So... any of our members here have an interest in firearms?

Very interesting. I especially love the government property stamp. A really neat example, sir!

I'm in love with that pair Wryfox. My first issue OM is two years newer than yours, the last year they were made on the old DA frame before going to the Army Special frame in 1909. My 1917 was a basket case my dad got in an ammo can years ago and needed a new cylinder and timing hand (it'd been bored to accept shot shells) and it's only been in the last few years that I got it up and operational.

I'm not sure. I was just a little tyke when my dad got it in a trade. He messed with it some, could never find a proper cylinder for it and put it away.

I went to look for the old bored over cylinder and it wasn't where I thought I'd put it. I'll try to find it over the weekend and I'll measure the chambers.

Oh man!

Colts!

Omega Forums is a better gun forum than the gun forums. Most inspiring.

These are all probably rerun photos that have been posted earlier, but here are some more classic Colts. I'm enthused about them and love to shoot them.

I really enjoy shooting target grade guns. These Colt Officers Model Match revolvers, one in .22 Long Rifle (from 1953) and one in .38 Special (from 1957 - same as me) are a treat to take to the range. They give up nothing to the Python either and look better too. Did I really say that?!!! Those 1950s fully checkered walnut grips are feast for the eyes.


The vaunted Colt Python, this blued 6-inch is from 1978. Nice, but not the favorite around here. Don't really care for the vent rib, full under-lug barrel, or the polish job Colt rendered which is over the top and a little too melt-y looking in my opinion.


The premium Colt .357 Magnum predecessor to the Python, the 3 5 7. This one's from early 1954. Was intended to be the deluxe .357 Magnum in the Colt line up when it was introduced in 1953, yet Colt dethroned it a scant two years later with the Python which replaced it as top dog. Internals are the same, trigger's just as nice, and the 3 5 7 is just as accurate. I think the 3 5 7 is the better looking revolver of the two premium Colt .357s. Much scarcer too, yet brings far from Python money in the current market.


Colt New Service revolvers in any of their guises are my very favorite Colt revolvers of all times. Here is a uncommonly seen U. S. contract Model 1909 New Service in .45 Colt. Colt provided a few of these over just a couple of years time as a sort of stop gap to shore up effective revolver needs in the Philippines before the Model 1911 .45 automatic was introduced. Production of this variant wasn't all that high. One rarely sees a Model 1909 sporting any measure of original finish. 350 of these pistols were shipped to Springfield Armory and the remainder (19153 pistols) were shipped to the Manila Ordnance Depot in the Philippine Islands where their dazzling blue finishes promptly turned brown in the humid field conditions.


It's easy to tell it was a partly cloudy afternoon when these photographs were taken.










This poor ol' cannon is a Colt New Service Model 1917 in .45 ACP. I've owned this one for 40 years and have fired more rounds through it than any other Colt revolver I have. Have toted it afield on many hikes. Still a very useful handgun.

I do get it Wryfox except for the part about early Colt M1917s being able to accept .45 Colt ammunition.

I'm aware that the early '17 Colts had bored through cylinders with no shoulders, but hadn't heard that .45 Colt would chamber in those. If so then they'd probably shoot just fine. Might be crowding things a bit in the shorter cylinder. In our old house I have to go through our bedroom to get to the gun room. If it wasn't 4:30 in the morning and with Mrs. noelekal asleep I'd go measure the cylinder and a factory 255 grain .45 Colt cartridge to see if bullet would protrude out the front of the cylinder a bit. Of course the .45 Colt won't chamber in my '17 Colt revolver as it is a later production revolver (September 1918) so has chambers with shoulders.

I heartily agree with you Wryfox on the Colt lock work design improvements introduced to their various sized models in the 1907-1908 time period. Made Colt double-action revolvers advance from being old wheezers with delicate mechanisms and crummy triggers to real thoroughbred ponies with dependable function and nice usable triggers. I'd trust my early decades 20th century Colts to go the distance even now same as I would a new one.


More classic Colt-ness. Oh no! I feel a tale coming on!

It's been near two years ago, but a huntin'/shootin' cousin of mine came for a visit and brought my uncle's Colt Model 1873 which is a military contract variant of the Colt Single Action Army and chambered for .45 Colt. My uncle and my dad went on a fishing trip up to Oklahoma in 1948 and while there stopped in at a little road side grocery and bait house where my uncle bought the Colt M1873 and a holster for $5. Of course $5 was more money in 1948 than it is now and obsolete revolvers weren't yet collectible.

My uncle's Colt Single Action is known in collector's parlance as the Artillery Model. Its serial number dates it to 1878. Colt Model 1873s were provided to the U. S. military with 7 1/2-inch barrels which this one would have originally had, however in the years after the Spanish American War when the U. S. had taken over the Philippines from the Spanish, quantities of the Model 1873 were trotted out of military stores where they'd been held after they had been withdrawn after general issue of the newer military contract version of the Colt double-action New Army .38 Long Colt which served in the Spanish American War. Apparently the .38 revolver's reputation for effectiveness wasn't sullied during that conflict. Perhaps the revolvers weren't employed to any great extent and perhaps on occasion when used enemy combatants had the good grace to realize they'd been shot and didn't further press the issue.

Was a different story in the Philippines. The .38 Long Colt proved woefully inadequate for the adversaries the U. S. Army found there, some of which employed stimulating drugs and body wraps to render themselves more impervious to injuries received. These Moro tribesmen were known as the Jurementados and they meant business! Alarmed, the War Department brought back the Model 1873 Colt and its notably more effective .45 Colt cartridge.



To make the single action .45s handier for field use a great many of the M1873s supplied had their barrels shortened to 5 1/2-inches during arsenal reworks. My uncle's revolver is one of those. I don't think there was any particular association with artillery connected to the revolvers. Apparently collectors simply fixed that moniker to them. The shortened Model 1873s were just general issue and used along side an additional small procurement of Colt Model 1878 revolvers also chambered for .45 Colt known as the Colt Model 1902 as well as the later Colt Model 1909.

It was summer of 1968 when I shot a handgun for the first time. I can't now recall if it was my uncle's 4-inch Smith & Wesson Model 15 .38 Special or the Colt Model 1873 for I shot both at tin cans while standing in the road leading to our old family lake cabin at different times that summer. I recall that I "kinda" could hit with the Smith & Wesson, but the Colt (probably loaded with stiff Unique fueled handloads) was a bit much for an 11 year old.

In 1971 my uncle was struck and killed by lightening while on a fishing trip. His extensive gun collection fell into the hands of his four sons, my cousins and they still retain most of them.

I'd not seen the Colt Artillery Model in over three decades when my cousin came wagging it in the house stuffed in the same ol' holster it lived in while inside my uncle's gun closet when I was a kid. While he was in that weekend we repaired to the local gun club range for a "Span-Am" revolver shoot. My uncle's old Colt, a Colt Model 1901 .38 I have and the Colt Model 1909 were all aired out.

Top to bottom: Colt Model 1873 Artillery Model, Colt Model 1901rework of Model 1892, and Colt Model 1909 New Service all grimy from shooting on a March afternoon.


Good work could be done on target with both the Model 1873 Artillery Model and the Model 1909. The Model 1901? Not so much. Accuracy displayed would show that revolver as useful for close range work. The Model 1901 I have is a rebuild of a Model 1892 and was produced in that year. Colt won a contract to rehab and upgrade the earlier variants of the .38 Army revolvers. This included adding a butt swivel to any not having that feature and the Model 1892s did not have it. In the rehab Colt removed the original 1892 roll markings on the butt and reapplied the same serial number with Model 1901 designation. My .38 Colt is an early Model 1892 having a serial number of 1207. Because of the rework it is considered to be a Model 1901 and was so marked in that year.

Regarding the Holster

I recall that the old .45 Colt was kept with a holster when I was a kid. Didn't know a thing about holsters though. While we were sitting in the living room discussing the old Colt my cousin suddenly interjected that he was giving me the holster. Turned out to be an original and quite collectible vintage Brill holster. I now collect vintage leather holsters so immediately recognized it for what it was. I protested that it needed to remain with the revolver since they'd been together for at least 70 years at that point, but he said no, the holster was made for a 4 3/4 inch Colt Single Action Army revolver and I had one of those and the 5 1/2-inch Artillery Model didn't really fit it.





So, my 1905 vintage commercial Colt Single Action Army in .38-40 now has a home in the old holster which was my uncle's since that 1948 fishing trip. I'm very grateful to my cousin.

Shown here with another later, yet still pre-war Brill holster I'd previously picked up.


My .38 Colt Model 1901 really is an ol' wheezer. Mine's in pretty good mechanical shape. Its lines appear quite modern and it balances so elegantly and gracefully in the hand when shooting one-handed as was typical of its day, but it's of primitive design. The main spring feels like it was made from a segment of my dad's old overload springs on the '54 GMC pickup that he had when I was a kid. In single-action mode the revolver's trigger is heavy and harsh. In double-action mode the trigger becomes truly dismal, heavy, uneven and stacking, feeling much like dragging a Haydite block across a caliche road with one finger. Because of trigger characteristics the double-action trigger is almost unusable. But wait! There's more! The timing and lock up are both of such a weak design that the cylinder poorly aligns with the barrel's forcing cone. So a double-action effort with the revolver finds an evil lead-spitting beast from bullets shaving lead as they try to find the forcing cone. I've examined a number of these U. S. military Colt .38s over the years as well as the Colt commercial variants and have yet to find one that locked up tightly. The design was not durable which is the reason why I so wholeheartedly agree with Wryfox about the improved Colt models of subsequent years.

Hmmm ... never considered that. Never read it in any reference encountered either. Perhaps Colt initially did use left over cylinder components they had from the Model 1909 production which concluded in 1911, six years before the initial production of the 1917. Colt was very much "waste not, want not" about their inventory of parts in their assembly bins.

It's also possible that Colt simply rerouted component cylinders intended for commercial .45 Colt chambered New Service revolvers which was a regular production item. Whether they were 1909 cylinders or commercial .45 Colt cylinders they would have had to have been shortened for use in the Model 1917 New Service contract pistol for the cylinder is shorter in the Model 1917 than the cylinder is in the Model 1909 or other commercial New Service .45 Colt.

Which brings up another possibility I'd not considered before now. Perhaps Colt utilized cylinders that had been produced for the British contract .455 New Service revolvers. Colt had chambered the New Service for .455 from the model's introduction, with batches of commercial .455 New Service revolvers being sold to English and Dominion markets. Early in World War I England placed orders with Colt for additional .455s to supplement the issue Webley revolvers and quite a few were produced for them. The .455 cylinder is the same length as the Model 1917 cylinder. I know nothing about machining sequences of New Service cylinders during manufacture, but perhaps short .455 cylinder blanks in inventory weren't finished out in any particular caliber so could have been utilized for initial Model 1917 .45 ACP production and were finish chambered using the straight bored method.

I've observed the occasional Colt Model 1917 with chambers bored straight through.

Idle speculation, this.


The headspace issue raises a good point. Hah! One could fire at high angle with one's revolver to better achieve some discharges, as in a sort of early antiaircraft effort against dirigibles and aeroplanes. I think that's the reason Colt was required to modify the Model 1917 cylinder to feature the shoulders in chambers. Smith & Wesson Model 1917s all had shoulders in chambers which provided headspace for the .45 ACP and could dependably fire .45 ACP ammunition, even without the clips. The only issue being subsequent ejection of empty cartridge cases which would have required something to prod them out individually because the revolver's ejector star could not obtain purchase on the rimless .45 ACP cartridge. I have fired .45 ACP ammunition in Model 1917 revolvers without benefit of moon clips in this manner.

And here's a photo of the Colt Model 1917 with it's ol' Army bud a Smith & Wesson Model 1917. Some .45 Auto Rim cartridges also shown among the .45 ACP and half moon clips for illustration.


Ok, I've carried on about the wonders of Colt revolvers, but I actually prefer Smith & Wesson revolvers and their design above all other revolvers. OOOooo... did I actually say that too?!!!

I can't develop a whole lot of interest in current firearms catalogs just as I can't about current watch catalogs, but I'm enthused about the vintage stuff.

I just measured the length of each of my New Services cylinders; the .357 cylinder has a length of 1.617", the .45 Colt cylinder has a length of 1.624", and the M1917 cylinder has a length of 1.594".

Since I had the New Services out and since Noelekal threw down the Colt gauntlet I figured I should post a few photos.

First are my three New Service framed revolvers, from left to right my 1914 New Service in .45 Colt, my 1919 M1917 in .45acp, and my 1917 New Service in .357. I'm not sure when the conversion was done on the .357 but it was someone's target pistol, it has a trigger that breaks like glass at 3 lbs 4 oz and produces groups at 25 yds you can cover with a quarter. I got it for a song because the grip frame had been cut down to an E frame size, I put the pachmayrs on it to bring the grip size back up.

The next photo are my Pythons, the 4" is from 77 and the 6" is from 76. They are probably the finest post war American revolvers ever made.

The third photo are my Army Special (and New Army & Navy) framed guns. From left to right we have my 1908 1st issue Officer's Model, my 1937 3rd issue Officer's Model with a heavy barrel, and my 1913 Army Special. The 3rd issue Officer's Model is possibly my best shooting handgun. The thing is just a marvelous revolver and represents the absolute pinnacle of gun making. From the hand checkering of the back strap, trigger, hammer, cylinder release, and ejector; to the elegantly rounded edges of the frame and the matte finish of the top strap that contrasts so nicely with the deep polished blue of the rest of the gun; to the silky smooth action, this gun has it all.

The last photo is of my small framed Colts, my 1967 Detective Special in .38 spl and my 1910 Police Positive in .32 S&W long. The DS is my EDC and I typically carry it in an old Bucheimer paddle holster.