Colt Producing New Model 1903 Pistols

[Resist Evil]

I love the form factor of the 1903. My older friend, a retired Denver cop, has promised me his 1903 upon his passing. This pistol was once shoved into his chest while he was sitting in his patrol car and the trigger pulled. It did not fire. His badge number is engraved on the slide, as was the practice before putting the gun into evidence. The perp suffered some physical injury just prior to his arrest. He fell or something. Anyway, I hope I don't get it for a very long time.

As for the new ones, I'd grab one of the other styles and not the Parkerized version. I can't imagine that a schmoe like me would have access to one to even think about buying one.

 

[Jim K]

Some miscellaneous comments:

I will be surprised if those repros are made in the U.S. My thinking runs to Turkey, Croatia, or Brazil. Or if the Khyber Pass folks aren't busy.....

Hi, Tipoc, the later guns have no bushings. The bushing is needed where a tool must be inserted from the front of the slide that is bigger than the barrel. That is why the M1911, the BHP and the Radom have bushings. The M1903/08 also needs such a tool (to cut out the recess for the barrel lugs in the slide) but the space it requires is filled by the swell in the front end of the barrel.

IMHO, if those repros are anything like the originals, all Colt is doing is making more guns that will be put on the market as original in a year or less, so buyer beware!!

Jim

 

[BSA1]

Alas Colt is missing the boat once again.

I think the 1908 would big a sure winner if finished and priced right. As it is now it is ugly and overpriced. Since it is a "collectors" I have doubts about how well it functions. If Taurus can put nice blue finish on their guns Colt should be able too. I think the flat sides would make it a nice carry piece especially IWB and the larger size will soak up the recoil.

 

[Old Fuff]

They can easily go to a .380 version if they choose to, but clearly - this pistol is aimed at big-bucks collectors, not ordinary shooters. The ordinary person who walks into a retailer looking for some pocket-sized protection and is shown one of the current small polymer .380 pistols is unlikely to buy a Colt .32 for 2 to 3 times the price.

The lion share of these pistols will likely function, but I expect they won't have to. They will go straight from the dealer to the back of the buyer's safe.

As far as users are concerned, if they start mass producing internal parts, barrels and magazines at even outrageous prices that aren't ridiculously so, a lot of the 1903 to 1946 guns will be resurrected.

 

[DPris]

There's no way Colt can win on this gun for the greatest majority.
It costs too much.
It's ugly.
It's not as nice as the originals.
It's the wrong caliber.
And so on.

Expecting a 1903 design manufactured with all-new tooling to 1903 quality levels to sell for $500 in this day & age is ludicrous.

Colt can't afford to do the gun themselves.
If made by the same people who do the Gatling under Colt branding, it'll be made in the US & it'll HAVE to be expensive.

Embrace reality.
Denis

 

[Monac]

Colt and whoever is making the guns for them has no intention of selling them for $500, or selling them as actual carry guns, or even selling them on an ongoing basis.

According to the article, they are planning to make 2,500 guns and to sell them for about $1,375, give or take $25 (at this time - I would bet it turns out higher by the time they go on sale).

2,500 times $1,360 gives gross revenue of $3.4 million. If they spend $500,000 tooling up and can build the guns for $600 each, that leaves $1.4 million for Colt, the maker, dealer profit, and marketing. With CNC and MIM technology, does that sound impossible?

What they are doing is selling a high priced product to a small market, presumably with modern technology getting the fixed (tooling) costs down to the point where they can make a useful profit on a batch of 2,500.

With middle class disposable income declining, aiming stuff at the top income brackets and keeping the price high by making it a limited edition is a sensible business strategy. The only problem I can see is keeping it up year after year with new limited editions of things. It is not hard to glut the market for them. That's what happened with "commemorative guns" 40-odd years ago..

Does anybody remember about 20 years ago, somebody made a batch of 50-100 .45acp Lugers and sold them for something like $15,000 apiece? (I think it actually happened, but it may have been just a proposal. I'll have to check Google.) This is the same thing on a larger scale and with better technology.

PS - Here is a link to an article from 1998 about the new-production 45acp Luger: http://www.krausewerk.com/45luger.html

And this is a Youtube video of a guy firing SN 002: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDhQROCyX94

 

[MAKster]

If they started selling the magazines separately that would be great. Most 1903 owners probably have one original mag that works and a bunch of the cheap aftermarket mags that don't work reliably.

 

[Jim Watson]

At first I did not see the point of such a short production run, but I am coming around to Monac's position. They are likely scheduling as many as they think they can sell on nostalgia.

In the 1980s and early 1990s Browning sold a number of old model guns made by their Japanese affiliate in rather low numbers on what was then described as "temporary tooling". It worked for them then.

 

[bannockburn]

Oh well another gun that will be overpriced and made in limited numbers just for collectors. Even at that the quality won't come anywhere near like that found on the nickel plated Model 1903 (with original factory pearl grips with Colt Medallions), I picked up a few years back at less than half the price of one of these new ones.

 

[Old Fuff]

There's no way Colt can win on this gun for the greatest majority.
It costs too much.
It's ugly.
It's not as nice as the originals.
It's the wrong caliber.
And so on.

Expecting a 1903 design manufactured with all-new tooling to 1903 quality levels to sell for $500 in this day & age is ludicrous.

Absolutely true. At $1,300 + they probably can make money. At $500 they can't, and while the .32 Pocket Model has a cult following it's unlikely that viable sustained sales would happen after an initial demand had been filled. This is not a product Colt is going to invest money in, if any.

 

[Vodoun da Vinci]

Gee, maybe Colt will read this thread and wise up. We seem to have distilled it down to DOA/POS...good thing I didn't spend my hard earned money.

Most 1903 owners probably have one original mag that works and a bunch of the cheap aftermarket mags that don't work reliably.

I have about a dozen mags from Numrich to keep my Colts in spare mags as I spend a lot of time on the range with them and need extras...so, I have tested them often as have other folks I have let shoot the guns. Never a failure in any of the mags I have purchased rotating 12 mags (I hardly use the originals any more given that originals are very expensive to replace) between 4 guns and quite a few thousand rounds in 2014.

http://www.gunpartscorp.com/Products/168850.htm

Then again, I noticed now that they list Triple K as the supplier - I don't know that the mags I have are Triple K mags as they didn't specify that when I purchased them in the past so YMMV.

+1 on using the new tooling to produce new magazines. I'd love to buy a few more as I anticipate owning and shooting more of these pistols in the future. Heck, if they can pull of producing functional new mags (don't care if they are two tone like the originals) that are proper they can probably float the whole project on replacement mags.

VooDoo

 

[Old Fuff]

I don't know if you are aware of it or not, but when Browning designed what became the Colt .32 Pocket Model he included a feature he's first used in Winchester model 1892 and 1894 lever action rifles.

If you field strip one of your pistols you should notice that the ejector has two finger-like extensions that run along the sides of the magazine well. These are cartridge guides that help keep a round correctly positioned as it feeds out of the magazine into the chamber.

If the magazine is correctly dimensioned, feeding is very reliable.

 

[earlthegoat2]

Are they going to be drop safe? That is the biggest detriment to carrying a vintage one. Or, are they going to half attempt this like so many other things the gun companies are doing these days and only intend these for display cases instead of...you know...actually what they are designed for?

 

[Vodoun da Vinci]

My opinion is that in order to make the pistol drop safe they'd have to alter the design and I didn't think that was in the initial concept. Re engineering it/modifying it for CC might push the price even higher. The original design is not drop safe.

That said I took a beat up old junker and we loaded it with a primed cases and we commenced to dropping/throwing, and beating the thing. We did get the pistol to fire. It was an inertial fire from the FP hitting the primer when the pistol was slammed on a concrete surface directly on it's nose.

That's the only drop fire we could reproduce. I carry mine loaded now if they have been checked and have the half cock notch which I believe was installed after 1922 or so. Others have been killed by dropped Pocket Hammerless and the folks in my family who carried them in a pocket years ago when it was legal without a license carried theirs in public without a round in the pipe and with a round in the pipe in private.

We are responsible for any bullet that leaves the muzzle. They are not drop safe but the odds are astronomical yet possible. I'll be curious to see how the re issue/reproduction addresses the issue legally.

VooDoo

 

[tipoc]

Here is a bit more on the proposed guns.

This includes the interview at the last SHOT show with Curtis Wolf.

http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/01/2...al-officers-pistol-recreation-2015-shot-show/

http://vimeo.com/9196535

As you can see from the interview U.S. Armament Corp. of Euphrata, Pa.(whose website is under construction) is the manufacturer of the reproduction of the General Officer's Model M1903.

The company plans to have the gun ready in about 2-3 months for sale. Initial production will take place at their facility in Pa. and later be moved to the Colt Custom Shop. So they plan.

Wolf says that 3500 of the guns will be produced. This seems to be the third variation of the gun with the 3 1/2" barrel with no barrel bushing and the magazine safety as it was issued to officers.

2000 of the guns will be Parkerized. 1000 will be blued and 500 Royal Blue, according to Wolf.

The MSRP will be $1395.

Wolf says the company bought up numerous copies of the original guns in order to spec out the guns and draw up the needed shop prints. The original shop prints would have long ago been destroyed as is industry standard.

Because they do not possess the original machines, gages and fixtures they had to make the guns on new CNC equipment, develop procedures, fixtures and programs for that. We'll see what corners were cut in the production process if any once someone gets a chance to detail strip a new gun.

The design of the M1903 was based on tech that is now over 115 years old. No one would produce a gun today using the same procedures or processes it would make no financial or production sense except as a rarity.

To be blunt there is no reason to revive this gun as a standard catalog item unless you gut the internals and modernize the design based on the concept, which is still a valid one, of a single action pocket pistol, smooth all over and slim with a grip safety and a manual thumb safety and do it in .380

Note that there is no announcement of this gun on the Colt website.

http://www.colt.com/Default.aspx

The U.S. Armament Corp.'s website is still under construction.




tipoc

 

[Peter M. Eick]

I think it will be interesting. I am not that interested in a parkerized but a blued sounds interesting. I could deal with Parkerized if I had to.

So 3 months. $1400 retail so it will be interesting to see if a dealer can get them any cheaper.

It will be interesting to see if they sell out or no one buys one.

 

[wojownik]

Thinking back about the O1911 thing (where they released a limited number, then a limited - but larger - number as the O1918, I wonder if Colt will follow a similar model to test the waters for the reissued 1903. That is, issue 2000 of this first type (plus 500 general officer versions), then a few thousand of a WW2 general issue type, then a few thousand of another version, a few thousand more of another ...

Then a few thousand of a tactical 1903 with novak sights, integrated rail ... an somehow got to get a beavertail on the 1903. Just gotta happen

 

[Old Fuff]

The original "General Officer Pistol was not unique or special in any way. They were in fact drawn from regular inventory. What was special was a belt and holster set that came with the gun.

Apparently the only feature that make the new guns a GOP is a certificate that comes in the box. Some astute buyers might get a price break by purchasing one of the regular Parkerized guns if they don't care about the paperwork.

Colt was aware of the issue of pistols being dropped on a hard surface and firing. In 1922 (Serial number 422000) (.32) and 66000 (.380)) They changed the firing pin design to an inertia system similar to that used in the 1911 platform. This was accomplished by making the front part of the firing pin shorter so that it didn't protrude through the breech face when the hammer was fully forward; And incorporating a stronger firing pin spring.

This modification can be made on any 1903/1908 Pocket Model pistol, even if it was made during or before 1922 or the cited serial numbers.

 

[wojownik]

The original "General Officer Pistol was not unique or special in any way.[/U]

Well, they were marked "US PROPERTY." And the neat holster, of course.

 

[Old Fuff]

It will be interesting to see if they sell out or no one buys one.

Unquestionably they're enough Pocket Model fanboys to insure brisk sales to start with. The key question will be continued sustained sales over time; and a big one - will they retain and/or grow in value.

Considering the proposed prices I expect that most deep-pocketed collectors will stick to buying mint or better examples from the original 1903-1946 period. Most of the post-war series of Single Action Army revolvers haven't made it into the serious collector market, and probably won't unless the manufacturer goes under and/or discontinues production of the model.

 

[Old Fuff]

Well, they were marked "US PROPERTY." And the neat holster, of course

All of the Colt Pocket Model pistols that were purchased by the U.S. Military Services during World War Two were stamped with property marks, not just General Officers Models.

I didn't notice if the seller of this new issue is including an OMP belt and holster or not. There are several variants by the way.

 

[HexHead]

We are responsible for any bullet that leaves the muzzle. They are not drop safe but the odds are astronomical yet possible. I'll be curious to see how the re issue/reproduction addresses the issue legally.

VooDoo

They might go the "Springfield" route, with a Ti firing pin and a stronger spring. There wouldn't be enough inertia to fire if dropped. No redesign necessary.

 

[HexHead]

I'm still not clear if it's going to be a real 1903 in .32 or a 1908 in .380. I'd be interested in a .32, but not at all in a .380.

I have a Type 2 '03 made in 1910.

 

[Vodoun da Vinci]

I think Old Fuff has explained it the best - if they use the post 1922 configuration then the guns are about as drop safe as they are gonna get. Which is safe enough for me. In the 21st century I'm sure anyone contemplating releasing a firearm for sale would need to see that it is drop safe but I don't know the legalities of this.

I kinda like the Parkerized finish and don't think the example pistol looks bad at all. I have shot the .380 versions of the Pocket Hammerless and personally prefer the .32 as this was the caliber the gun was initially designed to shoot. I feel they are a little kicky in .380 but shine with .32 acp. The ergos are primarily what I adore as the gun just feels and points like a pistol is supposed to feel and point like.

VooDoo

 

[Jim K]

On pretty good advice, I have always used a cost figure for guns of 1/7 the retail value. That is supposed to be the actual production cost, materials and labor, but not amortization of tooling, cost of financing, profit, and the general costs of running a factory. If that figure is true in this case, a retail figure of $1400 would come out to only $200 factory cost in material and labor. I don't think they can do it on such a small scale.

Jim