My new Colt Cobra just broke AGAIN!!!

Reading this make me appreciate my 1967 Python all the more! I have to quit thinking about the new Pythons. Years ago I did have to send it back to Colt to get the timing corrected after many many rounds of hot 357's. I have to agree that , at least my colt is not designed to be pushed oftern
 
OK, bottom line the metallurgy in newer
Colt revolvers may not in some cases
be up to specs with breakage occurring.

Are these metallurgic failures few and far
between or can more be expected? That
is the question.

So far I've not read of any widespread
failures in postings from various forums.

Many fans of the new Colts belong to this
forum. More reports involving extended
use are needed.
 
I've had the new 6" Anaconda on THE LIST. Inflated pricing has held me up, and now this post and others gives me further pause.
Mark_Mark said:
this is changing my mind about buying a New 3” Colt Python. Maybe I should stick to Old Colts from the 60’s and older
Click to expand...

Slamfire said:
This has drastically changed my ideas about buying a Colt pistol. Not much of a warranty if a firearm with a systemic problem of multiple parts breakage leaves the owner high and dry after cashing in "the warranty" to fix the first problem
Click to expand...
 
As an aside my up to 115 year old till 1980 Colts work just fine. I have worn a couple Colt Agents out, but never a failure. Sounds like the design, the material and the execution might have well been chicom . From the moment I first saw the new generation of Colts in my hand ; they just screamed " lipstick on a pig" .Now the Gunsmith at Gunsite and others can turn them into a somewhat reliable weapon .
 
KarateHottie93 said:
Just send a cheap spring so a customer can drop it in his gun and make it work again.
Click to expand...

I understand and sympathize with your point of view.

But understand Colt's point of view. It doesn't know you from
Aunt Lily's third cousin and really how trained and responsible
you are to go into the innards of one of its revolvers. It wants
to protect itself by making sure the gun and new part are put
back into spec.

I've been inside many Smith revolvers, quite a few Ruger
revolvers and a number of Pythons. But I'd be the last one
to say I'm a gunsmith. I definitely ain't. :)
 
Just got a voicemail from them. I called back and they said they were gonna issue an RMA. I asked him about it being out of warranty and he was like "that's fine we're just gonna issue an RMA". I'm hoping that means free but communication wasn't too clear.

If they still do paid RMA's the same as before, they get the gun, look it over, and then mail you your invoice just for you to call and pay over the phone. It's a very drawn out process.

If it is paid I'm just gonna get it fixed and sell it for whatever I can get at a firearm pawnshop. Maybe still gonna sell it even if the repair is free.

The mainspring breaking before didn't really bother me. I'd ran the gun a good bit through those first two months of ownership and felt like if I just never shot it or even handled it, it would still be perfectly reliable for carry. Obviously that's not how it should be but I don't wanna not like this Colt.

This incident is different though. That gun has literally just sat in a holster since it came back in December 2020. I dry fired it the day I got it back to check function and timing. A couple of other people dry fired it around that time when I was thinking about selling it and let them look at it. Nothing excessive though.

It's just sat loaded since then until the other day when I pulled it out and dry fired it a couple of times. The spring that broke this time isn't even under tension when sitting there left alone. I don't know that I'd ever feel safe carrying another Colt. Maybe when CZ realizes how bad Colt's poor quality and customer service is and steps in to save their own reputation.

I mean I honestly don't even carry on my person that often anyways...just in my car unless the area is super sketchy. I don't necessarily feel unsafe without a gun. It's like why go through all the hassles of carrying though if you can't trust the thing to not self destruct under the absolute lightest of intended use. Either way, at least I get to bond with my RAMI BD, 327 LCR, and XDs 45 now. Outside of a single light primer strike with my old manager's XDs 45 (with cheap no name range ammo), none of these guns have ever had a failure on me, let alone multiple catastrophic ones.
 
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UncleEd said:
I understand and sympathize with your point of view.

But understand Colt's point of view. It doesn't know you from
Aunt Lily's third cousin and really how trained and responsible
you are to go into the innards of one of its revolvers. It wants
to protect itself by making sure the gun and new part are put
back into spec.

I've been inside many Smith revolvers, quite a few Ruger
revolvers and a number of Pythons. But I'd be the last one
to say I'm a gunsmith. I definitely ain't. :)
Click to expand...

I get that, and if the RMA is free, I'm perfectly okay with that.

It's when you only offer a one year warranty/service agreement, are known to charge more than most manufacturers for similar out of warranty repairs, and the parts that are breaking are the same all around. I get that not everyone online is honest when sharing negative experiences about companies and firearms (some of which they've never even owned), and I try to take that into consideration when reading posts and watching videos. In this case though, it's always the hammer breaking (my issue with that part was obviously on me and I don't count it), the return spring breaking, or the mainspring breaking. I can definitely attest to the latter two.

When most guns get recalled, it's for issues I'd never even heard about. With the Cobra/King Cobra I don't get how it hasn't been recalled.
 
KarateHottie93 said:
Well I still never received a callback from yesterday. They haven't responded to my email.

I don't understand this. Just send a cheap spring so a customer can drop it in his gun and make it work again.
Click to expand...
can you buy parts online?

Instead of sending my new Uberti back for a broken bolt (my fault, was fanning practice) I bought the parts and learned how to fit it to function. cost all of $35. I didn’t want to wait for Uberti’s very slow Italian CS
 
Mark_Mark said:
can you buy parts online?

Instead of sending my new Uberti back for a broken bolt (my fault, was fanning practice) I bought the parts and learned how to fit it to function. cost all of $35. I didn’t want to wait for Uberti’s very slow Italian CS
Click to expand...

Unfortunately no...outside of people blowing their gun up beyond repair and selling what's left for parts. They usually sell the whole thing and charge almost as much as a new revolver though. I guess they know how little people want to deal with Colt's CS.

For the 2017- revolvers, you can't get any internal parts unless you're lucky enough to get a cool rep who will go out of his way to make it happen. From my experience, it's usually the same two people who answer or respond to emails at Colt though.

It just sucks too because these revolvers would be perfect if parts weren't so poorly made...even by MIM standards.

I had a RIA M206. It was a knockoff of an old Colt. It used a coil mainspring but still had the lockup of a newer Cobra. I RMA'd mine cause the crane was badly sprung and it was causing the cylinder catch to miss the hole and it would lock up the trigger. It was still perfectly usable and you could just pull it really hard and it would go through the rest of the way. I wanted it fixed though cause the gun would be so perfect if running right. They fixed it but when I got it back they'd somehow ruined the lockup and it wasn't locking up at two chambers when slow cocked. I ended up pawning it.

With that said, from a pure durability standpoint, that $200 Colt clone was an absolute tank compared to my actual Colt. I never had issues with breakage. I just had the QC issues you'd expect from a $200 revolver.

I don't get how they can make durable parts for next to nothing but Colt can manage to do it when charging over 3x the price.

Edit: accidentally referred to a sprung crane issue on the RIA to a cylinder gap lol. I meant the gap between the crane and the frame.
 
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KarateHottie93 said:
Unfortunately no...outside of people blowing their gun up beyond repair and selling what's left for parts. They usually sell the whole thing and charge almost as much as a new revolver though. I guess they know how little people want to deal with Colt's CS.

For the 2017- revolvers, you can't get any internal parts unless you're lucky enough to get a cool rep who will go out of his way to make it happen. From my experience, it's usually the same two people who answer or respond to emails at Colt though.

It just sucks too because these revolvers would be perfect if parts were so poorly made...even by MIM standards.

I had a RIA M206. It was a knockoff of an old Colt. It used a coil mainspring but still had the lockup of a newer Cobra. I RMA'd mine cause the cylinder gap was huge and it was causing the cylinder catch to miss the hole and it would lock up the trigger. It was still perfectly usable and you could just pull it really hard and it would go through the rest of the way. I wanted it fixed though cause the gun would be so perfect if running right. They fixed it but when I got it back they'd somehow ruined the lockup and it wasn't locking up at two chambers when slow cocked. I ended up pawning it.

With that said, from a pure durability standpoint, that $200 Colt clone was an absolute tank compared to my actual Colt. I never had issues with breakage. I just had the QC issues you'd expect from a $200 revolver.

I don't get how they can make durable parts for next to nothing but Colt can manage to do it when charging over 3x the price.
Click to expand...
thanks! I’ll wait for Colt to catch up
 
UncleEd said:
I understand and sympathize with your point of view.

But understand Colt's point of view. It doesn't know you from
Aunt Lily's third cousin and really how trained and responsible
you are to go into the innards of one of its revolvers. It wants
to protect itself by making sure the gun and new part are put
back into spec.

I've been inside many Smith revolvers, quite a few Ruger
revolvers and a number of Pythons. But I'd be the last one
to say I'm a gunsmith. I definitely ain't. :)
Click to expand...
They sent me a hammer for my brand new 1911 that had a flaw in the finish , that I didn’t notice until I cocked it . So that is probably not the reason .
 
I reckon this was the reason I passed on the Pythons back a couple yrs ago. I bought a King Cobra Target last week in the hopes that after 6 or so yrs of being back in production they'd have the bugs all worked out. I guess time will tell for me, but seeing this post before I've even had a chance to shoot it, almost makes me wish I'd bought the Match Champion instead. O well, I reckon I won't sweat it, it's a Davidsons, so at least I (hopefully) have them to fall back on should some gremlins arise down the road. We'll see how we go

Good luck
 
bigpower491 said:
I reckon this was the reason I passed on the Pythons back a couple yrs ago. I bought a King Cobra Target last week in the hopes that after 6 or so yrs of being back in production they'd have the bugs all worked out. I guess time will tell for me, but seeing this post before I've even had a chance to shoot it, almost makes me wish I'd bought the Match Champion instead. O well, I reckon I won't sweat it, it's a Davidsons, so at least I (hopefully) have them to fall back on should some gremlins arise down the road. We'll see how we go

Good luck
Click to expand...
that’s a good point! buy a New Colt from a company that will back the gun..

Durys, has a lifetime warranty on guns they sell.

E5C56EA5-05E6-4F1D-BC88-878803781301.jpeg
 
I’ll check out durys. Thanks! I like doing with good folks I’ve never heard of. Also check out Gilbert’s guns in KY. Found him accidentally and he has Fantastic CS and good prices. Great guy.
 
shoebox1.1 said:
I’ll check out durys. Thanks! I like doing with good folks I’ve never heard of. Also check out Gilbert’s guns in KY. Found him accidentally and he has Fantastic CS and good prices. Great guy.
Click to expand...
Durys is a family business that’s been around for a long time. Give them a call, they have friendly call takers

I actually might buy a New Colt through Durys too. Really want one … lol
 
I’m sorry the OP got a lemon but that doesn’t mean the design is flawed or every KC has defective parts. I have one and love it. And it sounds like Colt is trying to work with the OP even though they are not legally required to do so. But I swore off Kimbers years ago because their service was lacking at that time. So I understand where the OP is coming from.

BTW, Kimber 1911s only come with a one year warranty.
 
Well I just got a definitive answer that there won't be a charge for a trigger return spring so I'm happy with that.

Still at this point, I can't imagine trusting this gun again. Not just that I don't trust it with my life but I don't necessarily trust that it will even survive the next 50 trigger pulls. It's been completely random with this thing.

I don't even know if I could morally sell it when I get it back at this point.
 
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