It's a 2007 Dan Wesson Classic Commander bobtail. Built like a custom platinum Rolex for a chicom billionaire, it was like finding a late-model BMW performance car in the back of a Hyundai used car lot.
I stopped shooting before I went through half a box, because I wanted to preserve enough of the black to show that those are real bullet holes, and not me just using scissors.
I already gave it a nanolube treatment, but as I expected, it didn't need it. Without spring pressure, the parts just move under their own weight if you turn something around. It's like running on air bearings, like air hockey.
Modifications will be minor, and mainly so I can brag that I did a couple of things myself on it. Titanium firing pin and hammer strut. An ultra-light short match trigger from my own parts stash. Maybe a tungsten recoil rod and end cap, if I modify it myself, since a lot of this stuff is terra incognita for a chopped bobtail.
The grips are some sort of wood, but I couldn't swear they're of terrestrial origin. The serial number is laser engraved on their inside surfaces, but I have no idea what that scribble means, so I took a picture to see if anybody has a SWAG about what it might mean:
The most visible change will be the grips, and it may take me a while to find the perfect ones to convert. "Bobtail" grips are few and far between, but this is a full-sized frame, so full-sized grips can be modified using just hand files in less than 30 minutes, checking for a perfect contour as I go.
I'll take it back to the store to let the guys try it out. Some of them had their eyes on it too, but their rules are they can't buy anything on display until after the store closes.
Oh, and this Dan Wesson is more accurate and easier to shoot for a .45ACP duffer like me than my beloved CZ97 BD from the Motherland. Of course, CZ owns Dan Wesson, so the word went out to DW to make whatever they wanted at whatever price they can get away with, as long as it was the best humanly possible. Perhaps that's why only "economy model" DWs sell for just under $2000, and people wait like vultures to pounce on $5000-$7000 competition models as soon as they come off the assembly table.
I'll just get quiet satisfaction from my plain-looking bobtail as soon as the hideous grips are gone, and something classy but more normal replaces them. :)