New life for an old Colt

About 17 years ago I purchased a brand new Colt Combat Commander in Stainless Steel.  At the same time I bought this gun I also bought a beavertail grip safety to replace the colt grip safety, just to make it look cool.

The new grip safety required that a portion of the frame had to be removed, and not having the skills or the tools to do this, I took my shiny new Colt to a shade tree gunsmith who told me that he did that sort of thing all the time.  I watched in horror as he carved down the frame to make the grip safety fit.  It looked like crap so he didn't charge me for the work.  I soon bought a .22 conversion kit for this gun and this is how it remained.  Until now.

In those 17 years I developed skills and collected tools to do all kinds of odd jobs, and that cobbled Colt was crying out for a make over, so I sat down and did a little online shopping.  After enriching Midway Sports with all of my mad money I stripped the Colt down and did some finishing filing and working over that terrible frame modification job with a little 220 grit sandpaper.  I then took it to a local gunsmith to bead blast the frame, slide, and grip safety.  The factory finish was partially bead blasted but the side of the slide and frame were polished and were easily scratched.  I also had some Trijicon night sites installed.

I got the frame back from the smithy today and couldn't wait to get home and get it back together:

Looks like brand new!

The only original parts I used for the rebuild were the frame, slide, grip safety, barrel and firing pin.  Everything else was brand new including; a matched hammer and sear; a titanium nitride coated series 80 safety kit to reduce trigger pull; new trigger; match bushing; flat mainspring housing; magazine release; extended safety; and new wolf springs.  All in all, including the original price I paid for the gun, I am now into it a little under a grand and change.

After about 3 hours tonight I finally got it all put back together and functioning properly.  You know where it says "some minor fitting may be required"?  Well, they weren't kidding.  That minor fitting turned into major fitting.  Really all it took was patience and a little sanding here and there.  I think the results speak for themselves:

For my next project I want to resurrect an old Ruger Old Army black powder pistol.  I'm pretty sure this gun dates to the early 70's, and I got it at a garage sale many years ago for $25.  Some joker tried to home blue it and it looks terrible - but it shoots just fine.  I'm thinking a new blue job and some fake aged ivory grips ought to shape it up!