[Adventurer_96]

OK, maybe it's not a full-fledged mystery, but it's really peculiar to me. I took the grips off of a Colt SAA I just bought, and they're a brown walnut I think. I'm not good with wood types. Here's the strange part, the S/N is pencilled on each grip, but the last digit is one number off.

Weird, huh? The only thing I can think of is they got mixed up with a neighbor in the Colt Custom shop when assembled. Any ideas?

[Jim K]

I don't know how they do it now, but at one time, wooden grips were fitted by installing the grips on the semi-finished gun, and then polishing the front and back straps and grips together to get a perfect wood-to-metal fit. Then the grips were removed for final finish, the parts were blued, and the gun was reassembled, using the grip numbers to make sure everything went together that was supposed to.

Jim