velocette
Member
A freind dropped off his girlfriend's Colt Officers Model ACP, Series 80 pistol for me to clean and inspect. It had been in storage for many years, had some rust on it and was very dry.
The pistol had been fired very little, my guess is less than 50 rds from new.
So I stripped the pistol down, cleaned up all the rust with 0000 steel wool & WD40, cleaned deburred & lubricated all the moving parts, changed the stock recoil spring plug to a Clark Custom plug, polished the feed ramp, chamber & chamber mouth. Internal finish of the pistol was rough with many burrs & sharp edges. Trigger pull was about 9 lbs and gritty with much creep
Then took it to my range & was surprised with the malfunctions. I was shooting reloads, 5 gr of Universal behind a 230 gr RNL. Many failures to extract, Ejection was weak, Tried some 230 gr Hollow point factory ammo, ejection still weak but a little better. I used the original Colt magazine and two other mags (Cobramags from Tripp research that are known good mags) Overall, not impressed with the little Colt.
I say this because I have a Kimber Compact Stainless II which is virtually identical to the Colt Officers ACP. My Kimber has been utterly reliable from round #1, now for over 6 years and thousands of rounds. The Kimbers trigger is (and was) 4.5 lbs & clean from the factory, no creep and smooth.
I expected much better from a Colt. It is a pretty pistol, all polished blue and nice grips, but the internal workins were not very nice at all, nor was its function. Oh yes, the little Colt did shoot right to point of aim very nicely but stopping once or twice with every mag to clear jams is not nice, nor is it's trigger.
I'm gonna take it back to the range with a box of 230 gr, Win White box to give it some more "break in" which it shouldn't need. Then hopefully it will be reliable enough to give back to its owner.
Roger
Roger
The pistol had been fired very little, my guess is less than 50 rds from new.
So I stripped the pistol down, cleaned up all the rust with 0000 steel wool & WD40, cleaned deburred & lubricated all the moving parts, changed the stock recoil spring plug to a Clark Custom plug, polished the feed ramp, chamber & chamber mouth. Internal finish of the pistol was rough with many burrs & sharp edges. Trigger pull was about 9 lbs and gritty with much creep
Then took it to my range & was surprised with the malfunctions. I was shooting reloads, 5 gr of Universal behind a 230 gr RNL. Many failures to extract, Ejection was weak, Tried some 230 gr Hollow point factory ammo, ejection still weak but a little better. I used the original Colt magazine and two other mags (Cobramags from Tripp research that are known good mags) Overall, not impressed with the little Colt.
I say this because I have a Kimber Compact Stainless II which is virtually identical to the Colt Officers ACP. My Kimber has been utterly reliable from round #1, now for over 6 years and thousands of rounds. The Kimbers trigger is (and was) 4.5 lbs & clean from the factory, no creep and smooth.
I expected much better from a Colt. It is a pretty pistol, all polished blue and nice grips, but the internal workins were not very nice at all, nor was its function. Oh yes, the little Colt did shoot right to point of aim very nicely but stopping once or twice with every mag to clear jams is not nice, nor is it's trigger.
I'm gonna take it back to the range with a box of 230 gr, Win White box to give it some more "break in" which it shouldn't need. Then hopefully it will be reliable enough to give back to its owner.
Roger
Roger
Ummm...."hopefully" and "reliable" should never be used in the same sentence. The gun sounds like it definitely needs some adjustments to the extractor and ejector. 3 in. 1911s require special attention as they run the slides MUCH faster than a 4 or 5 in. gun. There is very little room for loose tolerances or incorrect springs. They can be tuned to run perfectly all day but it usually takes some work unless you get lucky. I always find it humorous when people encounter a Colt that does not run perfectly and then seem surprised. When you buy a Colt you are mostly paying for the little horse stamped on it. Colts are almost as overrated as Harleys. I have been able to get some of them running well but others have defied all attempts. I have seen a number of them which will feed fire and eject with 100% reliability but will throw most of the empties in your face. Chopping a 5 in 1911 down to 3 in. begs the question - why are we doing this? I would much rather lug a 5 in. gun that functions with monotonous regularity all day than to be always wondering if a chopped 3 in. is going to function when I really need it.
