Colt Army Special circa 1922

[Tallball]

Some of you naughty people on this site were talking a couple few months back about how awesome the old Colt revolvers are and how great their triggers are and so on and so forth. I got to thinkin' about it and realized I DIDN'T HAVE A COLT REVOLVER, much less an antique, so I started looking around on Gunbroker. It took a while, and I was hoping to pay closer to $200, but splurged and paid $300 for this one. It locks up tight, and the rifling looks a little bit worn but still good.

It will be a week or two before I can go shoot it. I am looking forward to it. My "pre Model 10" and "Hand Ejector" are from 1915/1916, so it can keep them company. It is less worn than either of them and seems to have a better trigger.

Does anyone know if wooden grips would have been an option when it was new?

 

[Monac]

I think fancy wooden grips with no Colt medallion would have been an option. By fancy, I mean checkered with a kind of fleur-de-lis thing somewhere.

 

[dfariswheel]

Colt didn't begin converting to checkered walnut grips with silver medallions until 1924.
Hard black rubber was standard until then.

As above you could special order fancy walnut grips with Fleur-de-lis hand checkering, but other than on the Officer's Model revolvers, you very seldom saw that on a standard production model.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I can't tell you much about wooden grips on the early Colt double action revolvers. I can tell you that hard rubber grips as are on your Army Special were very common at the beginning of the 20th Century. They were standard on many Smith and Wesson revolvers too.

This Army Special shipped in 1921. Since hard rubber grips were a molded product, perhaps they were less expensive to produce than wooden grips. Perhaps that is why wooden grips were special order. I can tell you that over time these hard rubber grips dry out and become brittle. So be careful with yours and try not to let anything strike them or they may crack.

I have a weakness for these old Colts with hard rubber grips. Here is the Army Special with a Police Positive Special from 1922, a 32 Police Positive from 1917, and a Pocket Positive from 1908.

A pair of New Service revolvers. The 45 Colt New Service at the top of the photo left the factory in 1906, the 44-40 New Service at the bottom shipped in 1907.

Regarding your 38 Army Special. This model was produced between 1908 and 1927. Because of decreasing sales to the military, and increasing sales to law enforcement agencies, in 1927 Colt changed the name of that model to Official Police. Same basic gun. The Official Police was produced from 1927 until 1969.

 

[Dog Soldier]

I have a few of the vintage Colt DA revolvers. I don't know why but my favorites are the .32 Longs. Now don't ask what a .32 Long is good for? I do know they are good for finishing off empty Coor's beer cans. This is one of my favorites. A 1928 Police Positive.

 

[Tallball]

Thank you everyone. It's always an honor to hear from Driftwood. I will probably get a set of the wooden grips and put these rubber ones somewhere safe. My FiL has all of the correct screwdrivers and skills, so I will hit him up for some assistance (he will enjoy looking at it, and we can clean up the insides if needed). All of my personal vehicles are antiques, and I very much enjoy the old handguns as well.

 

[bannockburn]

Tallball

Very nice find and for $300 yet! You didn't mention the gun's caliber; I'm guessing it's a .38 Special. Would love to find one (reasonably priced that is), in .32-20.

 

[GBExpat]

Tallball, that is a fine-looking Colt for what sounds to me like a great price.

Did someone mention .32-20s?

Just pulled them out of the south gunsfe, put'em on the bench and did a quick pic ...

 

[stoky]

score!
I think the hard rubber grips are also known as gutta percha. If you going to shoot it (I would) and if your going to replace the grips, I'd replace them first, and stash the original grips away. They're going for some semi-serious money to collectors these days.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Again

The Colt Army Special was chambered for 38 Special, 32-20, 38 S&W and 41 Colt.

I am assuming the OP's gun is chambered for 38 Special, that was the most common chambering and that is what mine is chambered for.

This is the way the caliber is marked on mine.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Yes, Gutta Percha is the tree that produced the latex used for hard rubber grips. Gutta Percha was in use before any of the more modern plastics were developed. It had many uses. Eventually, Gutta Percha was replaced by Bakelite and other early plastics.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha


In addition to a few Colts, I have a few Smith and Wessons with hard rubber grips. My New Model #3 was made in 1882, and it still wears hard rubber grips.






The red mottled hard rubber grips on some S&W revolvers are especially prized by collectors. This one is not mine, but it is a good example of S&W red mottled hard rubber grips.




This Merwin Hulbert still wears its original hard rubber grips.




By the way, if they come with hard rubber grips, I always keep them on my revolvers. I am just careful with them.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I have to admit, I'm queer for Colts. I especially like the New Service. I picked up one for next to nothing a few years ago, but it wouldn't shoot to point of aim -- I mean it was WAAAAY off.

So I trimmed the barrel to 5 1/2", put adjustable sights on it, and got Steve Herrett to make me a set of Shooting Master grips.

 

[Monac]

The gutta percha / hard rubber thing is complicated, and I don't understand it fully. They come from two different trees, but are identical chemically. Gutta percha, for some reason, was pretty easy to make into solid objects. I think that S&W Model 1 revolvers - the little tip-up 22 Short revolvers that were the foundation of the company - often came with gutta percha cases.

It took much longer to figure out how to make latex from rubber trees useful for anything, but once that happened ("vulcanization"), it began to be produced on a very large scale. When somebody figured out how to make hard rubber, it became much cheaper than gutta percha because of economies of scale. Gutta percha began to disappear from the market, except for some very specialized applications. Almost all gun grips were hard rubber, and not gutta percha.

I don't know why hard rubber took over the market for gun grips, but it did, starting in the 1870's, and lasting until the 1920's, when taste, for some other reason I don't know, began to swing back to wood. Maybe machines were developed that could produce decent checkered wood grips cheaply?

The Europeans discovered that steamed, dyed, and pressed animal horn made a good substitute for hard rubber during the First World War, and that stuff can be very hard to tell from hard rubber too. (One giveaway is if it has bug damage, similar to termite damage in wood. Another is if it has begun to de-laminate, which apparently is caused by dampness.)

Vulcanite is hard rubber with sulphur, or sulphur compounds added. This improves the hard rubber in some way, and was used by Webley for their .455 service revolver grips.

Thanks for the pictures, Driftwood, they show how good hard rubber could look, and all of those guns are wonderful. It's a pity no one reproduces those mottled S&W grips today.

 

[Lone Star]

Some company makes repro hard rubber grips, and if I owned a gun that had them, I'd get a set as spares and to put on the gun when shooting.

I think the Colt Army Special is the revolver worn most by Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews on his famous scientific expeditions. He just called it/them Colt .38's, but they have the grip shape of the AS: a large, sharp photo in an open topped holster clearly shows either Army Special or Official Police contents. He did make a 1930 expedition, but most were earlier, so the gun was either an Officer's Model Match or (more likely) an Army Special. And, yes, he shot some people with it, Chinese bandits. He also armed his young hero in his novels with a Colt .38 and the same sort of rifles that Andrews used. He also had a Colt .32 auto in reserve.

I owned a New Service in .45 Colt, made about 1935. Someone had turned the bbl. to align the sights, or the factory happily got that right. It was a real shooter! Shot as well as my early S&W M-29 .44 Magnum, and that's saying something! Either would group all six shots in a ragged hole at 25 yards on a good day.

 

[Tallball]

Yes, it's a 38 special. They seemed to be the most common and least expensive on Gunbroker.

 

[grouselips1]

Gents,
Thank you for the excellent pictures and informational content! Now i'll have to wear the bib all day to catch the drool.........................Most excellent revolvers you all have there!

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Some company makes repro hard rubber grips, and if I owned a gun that had them, I'd get a set as spares and to put on the gun when shooting.

Howdy Again

When I bought this old S&W 44 Hand Ejector 3rd Model, the original wooden grips were badly worn. It came with a battered holster and I was told the gun was carried by an officer in WWII.

The grips don't really have much value in that condition, and I would never separate a pair of old grips from an old gun just to make a profit. But I did decide to take the grips off and store them. I replaced them with some plastic grips from this company.

https://www.vintagegungrips.com/

The grips are OK, but nothing to write home about. The quality is just OK. They obviously use inexpensive rubber molds to make the grips, and the fine detail does not transfer very well. But they are OK, and they went right on without needing any fitting.

I also bought a set of replacement grips from the same company for the Merwin Hulbert revolver pictured earlier in this thread. I was less impressed with these grips. They needed some fitting, and I never put them on the gun. It is still wearing its original hard rubber grips, as are all the other revolvers pictured in this thread, plus a few more in my collection. I am careful when I shoot these guns, I do not slam them on the table so I will not crack the old hard rubber grips.

The same company offers replica hard rubber grips for the Colt Army Special. From the photo, they appear to be just OK quality.



Here is another company that offers reproduction grips. I have not done any business with this company.


http://www.handgungrips.com/

Note: If you buy reproduction grips like these, you have to buy the screw and threaded ferrule for them too. It does not come with the grips.