I made a call to SARCO today to order an Argentine contract COLT Government model. The young lady stated that the supply is getting low and that there may not be enough to fill my order. I predict that in a day or two I will receive a phone call advising me that they are indeed out of the pistol that I wanted, but for a few dollars more I can "upgrade" to the next offering, of which, of course, they have plenty.

I'm drunk and have no idea what is going on here.

Welcome to Arfcom Mr vice President.



 

I'm sober and have no idea what is going on here

Nice hat

Sarco does business like 1949, except take out 'customer service' and put in 'nobody there knows shit about what they sell'.

Well, I got a call today. I was all set to hear the pitch, but alas, it was a wrong number. So, the vigil continues. But, I did win $654.00 at the craps table today. I was down $200 almost immediately so I took a break and went to the buffet to scarf my complimentary meal. As I was leaving the casino, my path took me past the table so I threw a $20 on the pass line and the next number was 7. WINNER WINNER WINNER! 3 good shooters later I put the original stake back in my pocket and the remainder was $654.00. I took out my tythe leaving $554 which coincidentally should just cover the cost of the COLT and shipping. Or there about.

lol

"Sell Any Rusty Crappy Ordnance"

CC charged last Monday(3/24/14). No pistol yet. The saga continues.

 

Until then...or because... My pointless contribution.

I finally had an opportunity to go get the pistol from the FFL. I will take pics this evening. It is a 1933 yr model and has had a gagillion rounds of ammo fired through it. The barrel is about half a box of ammo away from being a smooth bore and I am certain that I am the first person in 81 years to see the fire control parts. The MSH channel is packed with leather dust. I am sure that this gun is all original. All of the wear patterns match and the hammer has struck the firing pin retaining plate so many times that the serial numbers are mirror imaged on the back of the plate.


No significant rust found anywhere. It has the single most horrible trigger pull that I have ever found on any gun in my life. The end of my finger turns white while pressing the trigger before it lets go.


Markings are all crisp and deep. I am pleased with that. One of the reasons that I wanted this old COLT is for the markings. The bluing is about 99% gone. The rear sight is a bit deformed as is the lanyard loop. I suspect this damage is from being dropped. The grip stocks are brown plastic and look, to me anyway, like USGI grip stocks. They are in remarkably good shape. They are not pristine, but they aren't beat up either. The serial number under the firing pin plate matches the frame number. There is a number factory roll marked on the top of the slide that does not match the serial number.

It passed all safety checks including head space. I was actually surprised by this. I have read countless posts on this forum about old COLTs having soft slides from the lack of heat treating. This pistol certainly doesn't have a soft slide. The recoil spring is very weak. It would not feed from the magazine until I replaced the spring with a new production COLT spring. Once done, it ran perfectly. I fired 20 rds each of factory 230 gr hardball, 200 gr lead semi wad cutters and Hornady XTP hollow points through it without any feed problems after the spring replacement. Shooting from a rest it would keep all rounds on an 8 1/2" X 11" sheet of paper @ 25 yrds, but just barely. All rds fired in groups of 5 with 6 rounds in the magazine. This was done to prevent the slide from locking on the last round thus corrupting the group.

I have the tools and skills to parkerize and GunKote guns, but I have zero experience with hot bluing. As this is the only gun that I own that I would even consider bluing, I am not motivated to set up for hot bluing one gun. But, I am not real enthused about having it blued by someone else. Would it be heresy to park and GunKote this Depression/Prohibition era Colt? Roosevelt was just months in office, Hitler was just elected Chancellor of Germany, and John Dillinger was robbing banks when this old COLT came off of the line. Would it be like putting a metal flake paint job on an original '34 Ford coupe to put GunKote on this old Colt?

Send it off to Ford's and let them hot blue it.

Would that be a Mustang blue?



 

Ford's Guns...

New barrel, fully and PROPERLY fitted.





New springs....all of them.





New sights, as GI to the era as possible.





BLUED properly.





A classically styled pair of Cocobolo grips if you can find some.





Call it good.

 

Or nice blueing and Ivory grips

Tuning up the barrel bushing



This is what I am thinking.



As an aside, I put the slide onto a new production COLT frame and it was an almost perfect fit.



 

Try Mark Lee express rust blue. Brownell's carries it. I did one of these Sarco Colt imports in rust blue. It was very easy and the only special equipment you need is a clean stainless steel pot and distilled water. After polishing the bluing job took about 3 hrs. Came out great. The hardest and most time consuming part was polishing. Check the 1911 Forum they have a thread under the USGI section with a tutorial. Very good info there.

Thanks for the info. As I am a truck driver and spend several hours a day sitting idle, I have decided to bring this ol girl along and polish her up as I am watching whatever nonsense I find on HULU/NETFLIX etc. Maybe in a month or two she will be ready to blue.



 

I want to see the outcome of this one!

I have decided against a reblue. Ol Girl just has too many deep scars to ever wear a blued finish again. If the scars were polished out there would be deep craters that would just look horrible with a blued finish. Most likely I will blast, mang park, and top her with flat black GunKote and call it good.

I bought an actual Series 70 barrel and collet bushing set on ebay and
installed it in my Series 70 "repro" and then installed the barrel from
the 70 repro into ol girl. It is an absolute perfect fit on both counts.
I haven't had an opportunity to shoot either one yet, but I am hopeful
that both will do just fine.


Ol girl has a new COLT barrel and my repro 70 series is now an actual 70 series. I am pleased.