A "new" Python, What a shame....

[xtriggerman]

 So I guy buys 2 brand new Pythons. A 3 inch and a 6 inch. Hes a meticulous sort that loads his own lead in the cases and finds 2 cylinders on the 6"are tighter bored at the forward end than the other 4. Sends it back to Colt and it comes back "In Spec". I get a look at it and carful measuring shows the 4 cylinders are .3595 at the mouth while the other "tight ones are .3590  OK so I can understand the slightly less polished cylinder mouths but the story gets worse as we go along. The guy hates the trigger face and the single action pull hurts the finger pad after a few shots. I have to agree here. The single action pull runs a solid 6 lbs any way you pull on the gauge or even a oz or 2 more. The flat sided trigger has 3 very deep cut serations giving you 4 rather sharp raised edges with relatively squared off side edges. So the work request is to do what I can with the trigger pull and polish out the bulk of the trigger face grooves. Taking the gun apart, I see some good improvements mainly in the transfer bar that should have been done eons ago. The funny thing in the picture is they use a 1/16th roll pin to be the stud on the cylinder latch pin! A roll pin on a $1600 revolver. I guess the original pressed in solid pins of old are a no-no in the NEW bean counter list. Whats worse is the sear geometry. To break the hammer free from single action cocked position, the trigger must over cock the hammer by a good 1/16th of an inch if measured at the tip of the hammer spur. No wonder this thing stacks up 6 pounds to get a hammer drop! The trigger seer edge is far from a knife edge in a fine hair groove hammer notch. In the end the Python gets a 4 lb Single action pull while the DBL pull goes from 9 to 8.5.  The down side is there is now a tad more hammer to free cock beyond its fully cocked position. Pretty much unavoidable with the new design dimensions.

  The 3 inch guns trigger pull is similar to the 6 inch aside from the single being 5.75 lbs. He sent that one back to Colt a couple days ago because some monkey at the factory (according to the owner) got the barrel cylinder gap all screwed up. So I measured it out for him and the gap was .007 on the right side of the bore and a whapping .017 on the left side! The 6 inch gun was a perfect .005 all the way around. Can you imagine the fire ball that would rip out the left side of the gun at firing! Clearly, the gun should get a new barrel. I'm curious if Colt will contest the claim this came out of the factory like this. I'v never seen anything like it on ANY revolver. The owner had owned a Python many decades ago and while the guns look very nice, hes not impressed with how they handle or group on paper for that matter. I think they consulted an Attorney about how light a trigger pull should be on a revolver when they papered the seer dimensions out.
 Rampant Colt?......... Hell no.....

[Danjal]

.017 cylinder gap on one side? Jeez was a blind guy measuring gaps that day? Or are then just not bothering?

[Toad]

For as little of the finish is shown in the pic, it doesn't look much better than a Taurus/Rossi. What happened?

[xtriggerman]

 Yup, disappointing to say the least. The finish is atrocious inside the action and if you look at the picture in where the ejector rod closes threw the crane, you can see nasty grind marks in the groove there. The grips cover nothing short of file like surfaces up where the grip frame meats the frame body. I should have took more pictures but I felt a bit guilty pi**ing all over Colts work as it is.
  The owner came by today and picked up the gun and we shot it free hand at 20 feet. It shot pretty good as we both bulls eye-ed the target a few times. Either way, these Colts are NOT out of the box shooters. He was finally happy to shoot the gun comfortably. The ol guy is pushing 80 and not a bad shot at all!

[xtriggerman]

   
 The latest news........ my letter

  "To, Colt Technical Repair Staff                                                                             11/15/2022

    Sub. Colt Python SN. PY26XXXX

Sir, I am writing this current repair evaluation as requested by Mr. McCormick in regard to the Python he has just received from your repair staff.
  Before I go any further, I would like to mention that I am a Graduate of PA Gunsmithing school 1979-81 and worked for Auto Ordnance as Shop Gunsmith in charge of all customer returns and production manager of the then new 1911A1 line 81-83 in addition to 14 years in my own full service Gunsmithing Business.
   Mr. McCormick states that the revolver in question was recently purchased with a poorly fit barrel cylinder gap right out of the factory new box. He brought the gun to me for an evaluation prior to sending the gun to you folks for repair. My findings were the gun had an extremely poor barrel cylinder gap that was "hand" cut on the barrel side. The evidence for this was the gap measured at .007 on the right side and .017 on the left side. Obviously, someone went at this barrel gap without the slightest idea of what they were doing. The gun was sent to you for repair and now its back to Mr. McCormick with the barrel gap now measuring .007 as it was and the left side is now .018". It is visible that your service tech simply polished the barrel lip there and added a couple small scratches on the left side of the frame flat above the barrel work performed. 
   Gunsmithing 101 would clearly put this repair in for at very least a barrel shoulder turn back of 1 thread width and the barrel gap end lathe turned to the appropriate .004 - .005-cylinder gap as can be found on Mr. McCormick's new 6" Python that was ordered and purchased along with this 3" gun. Its hard to believe this revolver left the factory with a B/C gap of .017 on one side but that is what was told to me and the fact the gun was returned in the same condition without even a mention of this incredibly out of spec B/C gap would lead one to believe that this gun did indeed leave the factory in this condition.  To think that this sort of work will not sink Colt into insolvency once again is of the most neglectful thinking with how "bad news" spreads like wild fire on the net today. I sincerely hope you can find a qualified service tech capable of such a normal type of repair as I have outlined above. And please go over those scratches that I noticed. They certainly were not there when I first looked at this revolver prior to shipping the first time around.
 Mr. McCormick is a fine older gentleman. Please, lets make him happy with his purchase of this otherwise, nice new Colt.

 Thank You for considerations in this matter."

 

This is so bad, If you look closely at the pic, you can even "SEE" the barrel is slightly shorter than its bottom edge. Its not an optical illusion!