TINCANBANDIT's Gunsmithing: Firearm Factory of the Month: Alchemy Arms

This month's Firearms Factory is Alchemy Arms, maker of a specialty pistol known as the Spectre.

The story of Alchemy Arms starts with its founder: William McMoore.

McMoore graduated from Clover Park Technical College in Tacoma WA, in 1979 with an Associate's degree in Aviation Science & Technology.

In 1988 McMoore started a company to build small parts for Glocks and 1911 pistols and may have also been a supplier to Boeing for small parts.

McMoore following requests of his customers wanted to design a manual safety for Glock pistols.....the task was more daunting then he originally thought.

The project evolved into a whole new pistol that combined the best of the 1911 with the best of the Glock pistols. Work on the new pistol began in 1990 when McMoore enlisted the help of Boeing CAD designer Todd Petchnick.

What Petchnick designed was basically a Glock with a 1911 trigger and grip safety.

The grip frame was machined from billet aluminum, something aerospace suppliers are very familiar with. By May of 1990 a working prototype was ready for testing.

From the beginning the gun was to have a manual safety, along with four other safeties that would make this gun almost idiot proof.

Rather than create new magazines from scratch, steel Mec-Gar magazines for the EAA Witness 45 were employed.

To make the mags work a new notch was machined for the Spectre's mag catch. Capacity was ten rounds.

After the initial design was complete, Petchnick removed himself from the operation and went back to designing planes.

McMoore played around with the design, refining it and on January 5th, 2000 he applied for two patents. Later that month he showed the gun at the S.H.O.T. Show.

That same year the Spectre pistol went into production. A space was rented in Auburn, WA, just north of the municipal airport, while the corporate headquarters remained across the water in Port Orchard.

The guns were originally made in 45 ACP with plans for a .40 S&W and 9mm versions to come.

Five models were made including:

Standard Issue (SI): came with a black oxide finish and picatinny rail

Service Grade (SG): came silver coated, designed for professional use

Service Grade Commander (SGC): Same as service grade but shorter (4" barrel)

Titanium Edition (TI): Lighter than other models due to its titanium receiver, came coated in olive drab green

Titanium Edition Commander (TIC): same as Titanium but in Commander size

The guns were featured in the December 2000 issue of Handguns magazine.

There were some issues with the guns, most of them were resolved, but ultimately the guns just weren't very popular.

By 2006 things were falling apart and when it got ugly, McMoore fled the country, presumably to his homeland somewhere in the Middle East.

What Remains:

I wasn't able to determine how many guns were actually produced, I did find that only a handful of 40 S&W models prototypes were made and no 9mm examples seem to exist.

When I went looking for the location of the building in which the guns were made, the State of Washington provided everything I needed.

The building is a couple of blocks north of the Auburn Washington municipal airport and a couple of blocks east of the Emeral Downs horse racing track. It was also about 3 miles from my home in Auburn.