Named after a master tracker, the Scouts adopted a regimental badge bearing their inscription, which was clutched in the talons of an osprey, a bird of prey. The unit insignia was greatly coveted, but few were able to qualify to earn it. Eventually, along with their dissolution, went the badge of these fearsome Scouts, retired from the Army without ceremony.
The legacy of this most unique Special Service and the exploits of the men who served, were not lost on the young man who was beginning a career as a pistol designer in South Africa. Time would reveal that the Master gun builder and the Selous Scouts shared many intangible values, not the least being reflected in the integrity, innovation and clear understanding of the principles of their respective businesses.
Paul Liebenberg is now in his fourth decade of pistol design and innovation, highlighted by accomplishments at Pacmayr Gun Works, the Performance Center at S & W and capped by his reentry into the field of 1911 manufacture at Pistol Dynamics in Palm Bay Florida, where the firm and steadfast goal of producing the finest 1911 is the byword of this unique business.
Although today the Osprey no longer clutches the inscripted lettering of the famous Selous Scouts, it lives on as a symbol of excellence, retrieved from obscurity and adopted with reverence for the considerable achievements of its fine fighters. Reintroduced, it now stands as an icon, identified with the high quality of the product it represents and codified in the symbolic naming of a combat handgun without peer, the Pistol Dynamics “Scout”
