One time I "won an auction" on a low priced repro bayonet. The seller only accepted payment via money order..... This really wierded me out. Last minute I did my research on the seller & found him linked to a ton of scams & upon looking up his bussiness address it was a random barn in the midwest & not a real store front. So i messaged the seller & told him I changed my mind & wouldnt be buying it. The seller reported me & gunbroker, despite me explaining all of this in detail & sharing evidence via screenshots they still banned my account for not paying up.
@@themastermason1auctions are one of the best parts and worst parts of capitalism, overall, in a general sense, across all types of industries. Because example, the idea of auction is technically an idea of “pure free market capitalism”. Nevertheless… humans are…err…uhh…human. And we always find a way to eff up even a good free market idea type of thing. Thus gun broker. Nevertheless again and again, if one “learns” the quote unquote system, it is still possible to acquire undervalued items of any sort via an auction setting and environment. And then subsequently resell them at a higher price for a good decent profit. Alas and yet nevertheless yet again, it’s tricky😂 tricky tricky tricky!!! And so, welp… such is life.
That is...one of the most revolver-looking revolvers I have ever laid my eyes on. It's like, I think "revolver" and this is the exact image that comes up.
Local gun shop - in central Ohio - had a NIB nickel Viper about a year ago. Shop had purchased a collection of many fine Colt revolvers. Priced at $7,000. Sold within a week .
I remember seeing one of these when I was working at the sporting goods department of a local store chain. These 70s vintage Colts were finished beautifully ! Bit they were PRICEY compared to the competition and sold slowly despite being simply gorgeous.
With those baby Python looks, Colt never needed to convince me to buy one, just convince my bosses to pay me a lot more and gun traders to stop jacking up the prices on anything not made of black plastic.
Damn you, Ian! I have been jonesing for a Viper for YEARS. Sadly, prices on them are in the unaffordable range for us common folk. I even considered buying one of those Viper barrels you mentioned and converting my Detective Special.
Another fantastic video as always Ian, well done. I find these obscure guns rather fascinating and it pleases me that you give them the spotlight they rightfully deserve after having been overshadowed by more successful models for so long.
My grandfather had a blued Viper! When he died I was SUPPOSED to get it but it along with his 8” S&W 29 and my Winchester 94 30/30, turned up “missing”! My uncle, coincidentally pissed I was inheriting them, claimed my grandfather sold them to pay medical bills. He had Medicare and Medicaid and they were 3 of several firearms he would NEVER sell! Needless to say, only one pistol of 3 firearms I inherited had any special meaning to me. Every family has one of THOSE types and my uncle was ours. There was no way to prove it was him, even tho he was the first family member to gain access to the house after my Grandpa passed and he was openly mad that it was known what firearms was going to which sons and grandsons! (and HIS sons weren’t getting any)
@@nopc9728 They don't matter a damn if the relative in question gets to the house first. A good chunk of the family silver my Mum was supposed to inherit 'went missing' like this. It was listed in the will and all, but that doesn't matter if the items aren't there to be distributed because some relative decided they wanted them and took them.
@@rupertboleyn3885 So true. I was the executor of my aunt’s estate. The inheritance tax appraiser hated me. My inventory was over 3000 items. I even had a residual beneficiary sue the estate. The silver was to go to one of the granddaughters. I was stunned at how little was left from what I remember from family dinners. My aunt had been selling it piece by piece. My uncle’s gun collector had been sold off over the previous twenty years. There were a couple I would like to have purchased but did not find out about the sale until after the sales. For anyone contemplating a joint will, leave everything to the surviving spouse explicitly.
@@rupertboleyn3885 EXACTLY! I couldn’t imagine being in such a rush to go through the valuables of a lost LOVED one! I was DREADING going to my grandfather’s house! Then to get there and hear people arguing over and ransacking his stuff was sickening! I was more upset about losing him than I was not “getting his stuff”!
I only own one Colt, a Cobra in .38 spl. (An aluminum frame version of the Detective Special that I found for a great price)...what a fantasticaly smooth and crisp revolver with an amazing trigger. Someone carried it for likely many, many years due to the bluing wear, but apparently used it very little. One of the finest firearms ive ever put hands on. My Uncle owns a Python .357Mag and a Diamondback (im thinking .38 spl. but may be .357mag, I dont recall) and my Dad has an Anaconda, 44 mag. These guns are what gave Colt the reputation they enjoy today, and if you can find and afford one of these vintage snakes, get it.
The Cobra is so good that it really makes an actual crime of Colts reintroduction of the name on a totally different gun. The aluminum frame with a six round cylinder is a winner.
A few years back I inherited a Colt Border Patrol 357 mag. . I have heard it was made especially for the U.S border Patrol back in the 1970s and its basically a Colt Trooper with a Border Patrol stamp on it . There only about 5000 made and this gun shoots better than any revolver I have ever owned which includes S&W, Dan Wesson and Taurus. The trigger and cylinder release is smooth as butter. The grip on it is made by Pachymar with the Colt gold color emblem on it. Its really a enigma and would make a great story.
sometimes I watch Cody’s Lab to learn stuff about chemistry things and, one time, his video introduced me to the term and phrase, “danger noodle” when he was exploring an abandoned mine for silver and mercury to do chemistry experiments with. Therefore, I want a danger noodle collector gun.
On the topic of a wheel gat switcheroo, I have a trooper that shared a s/n with a python in the same year and I’ve had the funny thought about yoinking a blued python barrel at some point
I was so certain I'd _just_ read about this the other day when looking up the Python and Anaconda but it turned out what I looked up was something else entirely, variants of those two named after bears instead (the Grizzly in .357 and Kodiak in .44).
Wow! Incredible! I remember it in a snubby but blued/black . Was that possible? I'm just remembering one with the obvious aluminum frame in wear spots. Fantastic video. Great job brother. God bless all here.
Hey Ian, have you ever thought about doing a video on the 1966 BAR hunting rifle? I've tried researching the mechanism and can tell it's some kind of short stroke piston but info is crowded out by things written about the m1918
It's a rotating bolt action with a long action bar that gets impinged on by a tappet style short stroke piston, it's very similar to most self loading shotguns in design except it has a removable box mag. Very well made guns, maybe not the most well designed but they are excellent pieces of craftsmanship especially the engraved and polished models like the Safari. I've got a 7mm Mag Safari II and my grandpa had the same in .300 Win Mag, mine was my dad's that he bought in '94 which my grandma used to hunt with after he died and then it finally got passed down to me when grandpa died and now grandma is hanging onto Grandpa's rifle and his Python. The Wikipedia page for the BAR has all the links you could need to learn more.
@hornmonk3zit The bit about the tappet system is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. Do the bolt and carrier group look like they were inspired by any rifle in particular? I've stared at technical parts drawings I found before but nothing's obvious to me
@@matthewsukalac5629Well the bolt itself actually uses an interrupted thread locking system so that's pretty neat. The op rod is like someone took a dual action bar shotgun action and had it all nest together into basically the shape of an M1 Carbine's op rod but without the dog leg charging handle, which makes sense given the time frame it was designed and the popularity of the M1. As far as the whole action goes, like I said it's pretty reminiscent of a lot of self loader designs but I couldn't tell you who came up with it first.
My grandfather had a .38 and a .32 colt cobra. When my stepdad needed an edc he got a Python in 72. And in 1990 when he married my mom she got him a King Cobra . They all look new all get shot and all perform flawlessly.
A bought a colt agent in the early 80's and had nothing but problems with it. Timing issues. Had it fixed at the factory twice. Then sold it. Guess colt revolvers are good for collecting more than shooting though. Enjoy.
It amazes me that there are people in this day and age that desperately try to keep Colt relevant in the revolver market. Colt has been making JUNK for the last 60+ years.
The reason this gun probably didn't sell well is because Colt was selling the .38 caliber Diamondback at the same time and that one has better sights and looks cooler.
Bit of a stupid question about the "fake" Vipers Are those new pistols not as much real Vipers as Colt-produced ones, if they also have an aluminium frame and a 4-inch .38 special barrel?
Functionally the same but someone who's passing it off as an original and wanting collectible level money for it is committing fraud. An actual original is a collectable whereas the mishmash version is a nice gun to use but shouldn't be expected to have more value than the most common 4inch Police Positive Special .38 & most certainly shouldn't be sold as being an original Viper
Begs the question, why 4 inch barrel 38 revolvers? In the 1970s Colt company executives feared more federal gun control legislation centered around snub nosed 38 revolvers maybe due to thier popularity amongst the criminal element. 4 inch was considered to be a safer bet. There was only 4000 made because this new federal law never came to fruition.
Ooooo ahhhh That’s about all I got right now. I’ve never seen one and I need this video Yep Ian said it better than anyone could.its got perfect lines and it just”looks right”. It’s what we expect a handy revolver to look like.
The irony of Ian doing a short on a gun that may be under-appreciated by collectors and available at a bargain somewhere is that as soon as he does his video it ceases to be under-appreciated and undervalued.
This is not under appreciated or available as a bargain anywhere. It’s only something someone interested in a very specific collection would bother to have prior knowledge of and this particular one is selling for $6,500.
Mighty thick-walled barrel for .38 Special. I wouldn't be surprised if it was originally intended to be .357 Magnum, but the frame couldn't handle it. Could've shave a couple more ounces off it with a thinner-walled barrel.
I hear steel in intimate contact with aluminum and my first thought is galvanic corrosion. Was this a problem for this model? Or was there some special sauce in the frame (Ian did mention an Al alloy)?
Colt's timing on introducing their Viper sucked. 10 years earlier and it would have been a smash hit. The agency I worked for had hundreds of Police Positives and Official Police .38 Specials. We probably would have loved carrying a lightweight Viper instead of a heavy steel gun of the same caliber. Unfortunately for Colt the year they introduced this the US Treasury was developing their +P+ round and convincing the US DoJ to mandate that the +P+ load Treasury had come up with would be the only .38 Special duty load for any government .38 Special revolver. At Bldg. 202 in the Washington Navy Yard we began testing and very quickly determined that not a single .38 Special (the no longer made .38 New Service was an exception) revolver Colt made was strong enough to handle a steady diet of Treasury rounds without a major structural failure (aka they blew up). Usually with fewer than 20 rounds fired, often on just 1 or 2. Similar tests with the same results were done at FLETC and other locations. In 82 or 83 the DoJ decision blessing the +P+ US Treasury load as the new Federal standard was formally issued. No other .38 Special cartridge would be allowed in duty use by a Federal agency. As far as the Federal government (probably Colt's best customer) was concerned all Colt revolvers were now obsolete and to be scrapped. The Colt Viper was still born at birth. Colt products were not alone in being rejected for use with the new +P+ round. We tested dozens of other makes. Charter Arms, Rossi, Taurus, etc. Tons of burst cylinders. Only the S&Ws (and Rugers) had strong enough steel in their cylinders to handle the new cartridge. And they began making them in stainless steel too. My issued Police Positive was sadly cut into thirds with a torch and replaced by a Model 64 As a gun collector it hurt to watch. We torched shipments of Colts from around the country marked property of TVA, Colts marked AEC, Bureau of Mines, NASA, GPO, USNRL, etc. Thousands simply marked United States Property, or US. Commandos NIB with 2 and 4 inch barrels, A decision was made to include the New Services and they (some parkerized with lanyard loops) went too. GSA had multiple sites around the US where torching was done of .38 Colts owned by the Federal Government. I don';t know the total count but it had to be near 100,000 or higher. Many arrived in the original boxes, purchased forty or fifty years ago and never actually issued. The US Govt. had been buying Colt .38 Specials in bulk since the first day Colt began marketing them. Virtually every Federal agency of the 20th century had bought some. In some cases even when they had one type with many unissued and still in box spares they bought other models too. Want to know why old Colt .38s are so pricey? US Senator Ted Kennedy's mandated slaughter of the mid-80s plays a big part of that.
Gotta love the government mindset. Q. We have 100,000 perfectly serviceable guns that we don't want anymore. Should we: A. Sell them as surplus and recoup a fraction of the tax money we spent to buy them? B. Bend the rules a little bit and donate them to the Civilian Marksmanship Program? C. Destroy them all at tax-payer expense? If you answered C., congratulations. You're overqualified to run a federal agency, and should expect to be appointed head of the AFT any day now.
.38 Special +P+ was such a silly concept in the first place. If there's a need for something more powerful than .38 Special, just use .357 Magnum instead of trying to force .38 Special revolvers to use cylinder-bursting ammo.
It's worth noting that the Colt Police Positive is an already remarkably light revolver, part of it's popularity lends to its weight. Originally intended to be a lighter service revolver for desk sergeants and clerks, it struck popularity in many patrolmen as well.
I like to imagine that if you scroll down a bit, there'll be a comment from a guy who owns a 38 Diamondback that he keeps in a safe, that hasn't been shot in 30 years, because he's keeping it in good condition to pass on to his son.
My dad has been taking care of my sick mom for many years. He doesn’t have time to do the things he used to in the past, let alone keep up with shooting. You have no idea what you’re talking about
