I must be jinxed. Every time I stop by the Ye Olde EBR Shoppe, and I'm short on cash, something fantastic appears, and starts calling to me. This week, I had $12 in my pocket, and this in the used-handgun case;
It's a Colt 1903 in .32ACP, serial number 427xxx, made in 1928. It would almost be in mint condition except some moron sometime over the last 83 years dropped it, leaving some scratches on the right side of the slide and grips. And then put it back into some sort of container that allowed tiny patches of rust to develop on the edges of the slide and frame.
However, 98% of the surface area remains pristine day-it-left-the-factory rust blue. The blue under the grips was the same shade as everything else, indicating that sunlight never started to lighten the visible blued surfaces. There is no wear or flattening of the checkered walnut grips, either, which means no excessive handling. It's by no means pristine, but I've never owned anything so old, and so close to perfect, before.
I bought it, and played my hunch. Sure enough, when I stripped it, I saw it was absolutely unfired after all this time. No wear on the breech face, and the sear surfaces had only tiny spots of shine on them from being snapped a few times. The only time this was fired was when it was proofed.
One problem I had with disassembly (aside from the fact that it's very user-unfriendly compared to its grandchild, the M1911), was that the tiny bit of oil had oxidized away ages ago, leaving a dry sludge that just about glued the moving parts together.
I used Nanolube on all the moving surfaces, as well as honing the sides of the internal hammer on a diamond hone so they wouldn't drag inside the frame. And then sweated bullets as I finally got it together hours later. One set of online instructions said: "disassembly- take to professional gunsmith". Another had a nice diagram on how to take it apart, but left reassembly with the pithy advice, "reassembly maybe done in reverse order". What wasn't mentioned was that certain parts had to be held in some exact position inside the narrow frame for the next part to go in without locking up the weapon. The grip safety was far harder to handle than the relatively straightforward one on the M1911.
After finally getting it working, and the Nanolube worked-in, I took it to the range for its baptism by fire. No matter how perfect it could have been, I felt I owed it to John M Browning and myself to experience his first really successful autoloading handgun. I would be the first person to fire a round since it left the factory.
It's weight and monstrous recoil spring made for pleasant shooting, once I racked the slide. It was a bit more recoil than a .22, but not much. It shot well at 10 yards, once I remembered to lose all my bad habits. It has now fulfilled its initial reason for creation. They just don't make them like this, any more.
This was an extremely popular model with 520,000+ made until 1946. It is a natural as a concealed carry piece, and was popular with crooks, cops, and civilians alike. This handgun was among the first of the non-ugly, non-funky designs made. Patton carried a M1903 with ivory grips as his hide-out piece, despite the three large handguns he wore as his two-gun outfit. In the movie, he jumps onto a truck to shoot his M1903 at the attacking German planes.
This got me to thinking back to the movies set in the 1920s and 30s. Cops carried five-inch revolvers. Bad guys carried M1911s or rarely a Luger, but a BAR was the ultimate weapon. American spooks carried the M1903, while enemy spies carried something alien-looking.
But it was the private citizen living in a Park Avenue penthouse that I really identify with the M1903. Blued for him, nickle-plated and pearl grips for her. Yeah, the NYC Sullivan Disarmament Law was already on the books, but rich folks, politicians, and gangsters (might even be the same person) gave each other the wink-wink, nudge-nudge when it came to carrying weapons.
The time machine that brought this handgun to me seemed to transfer me back to a swank penthouse where I was doing a press-check on the weapon while I was sipping a martooni, checking my tux, and waiting for the luscious lady to finish up and slip her nickle M1903 into that ridiculous little formal handbag they carried to all the swell charity events. If we wanted some after-hours entertainment, we could always hunt down nazi agents along the East River.
Sorry, this weapon must have awakened some long-forgotten racial memory in me. :)