utm fk

another steel fist | February 2020 G&a 51
Browns access to his collection of 1911s, as well as to his collection
of personal notes. One year after Cooper’s passing, Ed Brown
introduced the Jeff Cooper Commemorative 1911 with a ship date
of September 25, 2007. Brown announced that after September 25,
2008, “no more will ever be made available for order.”
Never say “never.” More than a decade after the original Ed
Brown Jeff Cooper Commemorative went out of production, the
company decided to update and produce another low-production
Jeff Cooper Commemorative. In truth, the latter is not exactly
the original, and the differences are in the details. In 2007, a
limited run of leather-bound copies of Jeff Cooper’s must-read,
“Principles of Personal Defense,” was included with the gun. For
this new commemorative, a leather-bound copy of “The Yankee
Fist” was produced by Cooper’s family. This was originally an
article that appeared in Guns & Ammo’s February 2003 issue and
highlights Cooper’s reflections on the Model 1911. To add, Ed
Brown ships the new edition with a leather-bound, red-felt-lined
case that appears as if it were a large bible when closed. Inside is
a certificate of authenticity, patch, challenge coin, and lapel pin
each featuring Cooper’s “JC” pen-and-sword logo.
The new pistol also differs from the original Jeff Cooper Commemorative
in that this one wears a brilliantly polished blued
slide with a gold-inlaid signature. (Slightly different than the sig-
nature engraved on the original with matte
finish.) The original pistol also sported a
three-hole Videki-style aluminum speed
trigger, while this new pistol features a
long, solid aluminum trigger. Ed Brown’s
Chainlink texturing dressed the frontstrap
and mainspring housing, while the new
pistol has also been cut with 25 lines-perinch
(lpi) checkering, perfectly executed.
I’m sometimes asked, “What makes a
Model 1911 worth more than a standard
Colt?” As a school-trained pistolsmith
that once specialized in building custom
1911s, I appreciate time-consuming
handwork labor, flawless fitting and attention to detail. For
example, on Ed Brown’s 1911s, there isn’t the usual line or two
of checkering that hangs outside of the textured box. When you
begin to see the flaws in another 1911, you appreciate the man
hours invested and intensive training that went into fitting parts
and blending crisp edges to every contoured line.
Other Details Like the original, the new Cooper commemorative
is complete with cocobolo wood grip panels, smooth except for
the JC logo laser engraved on each. Modern Allen-head screws
secure each panel to the forged steel frame, which is also machined
in-house. I’ve visited Ed Brown’s shop in Perry, Missouri, and
remember being taken back by how much of the pistol was made
right there from raw materials and forgings. This shouldn’t surprise
the custom pistolsmith because we’ve been using Ed Brown’s parts
such as the legendary Memory Groove Beavertail Grip Safety ($70)
for more than 20 years. For those unfamiliar with the history of
Ed Brown, he got his start in the 1970s as a competitive shooter
that would perform trigger jobs after competing in matches. He
then invented part designs still imitated by other brands today, and
supplying improved parts for the 1911 ever since.
Inside Ed Brown’s shop is a unique broach machine that was
sourced long ago from a World War II-era U.S. Navy ship. Brown
retrofitted it with a long string of cutters that gradually increases