new colt python YIKES
- Thread starter lone ranger
- Start date
Brutus
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I think it's much more accurate to say there's loads more of the younger generation that desire thier very first brand new Colt Python than there is original Python owners.
The market can bear the older owners ignoring the new Python. But Colt cannot ignore the newest prospective Colt owners.
Market and demand.
Python update. http://www.facebook.com/ColtFirearms/videos/872298623230594/
Looks like problems may be fixed....should I put another deposit down?
Looks like problems may be fixed....should I put another deposit down?
Brutus
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Side plate removal/re-assembly has always been a disconcerting common issue with many double action Colt sixguns. I had a friend whom was a police armorer.
The cussing often in gunsmithing instruction mostly came from those with a Colt sixgun project at thier work station.
Some things never change.
Sounds about right!
One of the 4,25" is on my name (the 21th).
I had a Python 6", finish Nytex, back in 1985, with a made-to-measure Hogue Monogrip in Goncalo Alves wood, with a white spacer and a rosewood butt.
A beauty.
I filed down and polished the V-spring to reduce trigger pull and used the gun in PPC.
I cut the stock Accro sight and an Elliason sight in two and weld together the adjustment screw side of the Accro and the blade block side of the Elliason.
Perfect sight picture.
I'm glad Colt re-introduced the Python with a 4,25" barrel; I will use it on Steel challenges.
I had a Python 6", finish Nytex, back in 1985, with a made-to-measure Hogue Monogrip in Goncalo Alves wood, with a white spacer and a rosewood butt.
A beauty.
I filed down and polished the V-spring to reduce trigger pull and used the gun in PPC.
I cut the stock Accro sight and an Elliason sight in two and weld together the adjustment screw side of the Accro and the blade block side of the Elliason.
Perfect sight picture.
I'm glad Colt re-introduced the Python with a 4,25" barrel; I will use it on Steel challenges.
For all of those with great faith in Colt - how quickly you've forgotten. In the 1980's and into the 1990's Colt 1911's were produced the exact same way they were in 1950. Boxes of parts in front of people with frames being carted (literally) from station to station. No change to allow anything other than 230 RN hardball, no decent sights, terrible trigger pulls, and GI safeties. They did nothing to evolve the design. When you bought a $1000 (1990's dollars) Colt, the first thing you had to do to make it work was take it to a skilled gunsmith and spend another $1000 or so to make it feed, fire, and hit what you were aiming at without tearing your hand or giving you vision problems. Colt has never been a good company to deal with, the management has always sucked. This explains the multiple bankruptcies, terrible reputation, lack of government contracts and general malaise within the company. It would not surprise me in the least to find out that the new Python is made, fitted, assembled, then torn down and shipped from a third world country, then re-assembled in the US. My money would be on China, due to the MIM - if it were made in the Philippines there'd be no MIM, if it was made in Brazil it would be conventionally cast.
What track record? We are talking about the company that was responsible for the early M16 fiasco in the '60's, the company that had endless strikes in the 70's and 80's, and that went bankrupt several times in the 90's, 2000's and 2010's. Their quality/fit and finish has been hit and miss for decades. Why would you expect a smooth roll out of a new product from a company like Colt?
The M16 fiasco was caused by the US government and government armories wanting the M16 to fail by not supplying cleaning kits and training on the new rifle. Subsequent hearings found them criminally negligent the way the M16 was deployed to troops. The government wanted a steel and wood full caliber M14 as a battle rifle not a plastic and aluminum rifle even if it was more effective.
Anyhow I notice that Bullseye has taken down their Python advertisements so I’m wondering if I’ll even see mine or if Colt has pulled the plug on it.
Stay healthy everyone!
Dave
I'm pretty sure that the powder in the 1960's ammunition had something to do with things...
Brutus
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I'm pretty sure that the powder in the 1960's ammunition had something to do with things...
One of the changes the Army Ordnance Board insisted upon was ammunition with a higher rate of fire and velocity.
This was accomplished with a newer ball type powder
However this newer ammunition was not fully tested in a hot and humid atmosphere just like SE Asia.
It tended to foul the chamber hence later chrome plating resolved this somewhat. Of course the shortage of cleaning kits was another contributing factor.
And a grand total of three twenty round magazines per G.I. There is considerable evidence some soldiers died in jungle firefights with a jammed rifle. The torn rim of a case stuck fired case inside the chamber.
A large part of the blame fell upon McNamara who shoved this wartime adoption down the throat of US Army. This same idiot approved the conscription of recruits with too low of an IQ for military service in Vietnam.
Prior to all these changes the earlier M16 with differing ammunition was issued to some Green Berets in theater and the Airforce security police in Vietnam and Thailand about 1962. At this time it actually was a reliable carbine but a rare sight in Vietnam.
Curtis LeMay approved a one time purchase of 20,000 of them just for the USAF.
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Robert McNamara is indeed one of the lesser-cited factors in the M-16's early debacle; he had a clear & stated preference for firepower over skill & precision, and - unsurprisingly - was a SPIW proponent, too.
Yes there were a whole pile of issues with the M16 but the blame didn’t lie with Colt I don’t think.
Dave
Travis Bickle
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Upper Lower Middle Alberta
No. The receivers were also corroding among other issues. It was not just a powder/propellant issue. It was failure to chrome line the bore/chamber leading to corrosion and the change in propellant caused faster fouling and corrosion leading to the infamous and well documented FTE.
Its documented in the Ichord committee files that that the finish on the receivers was junk and the receivers were corroding to the point of being eaten through. The buffer in the rifle was no good and also causing failures in the cycle. It was a mess. Like most new rifles not fully developed. It's how they handled this information as it became known that really showed colts true colors in this fiasco.
They also were playing politics with the US government and refused to listen to the numerous specialists FROM THEIR OWN COMPANY they sent to Nam to find out first hand why the rifles were failing catastrophically, they repeatedly buried the information, ignored it, told the DOD it was "idiot Marines not maintaining their weapons and that their product was fine"
So they could keep collecting their contract money and not cut into their ####ing profits while Marines and Army members were dying because their weapons were garbage and not ready for combat issue. That is the ultimate slap in the face and doesnt get much lower than that.
Colt is and has always been a bit of a gong show. They made it standing to today due to government bailouts not because they are necessarily above board and produce the best quality products.
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