.45 Gold cup National match!

I bought two NIB Gold Cups in 1980. As a personal choice I removed the sear depressor on both because I get a more positive feel of the trigger.

One of the guns was a great performer right out of the box. The other was mediocre at best. The solution for this gun was to have the slide tightened to the frame and lapped. Both guns are great and I can't tell one from the other in performance now.

These are terrific guns that are worth having some work done to bring them up to speed. Find a guy who knows his stuff about them to look 'em over.

Cartridge: 200gr SWCL out of an H&G 68 mold with 4.9 grains of WW231.

I had a '70 Series Gold Cup.
It would shoot about 5" at 50yds. I ended up selling it and buying a Springfield Arsenal gunsmith kit, and had it barreled with a Kart barrel. It would shoot under 2" at 50yds.

Your Gold Cup can be "made" to shoot, but it will involve rebarreling it and installing a match bushing. May also require some tightening of the slide.

As a Colt representative told a friend of mine several years back at the NRA PPC Nationals at the Colt diplay booth; "The Gold Cup is a "Target Style" pistol, not a Target Pistol".......

He too had a Series '80 Stainless Gold Cup that shot "patterns" at 50yds, not groups. He sold his Gold Cup and bought a Smith & Wesson Performance Ctr. PPC-9 limited. It would shoot under 1" at 50yds from a Ransom Rest with Delta Precision 147gr JHP match loads........ And he had enough money left over from selling the "Dolt", as he called it, and bought a case (500rds) of the match ammo for his Smith "Performance Ctr" gun.

More info on my guns

I failed to mention that even though I bought the pair of Gold Cups in 1980, they were Series 70 models without the firing pin safety.

You didn't mention what you are using it for and just what size groups you're getting, so don't be in a hurry to "chase your tail" to accurize it. Before you start buying barrels, etc. go to a competent and trustworthy gunsmith and get an opinion.

GooseGestapo is correct about the Gold Cup being a target "style" pistol and your expectations may be too high for this gun without having it accurized.

x3

I was competing in bullseye in the late 1970's and early 1980's and every now and then a new interested person would show up at one of our monthly club matches with a shiny new Gold Cup.

After a disapointing first experience someone would find a way to gently educate him that while nothing was finer than a Gold Cup they did not come equipped to do well in that type of shooting.

I love the pistols and have a 1962, a 1968, a 1974, a 1979, and a 2007 Gold Cup Trophy.
The stainless one is modified for accuracy and is the only one of them I'd want to take to a match.

I will say, though, that I believe that the Colt Gold Cup models available today are in general better shooters than the Gold Cups of the late 1970's. They're tight well built pistols all up and down their product line, and the 'notch' they designed into their barrel feed ramp makes for much more reliable feeding of non ball jacketed ammo such as semi-wadcutters.

Change bullets and work up the load for your pistol. A 230 grain RN or FP should do nicely.

There are NO stock production 1911's that will typicaly hold the x ring at fifty yards out of the box. That said, a few of the premium guns (Gold Cup, Springfield Match, Kimber, etc.) will in a few cases do so. The solution is to have your 1911 re-worked by a competent bullsey pistolsmith. Most of them gaurantee x ring accuracy out of a ransome rest with match ammo. There will be a wait for your gun though, and the cost will run between $800 and $2,000, so unless you are involved in bullseye competition, or money and time are unimportant, 5 inches at fifty yards is sufficiently accurate for most social work.