Most blueing is done at much lower levels of polishing. This way, they’d have a wheel with fine grit, but they wouldn’t have the issue of a floppy polishing wheel that rounds off features on the gun. Then the leather would be impregnated with whatever grit polishing compound they wanted. Colt did this with large wooden wheels cut to give a particular profile (concave or convex) and then they wrapped the wooden wheel with leather that was shrunk onto the wheel.
It takes quite a lot of skill, developed from experience to be able to polish a gun with as many features on it as a Python, and not round off the edges, or put waves/dips/ripples into the finish on the flats or down the length of the barrel. The polish & blue on some of the Brit best guns is very, very nice – but they’re not as nice as the Python’s Royal Blue. When I look at the Royal Blue finish on a Python, I appreciate that finish even more than the blueing jobs on some of the most expensive British “best guns” made. The “Royal Blue” finish was hand-polished to a level where the polishing compound was about like wheat flour at the last stages. No one other than some custom gunmakers today will polish steel to the level that the Python was polished to when it was put into the blueing salts. No, what separated the Python from everything else was the level of polishing lavished upon the Python. Lots of people look at a blueing job today and they utterly fail to comprehend what goes into a high-end blue job on a gun.Ĭontrary to popular belief, the Colt Pythons were not blued in some witches” brew of chemicals Colt went to modern blueing salts after WWII. The issue is the polishing job on the Python.
The angles on the rebound lever are fiddly things, and not for the shade-tree gunsmith to meddle with. S&W’s lockwork is made much easier to diagnose and repair by the addition of the separate trigger rebound spring in a Colt, everything is run off the main “V” spring in the grip, and the rebound lever. The Python was a premium revolver, given lavish attention, compared to other guns in mass production.Īll that said, the S&W lockwork is more robust and forgiving of abuse than the Colt lockwork. Now, in a Python, as adjusted and timed at the factory, they were significantly tighter than almost every S&W revolver made. The Colt revolver, even before we’re talking of a Python, was tighter all the way around. Even a non-Python Colt locks up quite tightly.Īnother example of the differences between the Python and S&W’s: On a Python, the cylinder:breech gap is supposed to be 0.002″ – on a S&W, the minimum cylinder:breech gap is 0.004. This means that in the Colt, when properly adjusted, the hand is pushing the cylinder up against the cylinder stop (what S&W calls the bolt), and the takedown pin and ejector rod are also helping lock up the cylinder. Colt’s cylinders turn into the window, whereas S&W’s turn out of the window (clockwise and counter-clockwise from the shooter’s perspective, respectively). That’s not my opinion, that’s a fact of the design and implementation of the Colt revolver. The Python, in as-factory condition, locks up tighter than any S&W. Perhaps the Python is just destined to be an icon of a bygone era. I’m just not that committed when it only takes a quarter second to thumb the hammer back. Personally if I can get quick hits on center mass at 10 yards that’s good enough in DA, and the cost of time and ammuni tion to become really proficient in DA probably dwarf the cost of what a modern Python would cost. The small percentage of shooters who prefer revol vers and wish to become proficient in DA are probably too small in number to support a modern Python. Very few people ever make the effort to become accurate in DA. Some people scoff at my philosophy, which was the original intent of the DA rev olver – that DA was for up close action when speed is a priority over accuracy and SA for well aimed/longer shots – but I think this philosophy is still the predominant philosophy among revol ver shooters. Revol vers used to rule the range and, being a ‘match’ re volver, the Python was expected to shoot well in DA. A lot has changed since the Python was a massed produced weapon (not counting the last few years coming out of the custom shop).
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