Antique Colt Experts, tell me about my new revolver

2strklvr

2strklvr

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Muskoka, Ontario
I recently bought this gun (off of a snowmobile forum of all things!) and while I've researched it a bit on the internet I would be quite interested to hear your thoughts and observations. The previous owner sent away for the Colt's letter, which he gave to me, but it doesn't say much oher than it was manufactured in 1874 but all the early records had been lost or destroyed. They did have record of it getting returned to them for refurbishment then being shipped to the United States Government, Commanding Officer Springfield Armory, Springfield, Massachusetts on July 1st 1903. Anyways they say a picture is worth a thousand words - so here's a few thousand for you to ponder.

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Going off of memory here...

  • Frame made in 1874.
  • US stamp signifies US military service.
  • RAC initals signifies it was inspected by Rinaldo A. Carr. A well known inspector of various military arms in that period.
  • It's been refinished sometime after the arsenal refurbishing, which is sad but still cool that you have a RAC US military SAA.
  • Grips likely not period matched otherwise they'd have the RAC cartouche. They could be refinished to the point the cartouche was removed, but whomever did that either didn't know the devalue they did or deserves a :kickInTheNuts:.
Mismatched serials were common for US arsenal refurbished guns of this period so it doesn't devalue the gun as much as one that would be from a later period. If that were a fully matching gun however with original finish you could use it to buy a house. Overall this is a good find, may I ask the caliber?

Hope that helps.
 
Beautiful, and totally illegal here in the old country....... I had a modern Colt in .44 Special, but it managed to escape the 'Great Betrayal' back in '97/98, and went to a collector in TX.

Great envy from over here.

tac
 
During the period of the US adventure in the Phillipines, the US Army had a quantity of 7 1/2" Cavalry revolvers rebuilt and refurbished with the barrels being shortened to 5 1/2". No attempt was made to reassemble with matching numbers; mixed numbers are correct for this variation.
Unfortunately, someone wanted your gun to be all nice and shiney, and had it nickel plated. I suspect that this pretty much pooches collectability as a US martial firearm. Still remains a nice old Colt, though. Too bad it isn't legally an antique.
If you want to see a listing for another one, go to w ww.accuracyplus.biz.
 
Good comments guys, thank-you and keep 'em coming. FWIW it looks like the grips may have been lightly sanded on the sides close to the heel. This gun is currently .45 Colt, therefore a registered restricted firearm. I have been entertaining the thought of aquiring a different cylinder in a "good" caliber then having it fitted and deemed antique.

It is a shame that the gun was nickeled, but you can kind of see the reasoning. It was just an old army surplus revolver to someone back then. The nickel job definitely has some age to it, maybe a business bought a bunch of these surplus way back when and then had them prettied-up for resale? If only this gun could talk.

~edit~ I just checked out the Accuracy Plus website, and while they don't seem to have anything the same as mine listed, I will say that the prices they have thier old Colt's listed at seems pretty steep to me. IDK, I thought that I had a general idea of what my SAA is worth but maybe I'm really out of touch with the market.

tiriaq I find your comment about barrel shortening very interesting. The bore and rifiling are so nice on this gun that I had figured that the barrel had been replaced when it was refurbished. There are some faint markings on the bottom of the barrel just in front of the cylinder pin, shown in the third from last picture, but they are mostly illegible.
 
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Thanks for the further clarification loki! I noticed the small "C" or "G" stamped into the trigger guard as well. I suppose that it is a "C" however. More internet reading has led me to another barrel question. Is the script/font of the barrel address correct for a gun manufactured in 1874? I keep coming across references to italic script?

On another note, it's funny how much nicer my SAA looks in person. Those pictures make it look like a pos.
 
tiriaq said:
Item H2567 at Accuracy Plus.
Click to expand...

Ah I see. That one is a lot more original than mine by the sounds of things although I think that they're wrong in calling it a Cavalry model. With the 5 1/2" barrel I believe that Artillery (altered) would be the correct designation. Regardless, am I wrong in thinking the price is a little steep on that gun? I don't know how devalued my SAA is in comparison to that one due to the refinishing, but if it was worth half a much I would be pleasantly surprised.
 
2strklvr said:
While I'm asking stupid questions - what caliber's could this gun be converted to without changing the barrel? I'm assuming 45 ACP and 45 Schofield. What about .455 Webley?
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Check the bore it should be .454 and if it is forget 45 acp go 45 sch or 455 webley if it were mine id buy a 2nd gen 45 acp nickled cylinder have it reamed so it chambers 45 Sch cases and just use .454 dia lead bullets in the 45 Sch cases if its set up to chamber 45 sch it then will not chamber the longer 45 colt. The chamber throats will need to be opened to .454 as well.
Check your bore dia frist tho, Slug it if you can. my guess is it will be .454 or close to that.
Then you should be able to deregister it once its set up in 45 sch.
you will need a gunsmith to do the cylinder work and set up most likely.
but it would be well worth it in the end.
Nice gun by the way.
 
2strklvr said:
While I'm asking stupid questions - what caliber's could this gun be converted to without changing the barrel? I'm assuming 45 ACP and 45 Schofield. What about .455 Webley?
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While there is debate on exactly what parts will require a swap it's safe to say that a barrel change would be easiest to get it out of restricted class. A barrel that says .45acp will hold more weight than a barrel designed for .45 colt.

Swap the barrel and cylinder, make life easier on yourself.
 
Let me get this strait...

Taking a post 1896 (?) registered restricted handgun, and changing the barrel & cylinder into an antique-classed caliber (.45 Sch/.44 Rus/ ? ) can allow you to change the status of the gun to antique ?

If I've got it all fubar'd, someone please "school me" on this conversion...

:confused:
 
Boomer74 said:
Let me get this strait...

Taking a post 1896 (?) registered restricted handgun, and changing the barrel & cylinder into an antique-classed caliber (.45 Sch/.44 Rus/ ? ) can allow you to change the status of the gun to antique ?

If I've got it all fubar'd, someone please "school me" on this conversion...

:confused:
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No, you have it incorrect. He is taking a frame made in 1874 (remember by law the firearm is the serialized frame) and changing it out to a caliber not on the "bad" list. Every part of this firearm was manufactured prior to 1898 so he'd be good to go no matter what part of the SAA was considered the firearm.

Only reason this is registered in the first place is based off of caliber, it's currently on the evil list of calibers that drive men wild.
 
Very nice gun, I have a reproduction SAA and it is becoming one of my favourite shooters. My repro. has a knurled knob on the screw that holds the cylinder pin in place to allow removing the cylinder pin without a screw-driver..this comes in handy at the range.
The information that I have dates the frame to 1885.

http://coltparts.com/Dates_of_Mfg.html
 
Skinny 1950 said:
Very nice gun, I have a reproduction SAA and it is becoming one of my favourite shooters. My repro. has a knurled knob on the screw that holds the cylinder pin in place to allow removing the cylinder pin without a screw-driver..this comes in handy at the range.
The information that I have dates the frame to 1885.

http://coltparts.com/Dates_of_Mfg.html
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Skinny you're reading the serial incorrectly. His frame is in the Eleven Thousand range (11642), while the serial block (by your link) belonging to 1885 start at One hundred and Fourteen thousand 114000.

Careful with those kind of mistakes on the EE ;) lol.
 
dingus said:
Check the bore it should be .454 and if it is forget 45 acp go 45 sch or 455 webley if it were mine id buy a 2nd gen 45 acp nickled cylinder have it reamed so it chambers 45 Sch cases and just use .454 dia lead bullets in the 45 Sch cases if its set up to chamber 45 sch it then will not chamber the longer 45 colt. The chamber throats will need to be opened to .454 as well.
Check your bore dia frist tho, Slug it if you can. my guess is it will be .454 or close to that.
Then you should be able to deregister it once its set up in 45 sch.
you will need a gunsmith to do the cylinder work and set up most likely.
but it would be well worth it in the end.
Nice gun by the way.
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Thank-you. That's the kind of info that is helpful to many I'm sure. I only started thinking about the caliber change after it bacame apparent to me that I'm going to have to reload for this revolver regardless. If there was low-pressure commercial .45 Colt that would be 100% safe to use in my SAA I would be more apt to just leave well enough alone and just take it to the range from time to time. However, if I have to get into reloading I might as well start re-loading an antique caliber which opens up this gun to use on my back yard rifle range. That in itself is pretty attractive.
loki_81 said:
While there is debate on exactly what parts will require a swap it's safe to say that a barrel change would be easiest to get it out of restricted class. A barrel that says .45acp will hold more weight than a barrel designed for .45 colt.

Swap the barrel and cylinder, make life easier on yourself.
Click to expand...
I'd rather not swap the barrel. The thought of removing it scares me and more original this gun stays, the better. Not to mention the bore and rifling are excellent and the caliber is not listed on it anywhere anyways.
Skinny 1950 said:
You are correct... missed a digit, it would be interesting to see a photo from the top showing the rear sights.
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What would you be looking for?
loki_81 said:
That crossed my mind for a second as well but if you're thinking the same way I was this is outside of the serial range for pinched frames.
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Pinched frames? This isn't something that I've heard before. Please elaborate.
 
Some of the early production 1873's had a 'pinched' rear sight like the one on the left in this picture, they are quite rare as not many were made.

pinchedframe.jpg
 
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