Several people have written to me about Colt’s re-release of the venerable Colt Python. From the horse’s mouth:
What… no Colt Royal Blue? I’ll wait. I don’t want a Python Pimp Model, thankee verramush.
Anyway, I can’t wait for the gun mags to review the new Python. What I’d really like to see is some intrepid reviewer doing a side-by side comparison of an old 1970s-era Python with the new one, to see if Colt will be manufacturing guns to the same degree of quality as they did back then.
I don’t want to be all negative and stuff, but something in my water tells me that’s not gonna happen.
But just to be perfectly clear on this: as a HUGE fan of the Python revolver — I still have my old 6″ Python holster, against the day when I get another one — I will be the happiest man in the world to be proved wrong.
Some of you may be wondering, if I’m such a Python groupie, why I ever sold my old one:
Answer: I didn’t sell it. I shot it till it broke, irretrievably: frame bent, cylinder busted, the full catastrophe. Only the barrel and trigger assembly could be salvaged for parts.
It was the finest handgun I’ve ever fired, by a day’s march — and believe me, I’ve shot a LOT of damn handguns in my life.
I still mourn its passing.
Good Lord, how did you break a Python?
It was probably RCOB-related.
LOL Rick… you know me too well.
I’m not going to lay out that kind of coin for a new Python, or the even more ridiculous prices dealers are asking for the vintage ones. My S&W guns shoot just fine for half the price.
S&W 586 & 686, darn near Python quality at an S&W price.
To burst a cylinder & bend a frame of any revolver requires a severe overcharge or a blocked barrel. Not the poor old Python’s fault.
Neither of the above: I only ever shot factory ammo, and the barrel was never blocked.
The cause of the damage was that the previous owner had polished/ground away the back of the cylinder, making it look smooth and shiny. Unfortunately, in so doing the cylinder was now too short, so every shot would slam the thing back into the frame.
For a safe queen, this would have been fine; for a gun that was shot every single week of its ownership, at least a hundred rounds at a time, it was a death sentence.
I noticed it when the gun started to misfire, the pin missing the center of the primer. At first I thought it was just a matter of cylinder timing, but a gunsmith told me the entire frame had been bent out of whack by the repeated impacts.
I nearly fell into a coma.
@Velo,
I’ve been drooling over the idea of a Smith 586 with 6″ barrel, but only after I scratch my 1911 itch.
Brad, I shot my best handgun target with my friend’s Smith 586 – I may even have the target around here somewhere. I do like the Python, and if they make it as well as they did at first, they will sell a bunch. There was an era later when quality control at Colt seemed to be lacking.
The lesson for manufacturers that Winchester should have learned in 1964, once you lose a reputation, you really can’t get it back.
“The lesson for manufacturers that Winchester should have learned in 1964, once you lose a reputation, you really can’t get it back.”
See also: Remington
I was always told that Pythons were “sensitive” to hot hand-loads, which kept a lot of ‘smiths in new boats.
Maybe. I used to use 110gr Winchester hollwpoints for practice, and only loaded it with self-defense rounds to carry, so I have no way of knowing whether that’s true or not.
Also, I never used .38 Spec ammo, to stop the powder burn inside the cylinder. Not that it helped any, as it turned out.
Bubba gunsmiths have ruined a lot of otherwise good guns.
Got a 22 once that just needed to be cleaned to work right.
“It’s back!”
Yeah, like Churchill the Cat was “back” in Pet Sematary.
In any case, I hope Colt is successful with their new retro-revos, and I’ll hold on to my 586…
Not a Python but S&W is bringing back their model 610 revolver. 10mm is best mm and S&Ws are still very nice revolvers…