rodinal220
Member
Nice snake,must have been a white shirts gun
I don't know of any agency where all armed personnel were ISSUED six-inch Colt Pythons. The four-inch Python was at one time standard issue for Colorado Highway Patrol.
However, numerous officers who preferred longer barrels, and could afford the price and had the option, carried their own six-inch Pythons. Two of the California Highway Patrolmen murdered in the infamous Newhall Incident in 1970, Officers Gore and Pence, were armed with privately owned/department approved six-inch Colt Pythons, and used them in the fatal shootout.
This will be documented in Mike Wood's new book, "Newhall: A Tactical Analysis," coming very soon from the folks at Digest Books.
There is a grey area between department issued and department authorized for private purchase. Regardless of whether you can use it in that particular shooting game, I would snag that gun. In the US it would be worth double your source's asking price.
Back in the early 1980s when I was living in CA I saw a CA. Highway Patrol officer at the range in full uniform (smart to practice dressed the way you will be dressed when fighting) shooting a 6" Python. I never saw anyone use a speedloader as fast as that man did. If you blinked you missed it. He did a lot of practicing, I imagine.
Colt's frames and cylinders are actually some of the strongest ever used in a DA revolver.
Colt used very high grade forged frames so they don't have to be as massive as Ruger's cast frames to have the same or better strength.
What wears, is the action, specifically the hand that rotates the cylinder. This can wear and cause the cylinder to not rotate quite far enough to lock fully.
When the trigger is pulled the cylinder will lock so it's safe to shoot.
The hand in the Colt's is considered to be a normal maintenance item IF it ever does wear to the point where it needs to be repaired.
This is like installing new spark plugs in an expensive car. For the higher performance, you have to do more maintenance.
In any revolver, shooting hot .357 Magnum will wear the gun more then shooting standard .38 Special ammo.
That's like driving a car at 100MPH or 70MPH.
In most revolvers it isn't the fame or cylinder that wear from hot ammo, unless it non-standard extra hot reloaded ammo that damages the frame.
Depending on how much you plan to shoot, I'd either just have fun and shoot standard .357 ammo, or just buy a couple of Brownell's bronze chamber brushes and clean the chambers regularly if you shoot .38 Special.
I've got a lot of rounds through a couple of stainless Pythons, about an even mix of light .38 Special reloads and a good amount of standard factory .357.
Both are in perfect condition.
One thing that "can" be rough on a .357 is shooting the hot 125 grain Magnum loads.
These can erode and even crack the forcing cone in the rear of the barrel. Shooting bullets in the 135 to 158 grain range are much easier on the gun.
Roger that!The only SFPD revolvers I have ever seen were S&Ws. They issued the Model 58 in 41 Magnum and the Model 28 in 357 and they are stamped SFPD on the frames.