I have a defective Detective Special.

First year of the 3rd model.  In double action one chamber skips its stop and the hammer falls between chambers.  Single action has no problems.

I sent it off to Cylinder and Slide to be repaired.

There's a laundry list of things wrong.  Burr on one of the cylinder stop notches, bolt doesn't come up far enough, too much endplay and some other things I couldn't hear because my kid started screaming. (Go parenting!)

$373.

Yikes!  The quote for the repair is more than I paid for the gun!  I just was not prepared for that at all, I latched onto hoping it would be about $100 and held on tight.

It's not all bad, I practically stole the gun from the previous owner and with C&S' reputation I know it will be fixed right AND with their backlog, I have time to save up.

Cylinder & Slide is a custom shop and therefore, expensive.

You should have sent it back to Colt.

I had no idea that sending it back to Colt was an option.

You have one of the finest revolvers ever made.  And it deserves the skilfull touch of the Cylinder and Slide shop.  After you have the repaired revolver in your hands, you will have a gun that will be infinitely better than any of today's cheap, crappy guns.

I do not think colt even works on discontinued models anymore.
These classics were designed when material was expensive and labor cheap.
In this day and age the reverse is true. Sitting at a bench with parts files stones micrometers and assembly and disassembly of a gun testing take apart touch this or that reassemble try again etc takes hours to do right. At $50 an hour shop labor rate there is one days work

I love my colt single actions and 1911's but have only ow ex a few double actions and never found them as durable or comfortable to shoot as s&w's
Any time you are in a large gun shop look at 50+ year old revolvers- most all the smiths will be working fine while 25% or more of the colts will be out of time, not lock up well, skip chambers etc

That they're broken might be why they're in the gun shop in the first place.

There are dozens of places to send a Smith to get worked on, like two for a Colt because of the fiddly labor you mentioned.  The sticker shock probably gets people to sell them rather than fix them.

I want mine fixed because it's a very accurate little gun and a joy to shoot single action.

My defective special is a toy for me not a carry piece so the fragility (if any) isn't an issue for me.  And this is its first trip to a smith in its 40 year life.  Doing way better than my buddy's Taurus Judge.  That thing is almost eligible for frequent flier miles!