Any thoughts on Colt 2nd Gen.?

[rdstrain49]

I recently acquired a pair of 2nd Generation Colt Armies. (Calvary Commemoratives). My question to those of you who have 2nd. Gen. Colts, are they good shooters? If they tend to shoot better than say Uberti, great, I'll shoot them. If not, I guess I'll sell them and pick up a pair of Uberti's. These appear to be unfired so, shoot them and take the $ hit, or sell them and get a pair of shooters.

 

[SixxshootinSam]

I have a 2nd gen Colt Walker and I can't say it shoots 'better'. it's really about the same. One thing that did happen is the mainspring and the hand spring already broke once on the Colt. replacement parts are a lot more expensive than for the Ubertis and not always available.

 

[rdstrain49]

Kind of like having a John Deere or Cat, they work but hang on when you go to buy parts.

 

[Dudemeister]

I just bought an 1862 Police 2nd gen Colt, also unfired and in the box. But then again I bought it as a collectible, so it will stay in its current condition.

If you're looking for shooters, then by all means sell these get as much as you can for them, then buy yourself some Ubertis or Piettas. Both of those shoot just fine, and as someone else mentioned, replacement parts (especially for the Piettas) are dirt cheap. For example, Cabelas sells a kit of most of the internal parts for their BP guns (hammer, trigger, hand and springs) for about $30. On one your Colts, an original spring will set you back that much or more.

The difference between the Colt, Uberti and the Pietta is the finish quality and obviously the price.

The Colts are arguably the best finished, even though most of them like yours were not actually made by Colt, rather some of the parts came from Uberti, others were made and finished at the former Iver Johnson Factory in New Jersey.

The Uberti finish quality is excellent. I have Ubertis that rival the finish of the Colts, in fact to me the color case hardening looks richer on them then the Colt.

The Piettas finishes are just OK, nothing you'd want to keep in a display case, but as shooters they're great workhorses.

So you'll have to decide what you want to do with them, keep or sell. If you do sell them you could buy a few Ubertis or Piettas with the money you'd get for them.

 

[rcflint]

2nd Generation Colts ARE Ubertis. The major components were made by Uberti and shipped to Iver Johnson in the USA. They were assembled and finished here with their superb color case and fitting. The screws and other small parts were made in the USA. Parts are UBERTI, and to say the parts are more expensive because they are Colt doesn't fly because the parts are not available from Colt or anyone else as such,. The parts than might need rep[lacing, internally are Uberti and Uberti cylinders fit and function, if you need spares. I replaces a 3rd Gen hammer with an Uberti part because the shape was not authentic, it fits and functions. (3rd Gen "Signature Series" parts were made by a variety of Italian makers, but the 2nd Gen are Uberti). Check VTIgunparts.com if you need parts.

They shoot well, but not necessarily better than an Uberti as the gun is, except fot the finish and fitting, the same. As long as they are set up with the proper cylinder gap and timing and decent Treso or equivalent nipples, they are fine shooters, and to sell them off to get an Uberti "shooter" doesn't make sense, unless you really want to leave them unfired and NIB for a collector. I shoot mine.

 

[junkman_01]

I think it's time again for a refresher on the COLT reproductions...

 

[Dudemeister]

2nd Generation Colts ARE Ubertis. The major components were made by Uberti and shipped to Iver Johnson in the USA. They were assembled and finished here with their superb color case and fitting. The screws and other small parts were made in the USA.
AFAIK, the back straps, barrels and cylinders were made by Uberti, the frame and small parts were made by Iver Johnson. That is the reason the frames look a bit different. For example on my 1862 Police, the Colt frame has a nipple guide groove which is not present on the Uberti version.

The parts than might need rep[lacing, internally are Uberti and Uberti cylinders fit and function, if you need spares.

I don't argue that is true, however, most of the major parts (frame, straps, cylinder, barrel are stamped with Colt markings and if you're trying to keep the gun original, the parts supplies are scarce and cost serious money. If you don't mind turning into a Frankenstein project, then yeah, most of the parts will fit with, or without minor adjustments.

...sell them off to get an Uberti "shooter" doesn't make sense, unless you really want to leave them unfired and NIB for a collector.

That's my point, a collector might be willing to pay for this package a lot more than what it would cost to buy 2 or 3 brand new Ubertis. A cased set such as this should fetch somewhere around $1000-1200 or more. For that money he can buy 3 Ubertis, 1860, 1851, 1858, Dragoons, etc.

So unless he wants to shoot a Colt branded revolver, I would think that selling the set and buying the cheaper Ubertis makes more sense.

Anyway, that's just my $0.02 on the subject.

 

[J-Bar]

I had the exact same set of Cavalry Commemoratives. Mine had been previously shot, so I had no hesitation shooting them in Cowboy Action matches.

The external fit and finish on the Colts were exquisite, but internally the new Ubertis are finished better than the Colts were. (I have a had a number of recently made Uberties and Piettas so I can make the comparison.) Fewer machining marks, better sear angle, etc, on the new Ubertis particularly. The point of impact for the colts was high, as is commonly found on all these open top models.

There are modifications that can be made to the handsprings that eliminate breakage as a problem, so if it means a lot to you to be able to say you are shooting a real Colt, keep them and shoot them. I swapped mine off for other guns to use in Cowboy Action competition.

 

[rdstrain49]

Thanks for all the input. Don't know for sure yet, but for what I have in them, I'm leaning toward shooting them. If they shoot well they have a home, if not----

 

[madcratebuilder]

Shoot them and enjoy them.

FIY, the C series 2nd gens were made in Colts custom shop, the F series by IJ under Colt supervision.

 

[rdstrain49]

Thanks Mad';
I'll publicly show my ignorance, what are the C and F models?

 

[junkman_01]

Read the attached PDF file in post #6.

 

[Dudemeister]

Colt's BP reproductions cliffnotes

Between 1971 and 1976, Colt manufactured the so called "C" series of black powder guns. These were the 1851 Navy and the Colt 3rd model Dragoons.

Since Colt no longer had the original tooling which was destroyed in a fire in the late 1860's, they imported the parts from Italy through 2 distributors. First through Val Forgett, then through Lou Imperato. The parts were then finished and the guns were assembled at Colt's Harford, CT factories.

After these guns were produced, Colt stopped manufacturing Black powder guns, but demand was still high, so Lou Imperato continued to produce the next series of guns there, the "F" series. These guns were made from Italian parts (backstraps, cylinders and barrels) and US made parts (frames, screws and internal parts), finished completely at the Iver Johnson facility, then shipped to Colt for final inspection and distribution.

The guns in question on this thread, the Cavalry Commemorative 1860 Army boxed set, is part of the "F" series. About 3000 of these sets were made.

 

[TheRodDoc]

The no. 1 thing that will make one Colt style revolver better then another is the cylinder to arbor fit. Should be a slip fit. .0005" to .001".

This may be hard to find on most all repos for this has to be done by hand lapping at factory and going by most of the guns made they don't do.

Measure with a good quality micrometer and bore snap gages or bore gage. Not with a dial caliper.
Also no bevel or chamfer on cyl. bore. If it has much of one it acts like a funnel directing fouling into the over sized Clearance around arbor.

This close fit eliminates fouling from binding up the cylinder. Fits of 2, 3, 4 or as much as 5 thousands are way to big of Clearance and if your gun cyl. bore is over sized these amounts, you will have a grease gun like most others here have.
This is the one thing that can't be fixed very easily.
Any thing else can be made right without to much work.

My early 51 Colt is just slightly under .001".
That with perfect cyl. barrel alignment and a very close cyl. gap, let me shoot 300 shots with no lube of any kind and no cleaning at any time till done with the test.
Using Geox black powder. Never bound up at all from fouling.