Colt Commando Special?

[chez323]

I just picked this up today and I'm curious about it. I just happened to be at a table when a gentleman traded it in for a knock off Baby Browning 25 that was engraved. I offered them $5 over the price they had for the little 25 and they accepted it. It's a Colt Commando Special, 2" barrel with rubber Colt grips 38 special. Figured I'd post some pictures of it and see what the general consensus is. It caught my eye and felt good in my hand....... anyways, here's the pictures.







thanks for looking, look forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

[ApacheCoTodd]

Cool little knock-around .38. It'd make a great Snake/Coyote gun around here.

The seller did right in hitting the profit of the Browning twice - plus $5 bucks.

 

[Liberty1776]

Well, I like it. I believe they are essentially the Detective Special but in a matte finish (and I loves my DS...)

 

[9mmepiphany]

It was marketed as an economy version of the Detective Special. They saved money by not having to polish it before bluing and cut some corners in the fit.

Usually the sideplate stands a bit proud. It is hard to tell from your pictures, but yours seems almost flush with the frame...just a little off above the trigger. The final polish on the hammer spur (not square) and the loose fit of the crane to the frame are normal for this model.

I always thought this was a great way to get into a Colt D-frame at a lower entry price

 

[smkummer]

Colt offered the commando special, agent and peacekeeper as low cost options at the time to compete with guns such as charter. The parkerized agent appears more often then the commando or peacekeeper. Your gun was originally marketed with a rubber stock that was smaller than the Colt/pachmayr gripper you have on it now. If you notice, they didn't even stamp the Colt pony on the sideplate. While the matt finsih may have not been a good seller at the time, the matt finish guns are more "in" now. Let me know if decide to trade or sell.

 

[chez323]

Thanks for the info guys, wasn't exactly sure what the deal with it was. I happened to be at this sellers table with this guy walked up with it wanting to trade it for a more shootable gun. He ended up with an engraved 25 that the seller has listed for $495. I offered $500 and after a few minutes he bit. He couldn't find it in his reference book so he wasn't sure what it was worth. Something about it just caught my eye from the moment the guy walked up with it. I wasn't leaving the table till I knew what the deal was with it. It fits my hand nice and has a nice trigger pull on it. Can't wait to hit the range with it. Hopefully I didn't do to bad... but something about it just called out to me.

 

[bannockburn]

chez323

During the early to mid '80s Colt experienced numerous work slowdowns and stoppages due to ongoing labor problems at the time. This slowed production down considerably yet Colt still wanted to get their revolvers out in the marketplace. As a result Colt offered several different models, like your Commando Special (Detective Special), in a matte finish. This was done mainly to save time, money, and effort in having to properly polish, fit, and finish the gun. They also had the Agent (like the Detective Special only with an alloy frame), and the Peacekeeper (the Trooper MK.V), finished along similar lines. Typically Pachmayr rubber grips replaced the more expensive walnut grips that use to come with these models.

 

[dfariswheel]

Bannockburn has it right.

During the big Colt strike in the mid-1980's Colt didn't have enough qualified polishers to polish all the guns as normal, so they brought out a line of unpolished, black finished pistols.

These were as well finished and fitted internally as the pre-strike guns and were great deals price-wise.
As soon as the strike ended, these unpolished models were discontinued.

The Commando Special was the strike version of the Detective Special.
The Peacekeeper was the unpolished Trooper Mark V.
For some reason, the Cobra kept the Cobra name.
The Agent had gone to a dull black finish some years prior so there was no change for it.

 

[chez323]

Found this on a different forum, thought I'd share........

 

[AlexanderA]

This is not to be confused with the "Colt Commando .38 Special" which was a WWII contract revolver with a Parkerized finish.

 

[chez323]

Nope, this one was made during the 1984-85 strike when Colt was short on polishers.