Colt E frame latch spring guide question

[Tomahawk674]

I posted this question in the Colt forum and got no useful answeres so I thought I'd try my luck here. Hopefully you guys saw my post about my new beautiful Officer's Model Target in 22LR. When I had it appart, there was no spring guide for the cylinder latch spring. I have another excellent condition E frame, a 1939 Official Police Heavy barrel that also did not have a spring guide when I opened it up. Also noticed that the '39 gun's latch does not have a tiny hole drilled in the back, when the 1930 built gun does.

I doubt that 2 excellent condition guns would have both had their latch spring guide lost and not replaced. Did the pre-WWII guns not use said guide? I know where to buy guides, I just don't if these guns even came with one in the first place.

 

[dfariswheel]

Sorry I didn't answer over on the Colt forum.........

Some models of 1920's Colt's did not have a guide but did have a hole in the latch piece for the spring to seat in.
In this early design, no guide was needed.
This was soon changed to the design where the latch had no hole but the side plate still did. This was to save money on machining of the tiny hole in the latch piece. The guide was added to prevent the more exposed spring from kinking.

I never saw enough of these older guns to make a definite statement about whether they had the small guide, but every gun I did see that had no hole in the latch piece did have a guide.

So, the older revolver had no guide because none was needed, but the later model "should"?? have a guide.

 

[Tomahawk674]

Thanks for the info. Bought a guide from Jack First parts. How cool that they make new parts for these guns.