Hi, John:
I returned from a great hour and a half at RBGC and here’s the report on the new Colt. I’m absolutely in love with this gun. The handling and ergonomics are perfect. The balance, point and grip feel better than any other pistol I’ve ever shot. The beautifully serrated flat top slide connects the front/rear sights together nicely as you’re bringing the pistol up and online. The thumb safety operation is crisp and positive and its shape and width are perfect for those of us who ride our thumbs on it when shooting. The grip safety and high-cut front strap allows for high hand hold very comfortably without concern for failing to activate it. The finely cut checkering on the front and rear straps glue the gun into my strong hand like Velcro. Your checkering jobs are the best, bar none. I love the heavy bushing-less barrel, looks and feel while firing. I wish IDPA would authorize them. Lock-up is "bank-vault" tight and true testimony for the craftsmanship and attention that went into this pistol.
The short trigger is comfortable too compared to standard length, although I caught myself several times looping the index finger too far through the trigger guard and pressing the trigger with my first finger joint rather than the tip. The trigger breaks very cleanly for a Series 80. Great job, thanks. It is, as you’d pointed out Friday, a bit heavier than I’m accustomed. I will work through the trigger finger positioning issue and pull weight challenge with dry-fire drills as one would do to become familiar with any new gun.
The Heine Slant-Pro Straight Eight sights are great as always but will also take some adjustment on my part. Although most of my home-defense/carry guns have night-sights (in fact my Glock 19 has the same Slant-Pro Straight 8’s), all of my regular “target range†guns without exception until now had blacked-out sights. So I found the alignment of the dots to be a little confusing to my eye when attempting to acquire the sights quickly in speed shooting drills. Again, I will work through that with dry-fire exercise and would not change the sights to anything else for all the tea in China. Point of bullet impact appears to be about 2 inches low and 1-1/2 inches left at 20 yards ... but tore one jagged hole in the target. However, “left†could be caused by my poor trigger finger positioning mentioned above and “low†from flinching with anticipation due to the heavier trigger pull. I will proof out my theory prior to making any adjustments to the sight alignment.
The reliability was perfect. I only had one malfunction (slide failed to go into battery). However, upon inspection I discovered a bad crimp at the case mouth of one of my home-grown cartridges which would not allow the round to fully seat. I probably should also mention that the new pistol threw empty brass further than most of my other guns (I’m guessing about 20 feet or so in the air). But since you test fired the Colt a couple days ago and apparently made no adjustments, I’m assuming that my home-grown ammo was a little hot causing the overly enthusiastic ejections. That’s not an uncommon condition for me because my old Hornady powder scale sucks and I’m constantly screwing around with powder calibration! Maybe Santa will bring me a new digital one if I promise to be good
Although my patience became very thin at times working with EGW too long for the finish, I can say E-Treat was worth the wait and will do it again when the opportunity presents itself. It's early yet, but based on the first two hundred rounds fired, the finish shows absolutely zero wear on the bearing surfaces ... truly unbelievable! Oh, did I mention that E-Treat is also beautiful in an industrial/functional sort of way?
Stay in touch … and thanks again for a great job!
David
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FAQ
), this series of guns presents as many or more challenges than any I can think of. It takes a keen eye and an exceptional ability to make one as nice as this.
Let us know how everything holds up!