[FJC]

I'm picking up a 1969 Royal Blue Colt Python soon. Being someone who's mostly owned parkerized, stainless, or hard-chromed pistols, what's the best storage method to protect this blued finish?

I know that the foam-lined cases are bad (too much moisture). I won't be getting the original factory box with this revolver.

Thanks much!

[Kahr carrier]

Oil it up good and use a silcon treated BORE Store rug and check it every once and a while.:)

[dfariswheel]

The trick to protecting high grade finishes like the Pytho, is:
1. Prevent rust or corrosion. A silicone cloth, lube, or vapor paper will do a good job uunder most cercumstances.

2. Prevent abrasion of the finish. This means not letting the gun rub on anything. Cases that let the gun shift around will cause wear. Buy some kind of case that holds the gun solidly, and keep it protected from rust.

To be "classy" buy a fitted wood case for it.

[Standing Wolf]

I use lots of oil, then wipe them down with clean, dry rags, then rub them down with silicone-impregnated cloths, then wrap them in clean, dry cotton rags, then zip them into flannel-lined Boyt cases, then secure them in bank boxes.

[Standing Wolf]

Here's my newest Python, fresh home this afternoon from the gunsmith's shop. I do my own Smith & Wesson action work, but turn the Colts over to people with more skill and patience.

The stocks are from Randall Fung: http://jnb.com/~funggrip/index.html

[Grayrock]

Nice gun, but butt-ugly grips. I guess function over form and beauty is in the eye... and all that jazz. You probably shoot circles around me.

[Standing Wolf]

Greyrock:

I'm sure I do shoot circles around you—if you're anywhere near the bullseye, that is!

The sad sorry simple fact of the matter is that lots of my shots end up in the nine and eight and seven rings: I don't still see well, and between arthritis and computer wrist, I've lost my youthful steadiness of hold.

I could have put Pythons to good use as a young man, but couldn't afford them. Now that I'm far enough along in my career to be able to afford a self-indulgence or two, I can't still shoot well. There's an irony in there somewhere.

[Shmackey]

Here's my newest Python, fresh home this afternoon from the gunsmith's shop.

Randall Fung makes grips in light woods now? I've only seen dark woods, including my own.

By the way, those "butt-ugly" grips are the best anatomic grips you can buy. I'd swim through a sewer for a Python with Fungs, and I don't even know how to swim.

[Sven]

Wolf:

That apple is just callin for the Python to open it up!

http://www.cmp.ucr.edu/exhibitions/edgerton/apple_bullet_color.gif

Nice guns - strange lookin grips.

[firestar]

LOVE the grips! I wish I could afford them but I don't even have a Python to put them on.:(

[Monkeyleg]

You folks are making me paranoid! I've got a dehumidifier in my safe, and I've oiled all the guns, except the nickel Python. The humidity in the safe is between 24 and 26 percent. Now I've put the Python in a vapor-inhibiting bag. Problem is, I can't see it when I open the safe. :confused:

[Standing Wolf]

Randall Fung makes grips in light woods now? I've only seen dark woods, including my own.
By the way, those "butt-ugly" grips are the best anatomic grips you can buy.

Randall Fung doesn't make Python stocks, nor does he work in anything but walnut.

He made a set of walnut stocks for a High Standard for me. I was sure I wouldn't care for stippling rather than checkering, only to discover stippling affords me as secure a grip, and it's pretty in its own way. They're far and away the best stocks I've ever used on a .22 caliber pistol.

Awhile later, I asked him to make me a set of coco bolo stocks for a Python. He said he didn't have a grip frame for a Python, and doesn't work in anything but walnut. I drove up to his place with my Python, a (pre-agreement) N frame, and a (pre-agreement) model 41, along with some maple. I looked high and low for birdseye maple, but couldn't find any, so I bought the richest-grained maple in the bin.

He didn't really want to work in maple—but he's a decent fellow, and I wasn't in any particular hurry, nor did I haggle over the price. You could find more expensive stocks, and you could find more elegantly finished, but when he makes them to fit your hand, they fit your hand right.

If and/or when I talk myself into springing for a Volquartsen, it'll include a set of Fung stocks.