G. William Davis over the weekend. Our thoughts are with his son Jason and his family. In the early years of modern competitive pistol craft Gordon was the driving force in the art of custom leather making. From gun leather to hand made saddles, his shop always smelled of something special and inviting. He was a dedicated supporter of my shooting efforts from day one of my shooting career. Nothing was ever too much trouble for him and he always seemed to figure out a way of securing one of my non-holster friendly creations. Even when technology turned in favor of synthetic wiz-rigs, Gordon continued to support me. I still have many of the countless holsters, pouches and belts he made me over the years, and of course they will be cherished. I often use them as props in our photo gallery and will no doubt continue to do so. The image of Gordon (left) spending time with us in 1981 brings back memories that can't be erased. Godspeed G. William.

No images for a while

Our image gallery is going to be down for a while. We'll be uploading to a new site in the near future. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Kaelin Strikes Again!

Congratulations to Kaelin Liebenberg for Graduating Magna Cum Laude from Cocoa Beach Junior/Senior High School and  attaining a hard earned candidacy for the International Baccalaureate diploma. She is now preparing to go off to college to study Pre-Medicine.  Besides her years of academic commitment and achievement, she also accomplished her goal to compete in Martial Arts at a world level and managed to choke up our living room with countless trophies.
To sustain a young person with Kaelin's appetite for success takes love, time and wherewithal that was made possible in large part by the support of our customers and close friends. We thank you all for providing us the 'tools' required to pave the way to Kaelin's past and future accomplishments, we are very proud of her.

PD On-Time Cartridge Caddy

Having absolutely nothing to do with handguns (for a change), the new PD On-Time Cartridge Caddy for HP rifle shooters is a little gadget we developed with assistance from top F-Class shooter and US  F-Open Development Team member, Kenny Adams (left). The unit integrates a countdown timer with 25 rounds of rifle ammunition, making it easy and convenient for a competitor to access the ammo for each string of fire and keep an eye on time without making any gross shifts from the shooting position between chamberings.
The product is machined from aluminum and acrylic and is available in all HP rifle calibers from .223 to 7mm WSM.  Some cartridge blocks such as .308 will also work for .284 and .243 etc.

Kenny recently won the Tennessee F-Class Long Range Regional and Paul the Master Class in F-TR using the unit. The response from other shooters and accurateshooter.com was positive enough to encourage us to manufacture and market it to the shooting public. They are currently in production and can be ordered by calling our main number, or by dropping us an email. Introductory price is $95 and includes a lifetime warranty on the machined parts and a one year warranty on the timer.

PD Anniversary Gun Finished in IonBond

As expected the Pistol Dynamics Anniversary 1911 pilot gun finished in IonBond is spectacular. The result mirrors a very high end charcoal blue but with a resistance to surface wear second to none. Thanks to all the folks at that company for their diligence and care in handling this very important piece. We have a lot of experience with the process now and our 'Team' guns finished in Ionbond are closing in on 40,000 rounds (each) of hard holstered use. The wear resistance of the finish is impressive to say the least. While our guys seldom clean their guns (3000-5000 round intervals) they all look like new when they are clean and we're convinced that IonBond is as close to a one time finish as there is. Paul spent many hours hand polishing the Centenary pistol to a presentation finish and Ionbond reflected all that work beautifully. Unfortunately the image doesn't do justice, it has to be seen to be believed. Click on it to enlarge.

PD 1911 Anniversary Pistol - A First Look

The Pistol Dynamics tribute to the 100th anniversary of the 1911 is a totally hand-built RetroMod constructed from the ground up by Paul Liebenberg. A limit of 26 units will be made available in a choice of any 1911 compatible caliber. The number range will start with an alpha controlling 1911-A-2011 and end in 'Z'. The prototype pistol shown here in the white is built in 38 caliber (click here to access a gallery with more images). The design of the gun draws from features that extend from the very earliest cross hatch trigger and hammer to the ISS system and a variation of our most recent lanyard loop main spring housing. The retro style beavertail is scratch made by hand as are the gold inlayed high profile sights. Ebony and ivory grips will be available as well as a number of different custom case options. Because of the myriad of finishes possible, the pistol will be priced out in the white as shown at $4900 with the cost of the elected finish and case determining the final price. The fit and finish, attention to detail, extensive hand checkering and overall design ensures that this gun will stand apart from all others currently offered to celebrate the occasion. This project will run independently from the rest of our routine so that we can keep tabs on the special parts required and the careful planning needed to keep us on a reasonable schedule. To further accommodate this pretty ambitious endeavor we've restructured our business to a certain extent by eliminating a few products from our line as well as limiting custom work on commercial handguns. We're accepting reservations for the pistol at this time and all relevant details will be furnishd to interested parties by direct contact or phone. Many of the choice 'alpha' characters are already taken, but a lot more are still in play as of this writing. If the 1911 Centenary is as important to you as it is to us and you would like to own one of these ultra unique weapons please feel free to call during normal working hours.

What's New for 2011?

This year Pistol Dynamics II celebrates a full decade of doing business in Florida together with the 100th anniversary of the 1911. It also marks over 35 years of Paul’s personal involvement with the 1911 and variants. We’re extremely thankful to all our customers, friends and supporters who have helped us over the years to develop into the unique custom handgun manufacturer we are today. We’ve done a significant amount of product development over the years and proven concepts that have culminated in us being a leader in 1911 innovation. We’ve kept abreast of the market and the desires and expectations that go with it. We’re fortunate and proud to have earned the respect of many individuals in the armed forces and LE communities who have chosen to use our guns. Some of these people have gone out of their way to provide us with valuable input, T&E and many other things that have brought our pistols to the level they are today. Visionary collectors have allowed us to build ‘dream’ guns that under normal circumstances would be out of the realm of for a small gun business such as ours. All of the aforementioned have paved the way to our future in the business and the calculated decisions we’ve made regarding our philosophy moving forward. We need to react to changing markets and customer expectations and do what is needed to sustain through these challenging economic and political times. Our strategy for the future requires us to make targeted adjustments to our product line and the way we do business. Our revamped website for 2011 will be up-loaded shortly to outline our revised policies and offerings and our blog will be the source for up to the minute info on all matters pertaining to Pistol Dynamics on a continual basis. We thank you all for your continued support and look forward to introducing you to our next level of custom and performance based 1911’s (as well as some other things you may not have expected from us).

The Good News

New for 2011:

This year we are introducing our first controlled featured performance handgun intended specifically to the active operator, specialized LE officer and practical shooter. Code-named ‘Super Scout’, (in deference to S-Dave who has been front and center with developing the gun and providing extended test data). The gun is based on our proven custom Scout chassis but configured specifically for the varying arenas worldwide. The pistol deviates from our normal external extractor design in favor of the traditional internal part to ensure ease of service by military personal who are not equipped with the tools, parts or training to maintain 1911’s with external extractors in remote areas. Other than this, the feature set of the pistol reflects our normal quality of build and design. The uniqueness of the package is driven by a myriad of available pre-fitted and tested service packs depending on individual requirements to the extent that the user can practically service and repair the unit in the field should it become necessary and have everything at hand to do so. The gun, magazines, service packs and all required tools and instruction material is package in an indestructible ‘go-case’. More details will follow shortly but suffice to say that lead times for those who really need a fighting or practical handgun will soon be dramatically cut. The performance of the ‘Super Scout’, part integrity and finish longevity has proven impressive. Keep a look out for details here and on our web page coming soon.

Pistol Dynamics Anniversary Gun:

Yes, we are offering a very short run of hand made 100^th Anniversary 1911’s. Details on our Retro-Mod Super 38’s and 45ACP’s with special serial numbers will be released shortly. The pilot gun is due for unveiling at the end of January. The project is not a re-hash of an existing model, the pistols and all major components are to be custom made by Paul exclusively.

Signature Guns:

Paul is committed to continue hand building heirloom and one-off pistols by hand in the traditional method. He is one of, if not the only, first generation custom 1911 builder remaining in business to be actively constructing custom handguns on a personal basis. As he notes “all the others smartened up long ago”. However, many of the unique designs and features you see on our pistols today came from concept guns and we will continue to build these in limited quantities for discerning customers.

Combat Specials.

Signature Combat Special will remain a staple at Pistol Dynamics with the Combat Special Classic II and the Combat Special Evolution being offered on PD chassis only. We have added a 4” ISS compact Combat Special Evo in 45 ACP built on an Officers equivalent frame. Combat Special Classics built on select Colt 1911’s will be considered on an individual basis driven by the condition of the customer supplied Colt pistol. We will only consider building ‘Classics’ on Colts that are previously unaltered and dimensionally sound. CSC are not available on any other brand of 1911.

The ‘Other’ News

As mentioned earlier we’ve learned some things that have lead to necessary decision-making.

Because of our increasing commitment to branded scratch built pistols we are forced to limit our influx of custom work on customer supplied pistols specifically as it pertains to production based handguns. The cost in man hours to build a custom or performance pistol utilizing a production based chassis to the level of our Pistol Dynamics scratch builds has driven the price of these units to an unacceptable level both in cost and man hours in our opinion (except with regards to Combat Special Classics and certain heirloom projects). With this in mind we are going to take a hiatus from modifying existing 1911’s except with respect to the exceptions listed above. Part of this decision is driven by new offerings previously mentioned, an increase in the demand for our pistols in general and the fact that circumstances have pushed us over our schedules on certain gun builds. However, production based pistols that are currently in-house will be completed as promised.

Springfield based Pistols:

Springfield Armory based X-O and XE models have unfortunately been discontinued. The Springfield GI is our favored production chassis on which to build a performance handgun but the demand has fallen off in favor of our branded handguns. The up side is that this provides us an opportunity to get back on schedule with trailing projects.

Pistol Dynamics X-O

The Pistol Dynamics X-O pistol is now limited to a full size receiver with a 4.5” barrel only. No other slide or frame sizes will be available. The X-O bull barrel compact has been reconfigured and been replaced by the SSC which is now part of the Super Scout line.

Compensated Pistols:

The Revolution comp is sold out for both the Carry Comp and Open IPSC for 2011. Depending on build status and our ability to stay on schedule, the reservation list will open again in 2012. Reservations that were on the list as of December 31 2010 are still active and we will contact customers when chassis are available for final specifications and completion.

General Repairs:

General repairs on 1911’s will no longer be offered. Only repairs on PD pistols and those handguns having been built or modified by PD will be serviced. The exception to this is authentic Pachmayr Combat Specials and Pachmayr Signature Models which we will continue to restore and or rebuild on a case by case basis.

Serial Numbers:

Custom Serial numbers will only be available on Signature grade pistols.

In closing, while Pistol Dynamics has flourished as a business, we have also been affected by the economy as it pertains to vendor and purchased services. We have suffered some vendor attrition that has resulted in us having to search out and validate new suppliers. We have also suffered some extended hold-ups in the skilled machining department that has put our CNC operations at half speed over the last few months. As a result we have fallen back on our scheduling and some of our delivery expectations are going to be unavoidably extended. With the addition of some skilled machinists together with the changes we have instituted this year we expect our very compact operation to get back on track with regards to our project completion goals in the next few months. We thank all of our customers for their understanding and patience in this regard and look forward to being more streamlined and efficient in the near future.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All

Congrats Kaelin and Adrian

Congratulations to Kaelin Liebenberg and her former team mate Adrian Gilliam for securing a staggering nine Florida State Martial Arts titles between them for 2009. This caps a very successful year for both of these young black belts. Kaelin had two Division 'A' Black Belt wins at the '09 US Open and another two at the Battle of Atlanta. Adrian enjoyed a number of wins on both the KICK USA and NASKA circuits. Good luck to both of these young athletes for 2010!

Last but not least... HAPPY 16th BIRTHDAY KAELIN !!!

Our New Web Store is up!

Our new Web Store for 2010 has been uploaded and is fully operational. We hope you enjoy browsing the store. We'll be adding product and services on a continuous basis so please check back often. Your constructive input would be appreciated as will any suggestions for parts and services that you might want to see. Please click here to take you directly there.

Seasons Greeting to All

We would like to wish all of our customers, vendors and friends a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a Happy New Year. We very much appreciate your support and look forward to servicing your needs more comprehensively and efficiently in 2010.

Revolution Comps

After many years of threatening to do this, we have finally released our new compensator system in limited quantities (which you can review here). Because we still don't have a good handle on how to efficiently produce the unit in quantities we are building a limited number of pistols in various formats to include the barrel, compensator, recoil and ignition system etc. The rest of the pistol will be left white and unfinished for the final owner to spec out. This gives us the ability to test rolling chassis and have them on hand when an order is cut to alleviate what would certainly be a long production lead time if we were to open the order book on the system. Customers will be placed on a no-fee reservation list and orders will be filled as units become available. The final sighting system and custom feature set can then be determined and we'll complete the unit to customer specification.

We are producing a number of 5" Carry-Comp and 6.125" high capacity IPSC pistol chassis. The first run of these pistols are currently committed but reservation for the next rotation of chassis is open. Please feel free to call with any questions.

IonBond News

IonBond recently closed it's custom shop and is now channeling refinishing from gunsmiths through a custom shop in Oregon. Pistol Dynamics is 'commercial' IonBond customer and is not affected by this action. We will continue to work directly with the company. There may be a short period of instability as far as turnaround is concerned until the internal revamp is in full swing. We are confident that any issues that arise will be minor and short lived, but we do ask for your understanding should your particular order be affected by this change in any way. We believe that IonBond is one of the finest handgun finishes available and we will continue to promote the process on our scratch built pistols and those in our custom gun loop.    

Website Update

We're in the process of uploading our 2009 Website so please be patient while we do this. Some pages may not be available for a time and there could be some errors as we go through the process. Please feel free to let us know if there are persistent problems or you find incorrect spelling, grammar or other weird South Africanisms that need to be addressed. The new 'Images' page will take some time to be uploaded and the 2008 version may be unavailable for a while. Otherwise we hope you enjoy the revamp.

Christmas Gift Certificates

Pistol Dynamics gift certificates for 2008 are now available. You can access the relevant page here. We wish all our loyal customers, friends and vendors a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We thank you all very much for contributing to our success.

Note on email

When emailing Pistol Dynamics for any reason, please be sure to identify yourself.  We reserve the right to ignore anonymous emails and send them to a spam folder. We also reject any email that does not have something in the subject line that clearly ID's your email as PD business related.  We appreciate our customers and all of you who take an interest in our business and we attempt to respond to all emails in a timely manner. Our email volume is high so please try to make it easier on us by including something in the subject line and identifying yourself in the body of the email.

Thanks    

New Custom Logo Grips

Custom Scout logo grips are now available as an added feature to your Scout or compact Scout. The inserts are individually machined in our shop and flush mounted into our PD micarta combat grips. You can read more and see the grips on guns here.

Contact Reminder

Just a quick note to remind everyone who uses email to contact us that we do receive a large number of emails on a daily basis. Many of these emails are spam and they go directly to a spam folder. Sometimes a legitimate business related mail ends up in our spam and we may not catch this. If for some reason you do not get a response to an email, please try again or make a followup call. We are very diligent about returning phone calls and emails. We appreciate each and every inquiry we receive, even in those rare instance when we may not be able to help you.

BullsEye Guns

You may have noticed that since our 2008 web site update Bullseye guns no longer have their own link even though the spec sheet is still available as a .PDF. At the end of last year we made a decision to limit our production of Bullseye guns by placing them in a ‘Project Gun’ status. We will no longer be accepting individual orders for these guns. Depending on our workload we will continue to build Bullseye guns on occasions and offer them for sale once they are complete and in the white. We will be posting these guns on the ‘Project Gun’ page as they become available. Bullseye guns require a ‘slip fit no shake’ level of build with pre-tested barrels and this is extremely time consuming and costly. It’s also very difficult to maintain a schedule on the guns. We have no specific plan to build any Bullseye guns in 2008. We apologize to anyone we may have dissapointed with this decision.

Happy New Year!

Pistol Dynamics would like to extend our best wishes for the New Year to all our customers, friends and supporters. We are looking forward to another exciting year as we continue to expand our line of custom handguns based on our new proprietary Pistol Dynamics 1911 receiver.