Boys,

I had a few duplicates that I have been meaning to get shed of and did. Jumped up on the Pony again with this Shooting Master from 1928 in .38 Special. Just a fabulous gun. Am not really up on this model but I think the checked front and backstrap were an option on this model.

Will get her out to the range this week an see how she does. This feels so good in hand.

Attached Images

	Colt Shooting Master 004.jpg (66.9 KB, 307 views)
	Colt Shooting Master 003.jpg (67.0 KB, 367 views)
	Colt Shooting Master 002.jpg (66.2 KB, 387 views)
	Colt Shooting Master 001.jpg (54.2 KB, 315 views)

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Bill
Dis B. Leaf

Great catch Bill. That looks like a Dandy one.

Nice checkering on the backstrap. The revolver looks great.

Pretty nice, and undoubtedly pretty scarce as well. My father started in the Border Patrol in 1940 up in Vermont and apparently his issue gun was a 4" New Service in .38 Special. Reportedly Charles Askins, then the resident gun expert in the Patrol, didn't much like S&Ws and opted for the Colt. There was an online article on this in the American Handgunner for March-April 2004 by Gary Paul Johnson. It might be online at www.find articles.com. The Sutherland and Wilson Colt book mentions these but gives no details. Supposedly they were marked U.S.I.B.P. on the backstrap. When I was a firearms instructor in the 80s I did run across four of the very rare 1952 Border Patrol model .38 Special revolvers, but never a whiff of the previous New Service guns. Some years ago I heard a story about one with those markings in private hands that was stolen, but nothing more.

If I ever ran across one of the issue guns, or even a NS in that caliber and configuration I would probably be seriously tempted.

Any way you look at it, yours is a "whole lot of gun".



The family story was that when I was a little shaver Dad unloaded the gun and gave it to me to play with and satisfy my curiosity; thereafter to never, ever touch it again.

Allegedly that was the day I became a gun nut, according to some...

Very nice, congrats!

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Jorge

Bat Guano-

You are correct about Askins not liking S&W much He told me personally that he hated their sales reps, whom he considered to be snobs. He liked the Colt reps much better.

He also mentioned having to turn the barrels of almost all Colts that he bought for the Border Patrol while their chief firearms instructor prior to his Army career. Colt seldom got the sights aligned right, and their cylinder timing also wears much faster than for Ruger or S&W revolvers.

I once had the great good fortune to own a New Service in .45 Colt, made about 1935. It was in truly NRA Excellent condition, near new. The sights WERE aligned and it shot six rounds of Remington .45 Colt ammo into a single jagged hole at 25 yards from "offhand" on my better days. Its accuracy overlapped that of my M-29, which is saying something!

I was quite bitter when I had to sell it due to a GI Education Bill check being late when I had to register for college and buy books. I later went back to that pawn shop, too late. A fat dumb-looking security guard had just bought it. I hated to think of it being in the hands of that gink, who clearly had little idea of what he'd just acquired. I hope he cared for it better than I suspect. I did take some comfort in knowing that at least one guard wasn't walking around with an RG .38 on his belt...

Back to this Shooting Master. I imagine that if you wanted, you could amuse yourself out in the country by shooting grasshoppers or bees with it at reasonable range. It'd sure be snake head-accurate! A well made Colt is an astonishingly acurate revolver.

What gripes me is that I was shooting a .38 Diamondback years ago and the sights wouldn't adjust enough to get the gun properly on-target. I called the Colt PR lady and she wasn't too concerned. Said to just use Kentucky windage! Yes, she really said that! I was so steamed that I haven't bought a Colt since. But honesty compels me to admit that the three Pythons that I've owned were all every bit as accurate as S&W M-27's, maybe a tad better, although human factors made that impossible to be certain about. (No Ransom rest) But I can tell you that both brands would clump all six shots from offhand at 25 yards into one ragged hole quite often, and I am not a particularly distinguished marksman, compared to Elmer Keith or anyone who competes in the Olympics.

A Colt Gold Cup .45 would shoot all seven rounds into an even tighter hole, if you adjust for caliber. With round-nosed bullets, that wasn't as much of a factor as when I shot SWC's, with their wider, cleaner holes. It as just frighteningly accurate with Federal's 230 grain Match loads. I almost thought that someone really good was shooting that gun!

Seriously, BigInge, I totally applaud your acquiring that Shooting Master. Despite having read somewhere that S&W ads used to refer to the "file like" checkering on the backstrap, I doubt that recoil will abrade your hand. You deserve to open a mature bottle of Chateau Latour to celebrate this gun becoming yours! (I have had Latour just once in my life, the bottle being a gift from my son. When I uncorked it, I felt like I was the Sun King, celebrating moving into a newly built Versailles. Indeed, King Louis may well have drunk a bottle of it that day. The vineyard/estate was already long famous.)

I gotta run. But that gun excited me, as I'm sure it does the new owner. And, yes, Charles Askins disliked S&W, to the point that he bought Colts, even knowing that he'd have to re-sight most! But he did own a four-inch .357 Magnum, I think a Registered Magnum, and liked the Model 39. I believe that he'd largely mended fences with S&W by the time the M-39 appeared.

He was, BTW, quite a character. He once stood in public in a dining room in a major hotel in San Antonio and offered to run guns into Rhodesia, within hearing of not only Col. Rex Applegate and me (with whom he was speaking), but anyone within earshot, and he was not whispering. I don't think he was joking, either. I was in agreement with his cause, but it was highly illegal, under a UN and US embargo. One thing about Charlie: you knew pretty well what he thought of you. He was honest about his feelings.

Great catch, Bill. You will love shooting that aptly named revolver. Thanks for showing it to us.
Regards,
turnerriver

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turnerriver

What a fine gun you have there. The New Service variations are guns that seems to really need a grip adapter, though it compromises shooting them like the guns were designed for and how the oldtimers used them. I own two N.S. Colts but do miss an early Target .44 Russian (bored out to .44 special) I used to have. I kept a picture just to remind myself not to be stoopid again selling good stuff.

Wow! Bobby that is beautiful.

Wow Bobby. That is beautiful. Don't blame you for holding your fire on that one. Did you get check?

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Bill
Dis B. Leaf

[QUOTE=Biginge;137022742} Did you get check?[/QUOTE]

Yes sir!
B.

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South Carolina-God's country

Beauty of a find

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John

Those are both really nice fellas.
Bobby, if you don't want to shoot yours i'll "break it in" for ya'.
Nice !!!

Chuck

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They hold no Quarter

Mine's also a .38 spl and no where near in as good shape, but, then again, I don't mind shooting it:



Have yet to shoot this NST in .45 Colt tho:

A Colt Shooting Master shipped 1937

That's a pretty pony!! Onomea, that NST 45 Colt is INCREDIBLE!!

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Go big or stay home

I sense a pending great disturbance in my acquisitions budget.

Without aggressively searching, I have had an eye at least half open for a decent Shooting Master for the last couple of years. Any chambering would do, but I really want to be able to compare a .38 Shooting Master to a .38/44 Outdoorsman. I can't imagine how easy it must be to shoot .38 Special match loads from a gun that is even heavier than an OD.

Beautiful revolvers, gentlemen.

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David Wilson

Can someone give me an idea of the price range for these revolverds?

Mine, the well used Shooting Master pictured above, was $1,000 about five years ago. (But then again I am a practitioner of the "You can buy better but you can't pay more!" method of collecting. )

The .357s and the .44s are more expensive than the 38s.

Here are 2 Colt New Service Targets

The first one is in 455 shipped in 1915. The grips on the pre war New Service Targets are fabulous !!
The second is in 44 Special/44 Russian shipped in 1922

Wow, they are all fantastic! Just beautiful.

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Memory of Randy Freas-Rimfired