Cabot Guns is probably the best known name in modern-day gunmaking excellence; when it comes to museum-grade craft guns that will perform better than the best competition-grade 1911, Cabot Guns is the name that comes to mind. Their booth is always one of the most crowded at SHOT Show, and this year, visitors had the chance to admire the latest Cabot Guns masterpieces: the Cabot Guns California and Cabot Guns Ultimate Carry .45 ACP pistols.

The California was conceived and designed as a homage to the architecture of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge. In 2019, Cabot acquired some of the original suspension cable wire from the bridge, and tasked metal artist and Mosaic Damascus steel genius, Robert Eggerling, to turn said rare material into a masterpiece.

After stripping the heavy coating from the pencil-thick cable bundles, Eggerling forged completely unique billets of Mosaic Damascus that contain images of the Golden Gate Bridge within the steel. The California pistol by Cabot Guns features a monolithic slide design to allow for maximum exposure of the exquisite Mosaic Damascus.

Additionally, a never-before-used selective process was used to create a deep etch of the bridge at the place of rear cocking serrations, the top of the slide and the trigger, yielding an uncommon, sculpted appearance that’s a perfect complement to the hand-polished, 2-micron mirror finish for the remaining aspects of the slide. A solid 24K gold front sight is the cherry on top.