Colt Shooting Master

[RON in PA]

I was with Dave when he got to shoot his new old Colt and I had the opportunity to shoot a few cylinders of .38 special with it. Fantastic SA trigger pull, very light. And revolver shoots to point of aim.

 

[armoredman]

Beautiful.

 

[Slamfire]

I am sure Joe Donahue had a Colt Shooting Master. I was at his house buying his 1950's s sporterized M1917 Enfield. Joe had a several revolvers he wanted to sell, had advertised this Colt 38 Special target pistol in the paper, but no one was interested in the price. Joe's Colt was a rare model as it came from the factory with ivory checkered grips. Joe had contacted Colt about that and was told a very limited number had ivory grips.

At the time, used 38 Specials were going for $150 and Joe wanted $250 or so for his, and I was not interested in some expensive relic 38 Special target pistol. I wanted 357 Magnums, and so did the rest of the market. The local gunstore was full of police trade in 38 Specials and 357's were the LEO current choice. This was before high cap 9mm's turned the LEO 357's into Police trade in specials.

Now, I wish I had purchased that Colt, and his target 22lr Colt revolver. Somehow I remember that was a Colt Officer's target Model in 22 lr, but I was not impressed with a large, six shot, 22 lr revolver. It was another rare bird.

 

[.45Coltguy]

Tonight I shot it for the first time. I had 38 rounds left of my 148 grain HBWC handloads that I fired first. POA was 6:00 on the bull.

View attachment 1167549

I also put a couple cylinders-full of 178 grain Keiths on top of 5.3 grains of Unique, which is a +P load. It shot those accurately as well but recoil was quite a bit more than the wadcutters, as you'd expect. It would make a good field load, however. (The New Service and Shooting Master are perfectly fine with +P or .38/44 High Speed Loads.)

I'm looking forward to trying it at longer range.

Thats some fine shooting! And one heck of a find with that revolver.