From 1911_purview

I post a lot of esoteric gunsmiths, but it is time to get back to the masters. This is a “space gun” in .45 ACP by Jim Boland —the most innovative 1911 pistolsmith, maybe ever. Through the 1980’s and early 1990’s Boland was among the early pioneers of 1911 customization. He used his expansive experience as an aerospace machinist to craft high performance handguns. Boland’s proximity to the Southwest Pistol league provided him with a virtual testbed of high profile shooters and gunsmiths to collaborate with —legends like Mike Dalton, Angelo Spagnoli, Bruce Gray, and Don Nygord. Boland was more than a parts assembler, he was a true innovator. He famously would grab a welder, disappear into a back room for three days, and then emerge (nonchalantly) with a masterpiece that resembled something like a 1911 on the outside, but was everything but on the inside. The first time I detail stripped a Boland space gun I sat there looking at the parts on the table thinking “holy shit, he made a whole new gun.” People overuse the phrase outside the box but Boland had no concept of the existence of a box. While everyone in the 80s was playing checkers, this motherfucker was playing intergalactic chess. There is nobody in the history of custom 1911 pistolsmithing with his degree of imagination coupled with the ingenuity and capacity to execute it. The dude was 1/3 artist, 1/3 machinist, and probably 1/3 wizard. He lived in chronic pain from an automobile accident, with an actual hole in his leg. His customers tell the story of how they were expected to bring Heineken with them to the shop…his favorite analgesic.