doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Colt 1883 Design

Drew,

Here is one for you. Notice that even the flats are damascus. This is one I was trying to purchase, but we could not agree.





Pete

Wow Pete: Is that a Grade 2 also? Pics are up.

Although I'm a fairly committed Sweet Elsie Love Slave, I have this strange visceral voice saying "Where have you been all my life?"

A couple of points about 83s. Willian Mason did patent the action. He is truly an unsung genius in the firearms field having also designed and patented the Colt swing out revolver cylinder; a design that was so good it's virtually unchanged today. I had an 83 at one time that I bought at a flea market for almost nothing. It had a split in the left barrel about 14" ahead of the standing breech. I sold the gun off for parts many years ago.
I'm doing this from memory but I believe that Colt made less than 8000 83's and their serial number records are complete for this model. I believe there are also groups of numbers that apparentely were never used. Colts letters have become progressively more expensive and the last time I talked to the Historian I stated that they are now making more money from the letters than they did on the original sale of the gun!
Jim

From the Blue Book "Mfg. from 1883-1895. Approx. serial range is 1-3,050 and 4,055-8,365."
I'm happy to add a few more high condition examples to the PictureTrail. Send quality pics by jpg attachment to revdoc2@cox.net The last Julia auctions had an extremely nice gun and the pics have already been removed from the internet catalog.

My understanding was that there was a bigger gap in the serial numbers and that less than 6000 were produced.

Found year of production data based on serial number
http://proofhouse.com/colt/shotguns.htm

And a link to the Colt Archive Services
http://www.coltsmfg.com/cmci/archive_prices.asp
(it is $100 for 1883s)

Nice gun...Pete is there something going on with the hinge pin ?

j0e, the hingepin is tapered with the front of the receiver. It is spring loaded and rotates when the pins on the front are pivoted upward by the fore end when installed. When the barrels are off the hingepin is rotated out of alignment with the taper.

here's my lowly field grade with my amateur home wood refinish. I used tung oil and stayed away from the checking with sanding and with the oil. There are quite a few dings in the checking but I'm done. Waiting for my RST shells to arrive.

Still nice 3 Iron Crolle Frank. Is that the gun I already have up on PictureTrail? Remington, Smith and Parker were using Twist or Two Iron for their 'Field' level guns. About what year production? Thanks!