Colt saa restoration
One can contemplate, hypothesize, or fantasize as to value and ponder wild stories all day, which is a trap to which a lot of novice collectors succumb. It would be interesting to know where it was found and if anything of known historical significance ever occurred at that location that could account for this gun. While we will never know the whole story, this thing has history. The last person to hold it before it hid out in the dirt for several decades might have been a cowboy, Indian, pick & shovel miner, some latter day outlaw, or even one of Villa's men riding north to escape the clutches of Huerta. How nicely it gets "restored" (which to me means stop any active rust, get it functional and put an apropriate set of grips on it) and "refinished" (all historical and collector interest destroyed) are 2 different things. A minimally intrusive and historically distructive overhaul to get it up and running will not reduce it's value. 32-20 though.Īctually, if it were a first-generation, black powder frame (1870's) Colt SAA, it's value would be significant, even in that condition. 38 Long Colt or even one of the old long black powder era Colt or S&W. If the cylinder walls are badly rusted and pitted (check the little cylinder stop locking notches, as this is the thinnest part) and/or the bore is completely shot, you might consider sleeving the chambers and bore down to something like. I do agree about leaving the original exterior patina and finish on this one alone and just do whatever is needed to get it functioning and complete. 45 SAA's have those same thin cylinder walls. With some searching online, you could also probably find some old, worn walnut grips to work with. Having said all of that, I think that some work on the internals is ok. I'd also leave the ejector housing off, as I don't think that you could match the old patina finish. And changing the patina would also kill any value to collectors in the future. If it were mine, I would not do anything to harm the 100 year old patina, as it looks great the way it is. However, it has that very cool Old West look about it. No wonder it was found on the gun.Someone chucked it. These guns were popular in Mexico and the American West back in the cowboy days as an affordable alternative to a better made but more expensive American gun - although there are a few rather fancy examples with pearl or ivory grips, engraving, silver or nickel plating, etc.Ījax, seeing those ultra thin cylinder walls, I would not shoot that pistol on a bet. They also made copies of big top-break single and double action Smith and Wessons from that period. These are all hand made guns so there is some variaton, but with a little fitting genuine Colt parts should work.Īs Kendog mentioned, there are also other copies of the SAA out there, including Belgian and Spanish ones that look like SAA's, but are often actually double action or have smaller frames and different lockwork. I've seen a couple others of these over the past 30 or so years.the lanyard ring on the bottom of grip frame is what gives them away. 45 barrel and cylinder with a hand made frame and grip. Some of these were made using parts from damaged or worn out Colts, or Colt spare parts. I had a well worn but functional one of these for many years that came off a historic old cattle ranch in Texas. Is the gun in PTOguy's photo the same one as in Rustjax's photo? Cool a frontier gunsmith/Mexican copy of a SAA.