George Sheldon - Bobcat 1911

[IsoMAcK]

Does anyone have any info on New England gunsmith George Sheldon or his Bobcat 1911s? I am of the understanding that he is accredited with pioneering the shortening of the 1911 slide via the Bobcat, and was a contemporary of Armand Swenson. Masaad Ayoob seems to mention him most often of all of the gunscribes.

http://books.google.com/books?id=OA...ge&q=george sheldon 1911 massad ayoob&f=false

I found a bio that seems to fit, but does not mention anything about him being a gunsmith:

http://donmooreswartales.com/2010/08/16/george-sheldon/

Specifically, I am trying to understand how many Bobcats are out there, and how many may have been made in .38 super, like mine. Here is the original thread where I learned about Sheldon, thanks to the High Road!

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=616144

Thanks,

IsoMAcK

 

[Jkinnally]

He is a friend of the family, pm inbound

 

[Jim Watson]

All I know about the Sheldon Bobcat is from a brief mention and a couple of fuzzy pictures in one of Maj. George C. Nonte's books.

I think it hillarious that the Internet Guessers in that other thread think the Bobcat logo is the owner's pet cat named Sheldon.

My FLG has done a number of shortened GMs in the Bobcat mode, although without squaring the trigger guard and with the advantage of modern flatwire recoil springs.

 

[JonP1980]

George Sheldon was my neighbor in Franklin N.H. If memory serves me he designed the Sheldon bobcat while in the army I WWII and built a few in .45 after he got out and gave them to specific people with their name engraved on it with the understanding that if they sold it, he got first crack. He showed me one of the originals he had. I'm not posative where the design went from there. He was a very friendly man who had the nickname Iguana Jack Roo. He wrote articles in the local paper under Iguana Jack. He got the nickname in Australia in WWII. His wife called him Shell.