First New Gun of 2006

A long story because I’m in the mood.

The very first gun I owned was a 1978 Colt Combat Commander in 45ACP. Sure, I had guns previous to that, ones that were my dad’s that he would give to me to shoot and maintain, but in my twelfth and thirteenth years on this planet, I worked for $3 an hour over two summers and selected and paid for the Commander.

I had been shooting a 38 Super Commander in competition for two years when I finally got the one in 45ACP. My dad had seen me shooting his friend’s and other competitor’s guns that last summer and figured I was ready for it, which was a good move on his part, because if he hadn’t let me get the 45, I would have made him grind his teeth by selecting a 9mm. I would have been a Hi-Power, so he wouldn’t have disowned me, but he wouldn’t have been happy.

I sprayed and cleared blackberry bushes, cleaned out the horse stalls, changed the oil in the cars and did just about any job assigned to me for the $3 an hour, which was a goodly amount, though I didn’t think so at the time.

Because we’re both pig headed Scotsmen, he and I had a disagreement in my late teens and I moved out. Because I wasn’t 21 he ultimately got to keep the pistols I had worked for, while I kept my long guns, some of which, when I did turn 21, I traded for another 45, a Model 30 Glock (that wasn’t the disagreement, BTW).

It was more compact than the Commander and had mags that held 10 rounds (the Brady Bill was in effect by the time I hit 21) Good to go, I thought. The trouble was, I needed those extra couple of rounds because I couldn’t hit with the stupid thing.

I had spent seven years learning trigger control of the 1911 single action and the DAO or “Safe Action� or whatever the hell Glock was calling it that month just didn’t square with me and my group sized increased. It wasn’t so bad, I was still minute of pop can at 30ft, usually, but some days it just felt very alien in my hand. So after two years of really giving the Glock time to settle in, I gave up and bought a full sized 1911.

After a few mods, I finally had a 1911 that I really liked. The thing worked like greased lightening and I made it my main carry piece. After that, I bought and built a couple more 1911’s just like it. My current carry piece is a Frankenstein of a 1911 whose only flaw is that no matter what combination of sears, hammers and triggers I try, I can’t get a good smooth trigger pull out of it.

But recently, I’ve come to want my old Commander back. I’m a big enough guy that concealing a full sized 1911 isn’t too much of a problem, but back in 2004, fellow Blogger Blasotrama shooter, Mollbot, bought a 4in barreled Kimber ProCarry. Other than the new style Kimber extractor being a piece of shit, I liked shooting it (Saint John Moses doesn’t like the new extractor either, that’s why it sucks).

Months went by and I put the Kimber in the back of my head until this fall when I saw something I liked sitting in the case at my local dealer. The guy wanted $750 for it, which was too almost much for my blood, but not unreasonable. Usually, when you see Series 70 Colt Commanders (if you can find them used), the person selling it thinks they’ve got the only one and wants most of a months salary for the damned thing if it’s in any decent shape (and me laughing at his asking price doesn’t help when I try to talk him down a bit).

I’m kind of a regular at the shop so they let me take the slide off and I saw a number of things I liked: First off, the slide still had machine marks on the slide rails that hadn’t been buffed out at the factory, not uncommon for Colt during those days, but it showed that the gun hadn’t been shot much. The barrel was also dirty, just some dust really, but it was only on the right hand side of the barrel, showing that it had sat for a good long while.

After putting it back together again, I started noticing that while finish had wear, it was irregular, meaning it wasn’t holster wear. Also, some the aftermarket parts that were on it, while nicely installed, haven’t been made for at least ten years and the techniques used to make the installations went out of common use even before that. So I was pretty sure that I had a gun that was bought, modified and rarely shot.

The gun was on consignment so I talked to the guys behind the counter about the guy that had dropped it off. I got that he was early middle age, didn’t really seem to know what he had other than what he had been told they were worth and that he said he was flexible on the price.

I put 20% down on the thing to show I was semi-serious about buying it, but asked that they tell the guy I wanted to pay $650. The guy came back a couple weeks later with $700 and I accepted.

Money down and payments made and I now own a very peculiar Series 70 Colt Combat Commander, 1975 vintage.

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So how does it shoot? Let’s just say that it is definitely minute of pop can at 30ft, but shooting it and then shooting my full-size, I can see why I like it better; the balance. I recover faster, point more quickly and just all around shoot the Commander better.

But it has a couple issues. The grooves on the face of the aluminum trigger are sharp as hell and my trigger finger has the cuts to show for it, the grips are the old style Pachmayr’s that are way too thin for my hand and the old style King’s grip safety is too shallow (read: sometimes my skinny hands don’t compress it all the way), so it is getting modified.

New trigger, grips and grip safety, of course, but also an arched mainspring housing, all new springs, extended slide release and extended mag release button until it looks something like my current carry piece,

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When I got it home, I took it apart and cleaned it and found that whatever lube the previous owner had used to clean it had turned into goo that was like cosmoline without the smell and, once again, the right side of the inside of gun had dust on it but not the left side.

If you’re local to the Seattle are, I’ll be out shooting it next weekend at the new indoor range I wrote about yesterday and you’re welcome to give it a squeeze. Send me an email.