Inherited a para ordnance

**Fork5806** · 23rd August 2024, 04:02

Inherited this gun from my grandpa. Its weird compared to what i have seen online. I beloeve it is a p14.45. It has 0 engravings on the slide and a barrel that only says "nowlin 45 acp". The frame says para-ordnance INC. Made in FT. Lauderdale FL Canada. It also has a serial number of WG1966. It has a black skeletonized trigger and a black skeletonized type hammer. It has a mag well that looks like it is built into the gun as there are no seams on the inside. The rear safety mechanism has clearly been taken out so it just wiggles freely. Its all stainless. I could really use some help identifying the year and model of this gun. It is SO smooth, the slide is like butter but has a fairly strong recoil spring but moves perfectly. Thank you for any help.

**Hawkmoon** · 23rd August 2024, 09:14

Photos are essential. From the description, it appears that you have a do-it-yourself mongrel based on a Para-Ordnance frame and using an aftermarket barrel and a slide from ... somewhere. Para's barrels were never marked "Nowlin." And Para pistols always had model markings on the flats of the slides -- their guns were never "slick sides."

**Fork5806** · 23rd August 2024, 16:14

My grandma said that my great uncle (who my grandpa bought it from) did a lot of work to it. Is there any way to tell when the frame was made? The entire lower seems almost all cast from 1 piece of metal. I would share photos but cant seem to find a spot for that.

**Hawkmoon** · 24th August 2024, 14:11

How to post photos is discussed in the FAQ area. Link to the FAQ is in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Years ago, shortly after ParaUSA was bought by Remington, there was an effort made to create a serial number lookup to allow us Para owners to date our pistols. Sadly, there was a massive glitch when transferring records from Para to Remington. I submitted requests for the date of manufacture for three Para pistols I had bought new, and still had the unfired cases in the little brown envelopes with the date of test firing. The answers I received from Remington were off by years for two out of the three.

I have a copy of the most recent version of that list. A 4-digit serial number is fairly early, when Para-Ordnance was still in Canada. There are several 17xx numbers listed as 1993, but one 17xx listed as 1996. However, 1871 is listed as November, 1996, and 2021 is listed as 1993. There are several 25xx and 26xx pistols listed as having been manufactured in 1996 or 1997. The best we can guesstimate is that yours was probably manufactured in the late 1990s.

When you post photos, please include a photo of the magazine. Back in the 1990s (and into the early 2000s), Para used to sell what they called a "Gunsmith Kit." This was a bare, double stack frame, with only a trigger and magazine release installed. It was intended as a base for a gunsmith to take all the parts from a single stack 1911 and build a double stack pistol. Since your pistol has a non-Para barrel and apparently a non-Para slide, I'm going to guess this might be what happened. The WG in the serial number tends to support this. There aren't many gunsmith kit pistol listed in the registry and most of them don't have dates of manufacture, but most of the have 'G' as the second letter of the serial number prefix. So that might be an indicator that you have a gunsmith kit frame. If I remember correctly, the grips on the gunsmith kit guns were different from the production pistols, and I believe the magazines had a flat steel floorplate rather than a two-piece polymer, slip-on base shoe.

**Fork5806** · 25th August 2024, 11:06

Though i would love to include pictures, i am not going to pay for photobucket. If you have facebook messenger, instagram, or snap chat i could share pictures on there. Thank you for the info you have provided as it will help me do further research on my gun. I may take it completely apart and try to figure out what components it uses. I couldnt find a brand anywhere on the slide unfortunately.

**Hawkmoon** · 25th August 2024, 20:55

You don't need Photobucket. The vBulletin forum software we use allows you to attach photos directly to your posts. From the editing window, look at the lower right and click "Go Advanced." When the advanced editing window opens, the option to attach images will be in the options below the editing panel.

There is a size limit. Before attaching photos, resize them to no larger than 1024x768. There are numerous free utilities that will do that for you.