![]() ![]() Jim Clark was known for building effective guns. Indeed, Armand Swenson was the man to go to for a beautiful custom Colt in those days. Jim Clark was not known for building beautiful guns. Clark Custom is not founded on the Meltdown, but rather on guns that work. Today, when Clark 1911s are mentioned, many people visualize the incomparable Clark Meltdown. There is no more nor less than necessary. The orange portion of the front sight precisely fills the rear notch. Clark paired the Smith & Wesson rear sight with a ramped hardball front sight, into which he grafted an orange plastic insert. Unless the hammer was placed beside an original, the bobbed hammer is just as stealthy. It is indicative of Jim Clark's craftsmanship that not a hint of the original rear sight dovetail remains to be seen through the nickel finish. Indeed, they almost look like the Gold Cup's Eliason sight. They were a known quantity with an available parts supply, and when mounted correctly, they compliment the lines of the 1911. Like many early shooters, my anesthesiologist friend opted for the S&W sights. In 1981, Clark Custom offered low mounted Bomar adjustable sights, or Smith & Wesson K frame adjustable sights. When the little metal teeth created by Clark's chisel bite into one's calloused hand, this pistol is not going to shift under recoil. Grasping it is like holding a rasp in your fist. Clark's stippling is incredibly effective however. Clark's technique is not as pretty as Ted Yost's perfect checkering, nor as fashionable as Ed Brown's reptilian scales. To cement the gun in the shooter's hand, Clark applied his trademark "Tiger Tooth" stippling to the front strap and mainspring housing. This pistol has a trigger that breaks consistently at three pounds with no wiggling around in the trigger guard. The pull was adjusted through polishing the trigger stirrup, adjusting the sear angle, hammer hooks and sear spring. needed a competition trigger, he simply took the original Colt trigger, drilled and tapped it for a set screw, and then adjusted the length of the stirrup by welding a polished shim at the back to achieve a zero take up, minimal over travel trigger. Nickel was laid across this pistol not to provide additional glitz, but to effectively prevent rust in the sweltering Louisiana heat. It is almost ironic that he inadvertently did. In this gun Jim Clark was not attempting to build a beautiful gun. The lockwork on this pistol snicks back and forth with a precision and an ease that belies it's close tolerances. ![]() Even though this pistol does have a Safari Arms extended safety and slide stop, they were impeccably fitted by the old man himself. He shot a "box or two" of ammunition through it and put it away. It is built on a Colt Mark IV Series 70 base gun. This pistol was ordered from Jim Clark by an anesthesiologist in 1981. Even in the piney woods of North Louisiana they are precious heirlooms, as rare as turtle teeth, or priced like golden boudin when they appear.įinally, after years of perseverance, fortune would shine on me, and I found a Jim Clark the Elder gun that I could afford. continues his father's legacy at Clark Custom, but as a North Louisiana resident, I always hoped to find a gun made by Jim Clark the Elder. In this environment, Jim Clark flourished, laying the groundwork and ideas for the many permutations of the 1911 pistol that were to follow. If a man could not weld, fabricate and create, he could forget being a gunsmith. There were few parts on the market to augment a gunsmith's ability. One must remember that surplus GI pistols were the raw materials of building a race gun then. In 1950, Jim Clark founded Clark Custom, and began a career of producing no bullshit innovative and competitive pistols based on the 1911. As a competitor, perhaps he was proudest of being the only civilian trained national bullseye champion. Jim Clark was a founding member and the first President of the American Pistolsmiths Guild. Jim Clark had been customizing pistols for eighteen years when Ed Brown decided to become a part time gunsmith. Clark had found a way to glue a pistol into a competitor's sweaty hand. Long before Bill Wilson ever checkered a front strap, James E.
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