Posted: 6/16/2011 5:54:18 AM EDT
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Quite a while back I got a chance to purchase some pistols out of a collection. I got in on the tail end of the deal but ended up buying four pistols. In this collection some of them had been shot, some of them had not, most all of them were in boxes. Unfortunately I hadn’t got a chance on some of the more interesting ( to me ) revolvers like a model 28 smith and a colt python. The prices were very good, the man was moving to New York and wanted to sell all of his pistols quick, these prices seemed to be too good to be true. One of the purchasers got the serial numbers of all the pistols ran and they were not stolen.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago, I am contacted by a good friend whose friend wants to get rid of the python. Guy needs money and wants to sell to buy another pistol, I say I am interested and even at a pretty good return for the friend of the friend it is still a deal to me. The FoF meets me at work I look over the pistol, it looks pristine like the others, so being busy as hell I give him the money and part ways, he had thrown in a scope mount that had not been installed on the python. Who would scope a python is all I could think about that. Due to my mother and father being in the last years of their lives and me taking care of them while also just getting engaged to my wife when I purchased this pistol, it sat in my safe till another couple of years till yesterday. After work I head to the range, pull out the python and load that puppy up take the first shot at twenty yards standing and the shot hits in the bulls-eye. It is such a good shot that you feel like just stopping and calling it good. The next five shots end up about 5 inches high in a group. So I figure I flubbed the first shot in the center and need to adjust the sights but figure to shoot six more first. The next six miss the target completely but the python is so smooth and I am on sight with each shot. I walk up to the target and you could cover those six shots above the target with a couple of fifty cent pieces directly above the center but 9 inches or so high. So I go WTF. I go back to the bench and look at adjusting the sight and notice that the screw that holds the back sight down against the spring pressure is loose. So I tighten it down and shoot and it pops right back out. I put on my reading glasses and get a flashlight out and it appears that the hole has been stripped, someone has oversized the thread hole and put one of those springs in the hole to make a thread and that small spring hole fixer has come loose. I don’t even see any epoxy to hold the spring chaser in there. It is obvious after close inspection that something has transpired but the drift that holds the front of the rear sight does not even look like it has been touched. Someone drilled it from the top and the drill mark is obvious from looking at the underside of the strap. I figured since this FoF was kind of a friend and since he is a good friend of one of my best friends that handled the original deal that I wouldn’t get fucked in this deal, but I obviously I should have looked closer at the gun before purchasing it. I have not talked to my friend about it yet, figured I better calm down a little first. I am worried that this cannot be fixed and that the integrity of the strap may have been affected by this larger hole. I do not think a spring thread fixer is the way it should have been fixed and I think the fucker knew it since he included a scope mount with the deal. If I had purchased the python from a non-friend I would have taken more than a casual look at it. I at this point do not know if he had even shot it, but the scope mount makes me believe that he found this problem or maybe even caused it. Whatever, since he is a casual friend and we move in the same circle you would think that he would have given me a heads up on the deal. My focus at this time is the repair of the pistol any ideas on how to go about the repair or what I should do to get it repaired would be appreciated. Sorry for the being long winded but I had to vent. |
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Smartest/best repair option is to send the gun in to Colt for a factory type repair.
Probably, they stripped the hole when they installed the scope mount, and tried to patch it with a Helli-coil insert, and probably not one that would normally be used in a firearms application. I'm not sure how Colt will handle this, but they have a factory method of correcting stripped frame holes. Whether that's somehow restoring the frame threads, or possible using a special Helli-coil type insert, or whether they may drill the hole out and install a threaded bushing. This one may take more of an effort since the hole has already been drilled out so I don't know what Colt will do. Point is, Colt will repair it correctly. Pythons are just too expensive these days for home-expedient or hammer-handed local gunsmith "repairs". I've seen some pretty awful "get it to work....somehow" repairs to good Colt's that ruin them for all time. Be smart, go with Colt. |
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The scope mount was made to clamp to the rib of the barrel, it did not involve the back sight. There was no damage to the head of the sight adjustment screw and the gun is in like new outward shape, it is like some one screwed the back sight down tight and then stripped the hole out.
The checkering on the grips is so sharp that they dug into my hands on every shot. I cant fathom more than 5 or so boxes of cartridges though this gun. |
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I agree with all said, it is mine and my problem and I am going to see about sending it to Colt. Just frustrating as all get out.
Funny story about the 28, I actually ended up buying the 28 from the FoF previous to buying the python. There were quite a few pistols, around 25 in that collection and I guess some of the guys that got in on the deal before me bought more than they should have or could afford. So I ended up also buying a glock in 45 from one of the others also. I could have bought a few more initially, but I was buying them sight unseen. I purchased a ruger 9mm, a weird 9mm walther, 9mm usp, and a glock 9mm. In retrospect I told my friend that made the original deal that if he ever comes upon one like this again, just count me in 100 %. My best hunting buddy talked me into selling him the 28,he wanted to hunt with it, after a couple years he decide to go a different route and I bought it back from him. This time it is not getting away again. |