Picked up a well loved Colt Official Police in 22LR yesterday. The gun is very, very rough finish-wise, but the action is tight, and the bore and chambers are extremely clean and shiny. She also shoots very well too. This example was made in 1931 according to Colt's serial number look-up, and sports the initials "W. P. P. D." And "No.3" and the bottom of the grip frame. This leads me to believe she was a police training gun for some of her life. I know this is a long shot, but anybody recognize the initials that may know where this gun may have originated from? I know practically every police department in those days issued the Official Police, so narrowing it down i suspect is going to be tough. Photo of the marking attached. Thanks!

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Hi : I had a Colt official police in 38 spl, that was marked W.P.P.D., the seller told me it was White Plains PD, from NY. Be Safe,

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I BACK OUR BLUE

Thank you! Was wondering if that might be it... I am not too far from there geographically.

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10-4 Glad I could help. Be Safe,

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I BACK OUR BLUE

Winter Park Police Department?

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Un-Reconstructed Southerner

It would have been cool to match the .22 and.38 together.

OP I’d love to see more pictures.

I can post a few more later today, but be prepared, this old gal is in rough shape. A lot of finish loss, and some pitting, but nothing that would keep her from grouping nicely, as I said the bore and chambers are beautiful and shiny like new.

The grips are sadly also a bit if a mess. Externally they look fine, internally, someone at some point over tightened the grip screw and pulled the threaded ferrule through the grip, blowing out the back side. In an attempt to fix it, some sort of filling compound was used. It was somewhat rigid, definitely a bit soft, and over time started to deform and pull out again. My plan is to remove whatever this is, and do again with something stronger, like Bondo or perhaps Rock Hard putty. Something that's going to seep into the splintered cavity and hold on tightly, is the goal. Alternate ideas are also appreciated.

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Haven't tried it yet, but I'd drill the grip for a minimum-sized clean hole, glue in a dowel the right size, and redrill that for the ferrule and screw. Drill the screw hole first to keep it centered and use that as a guide for the ferrule press-in.

I'd imagine your clean hole could be about the ferrule OD, so the repair won't show much, if at all.

Another option would be to dowel as above, except do it partway thru from the inside surface with a dowel that is the right length to support the ferrule. Carefully use epoxy or something to reinstall the ferrule from the top, leaving the outside surface untouched.

Love this idea, unfortunately we're past that level of repair. The filled area is rectangular, about an inch long and about 3/8" to 1/2" wide. Guessing the ferrule pulled through, and they broke off the bits that splintered outward. Might sill give your idea a try in tandem with a filler for the rest of the area though. Might hold up better in the long term.

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I love a good rescue mission. Now before and after pictures are respectfully requested. Good luck with the repairs.

Ask and you shall receive... Below are pictures of the revolver as I took owner ship of it, as well as the damaged grip panel. (Sorry for the weird order, not sure why they uploaded loke that...) The repair patch was loose and pull ing out anyway so I helped it right along as you will see. The patch material is a little harder than I initially thought, wondering now if it's maybe Marinetex based on the color and finish texture... Whatever it is, it didn't adhere well to the wood at all. In addition to that, it appears something translucent, maybe Elmer's glue was used to buildup the ferrule hole a bit, and maybe hold the patch in place. Its turned a little green from the brass ferrule, but its still plenty translucent.

Thoughts?

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Brief update: looking closer at the smaller of the two patch pieces that came out, there's clearly Elmer's glue or something on the back side, suggesting the patch had broken loose once before was was glued back down. I could in theory do the same, but I'd rather do it better than that

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I think the dowel idea is spot on and the gaping chasm on the back can be filled in with good old 5 minute epoxy since it doesn't show.

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Cool old gun. It needs some love for sure. Glad it found a good home. I’d love to but a box of shells through it at the range.

So update: I'm currently furloughed from work, so I had quite a bit if time over the last couple days to make a repair attempt on my damaged grip panel. What originally started as an idea to fill in the blown out cavity with a new filler of some sort, and also maybe use a dowel to fill in the escutcheon hole, changed direction a little bit. My grandfather lives down the road, and even at 88 years old, he's plenty active and itching for a project. Yesterday, I consulted with him on the best way to make the repair, and he had a better idea, knew that is most definitely going g to be stronger in the long run.

First, I chipped out the majority of the old filler with a smaller chisel, and then set about squaring up the resultant cavity into a reasonably uniform rectangle with flat bottom. We then dug through his supply of wood scraps to find a suitable material for patching. He didn't have any walnut, so eventually we decided that oak would be the most suitable out of what we had. We measured and cut a piece of the oak that was close in size but larger than the cavity I had created with the chisel. This piece was then carefully fit to the cavity with a reasonably snug fit by carefully sanding it on a disk sander taking a little off at a time, and test fitting. It ended up being around 1/2" wide, 1 1/2" long, and 1/8" or so deep. We purposely left the depth a little proud for later finishing. The piece once fit was then adhered in place over night with two part epoxy. I also went ahead and epoxied the escutcheon in place since it was a little loose, and this turned out to be less than ideal...

This morning, I returned to finish the job. I started by sanding down the proud face of the oak patch on the disc sander until it was just barely above the grip face. I then finished flush sanding it by hand on the bench top until smooth. Next, I used a small pilot bit to through drill the screw hole. Turning the grip over, I intended to counterbore down to the escutcheon on the inside with with a larger bit, but this is where things went wrong: as soon as the bit contacted the brass escutcheon, it grabbed right on to it and pulled itself right though, ruining the threads. Fortunately, with some difficulty, I was able to extract the bad escutcheon, and replace it with a spare S&W one I had kicking around. I also had to replace the screw, and I'm now pretty sure the screw and escutcheon were not original, and may be one of the cheap metric replacement kits from eBay. The screw provided with the gun was close in size to S&W's but the threads were not compatible, nor could I find a tap in our set that matched. That, and it was very clearly shortened and filed at the end. The unthreaded escutcheon on the other grip I think is original, but again not sure. It doesn't look like the ones Numrich lists for the Offical Police.

With the new escutcheon in place, she's about done, and looks more original than before. I tried to stain the oak with a walnut stain, but it won't take the color. Seeing as it's only visible with the grips off, I'm not all that worried about it.

All in all I think it was a success. Pictures are attached of the process for those curious.

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Very nice repair, I love those old orphans.

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Great idea, looks just fine.

Final Picture: went back and tried a different stain, this time it worked. My patch is now almost invisible.

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Great work!

Excellent repair, I'm glad that you consulted your grandfather! Your repair looks extremely professional!

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