Master Blaster
Member
The other day it dawned on me that I have been shooting my Kimbers and newer colt gold cup (1999) too much lately, putting undue stress on all of those MIM and cast parts. So I took out my 1976 vintage 70 series government model, which I bought for the princely sum of $325 about 5 years ago. It is nickle plated with the mat finish they called Colt guard. It has the standard ejection port, and blued controls, short steel trigger, round mainspring housing, standard grip safety, and the mag well is not even beveled. The barrel is original and is marked Colts 70 series MKIV .45 ACP.
I got it with two colt magazines that are also mat nickle plated.
The only thing I replaced are the original pachmayer wraparounds with colt emblem. I replaced them with cocobolo double diamonds. I also replaced and the 70 series bushing with an Ed Brown. The gun was some kind of a special model that came with the halfmoon front sight, but had dovetail mounted MMC miniature adjustible rear sights. The gun had been fired once or twice before I bought it by the original owner, and had lived under the counter in a liquor store for about 23 years. The owner was a friend of my dad's and had retired from the liquour business and did not want the gun, he had no work done to the gun at all, and even gave me half a box of 23 year old hardball ammo. It was dusty and dirty when I bought and had a few scratches but cleaned up nicely.
So last week I took it out to the range with 100 rounds of ranier ballistics semi wadcutters loaded with 4.3 grains of N310 in 6x fired cases.
The gun is very accurate and shoots almost as well as my kimbers. It functioned flawlessly inpart due to the loose slide to frame fit.
When I got it home I stripped it and cleaned it. The machining on the inside of the old colt is very rough lots of milling marks, and the lines of the slide on the outside and less than perfectly even, some small milling marks are visible on the outside under the nickle finish as well. One thing that surprise me was how rough the machining on the lower barrel lugs is, they are shaped just fine and are even, but the machining is rough, not the smooth perfect machining I have on all of my more modern pistols. It does not appear to affect function in any way though.
You can definately tell that there was NO CNC machining on this gun
It was all done by hand and somewhat sloppily.
I have heard alot of nostalga lately from Tuner and Old Fuff so I thought I would give a report on my old Colt. It is truely a classic, and the handwork shows some of it not so good cosmetically anyway.
I got it with two colt magazines that are also mat nickle plated.
The only thing I replaced are the original pachmayer wraparounds with colt emblem. I replaced them with cocobolo double diamonds. I also replaced and the 70 series bushing with an Ed Brown. The gun was some kind of a special model that came with the halfmoon front sight, but had dovetail mounted MMC miniature adjustible rear sights. The gun had been fired once or twice before I bought it by the original owner, and had lived under the counter in a liquor store for about 23 years. The owner was a friend of my dad's and had retired from the liquour business and did not want the gun, he had no work done to the gun at all, and even gave me half a box of 23 year old hardball ammo. It was dusty and dirty when I bought and had a few scratches but cleaned up nicely.
So last week I took it out to the range with 100 rounds of ranier ballistics semi wadcutters loaded with 4.3 grains of N310 in 6x fired cases.
The gun is very accurate and shoots almost as well as my kimbers. It functioned flawlessly inpart due to the loose slide to frame fit.
When I got it home I stripped it and cleaned it. The machining on the inside of the old colt is very rough lots of milling marks, and the lines of the slide on the outside and less than perfectly even, some small milling marks are visible on the outside under the nickle finish as well. One thing that surprise me was how rough the machining on the lower barrel lugs is, they are shaped just fine and are even, but the machining is rough, not the smooth perfect machining I have on all of my more modern pistols. It does not appear to affect function in any way though.
You can definately tell that there was NO CNC machining on this gun
It was all done by hand and somewhat sloppily.
I have heard alot of nostalga lately from Tuner and Old Fuff so I thought I would give a report on my old Colt. It is truely a classic, and the handwork shows some of it not so good cosmetically anyway.
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