Just scored a Trooper MKIII

[awp_101]

I’ve been wanting to expand my revolver game a little and decided an adjustable sight 4” .357 from Colt and S&W to go with my GP100 would be the first objective. I’ve had several Smiths before and have a pretty good idea of what I want (4” N frame or 586). My Colt knowledge and ownership is severely lacking so I did a bunch of reading and asking questions. I knew I wasn’t going to spend Python money and to make it a little more challenging I decided I would mainly look for birth year (mine or another family member) or Bicentennial guns.

If the Colt website serial lookup is accurate, this one is from 78 which doesn’t meet the birth year or Bicentennial standard but at least it’s in the same decade on both counts. The price and condition were good enough I threw a bid out at the last minute (almost literally) and won: https://www.gunbroker.com/Item/898843011

How’d I do?

[entropy]

“Buy Now” at $3000.00?

We’re they smoking crack?

[MDFA]

You did good. I had a couple Trooper MK III's over the years.

Yeah $3000.00 for Buy Now is wayyy into the smoking crack range....

[entropy]

Forgive my initial extreme rudeness...

VERY nice score. It looks like it has more fingerprint smudges (self induced?) than wear.

[Hambo]

How’d I do?

You did well, very well. For reasons I do not understand, I've always wanted a 6" Mk III.

[JHC]

I briefly a 6" Mk III back around 1980 with a pistol scope on it. It was a real tack driver but the scope mount had cannibalized the rear sight and I didn't really have a place for a big scoped revolver. But a 4" would be very nice. Mine had a pretty nice DA trigger. Seemed built hell for stout.

[FrankB]

Looks GREAT to me. Congratulations!

[Rick R]

Does it have rifling? A gunsmith friend from the early 80’s took in a customer’s Trooper due to a complaint that it wouldn’t group on a sheet of typing paper at 25 yards. Inspection revealed a smoothbore barrel, new from the factory. Colt replaced that pretty quickly with many apologies. In the years since I’ve seen a 1911 and two S&W autos with the same “option”.

Every (other) Trooper I ever saw shot really well and IMHO they just have a lot of class without the Python flash.

[ccmdfd]

How are Trooper's triggers compared to Python's?

[farscott]

I would say that is a nice score in today's market as I remember paying $300 OTD for a six-inch Trooper MK III and 100 rounds of 158-grain JHP back in 1991 when everyone wanted "wonder nines" and revolvers were "obsolete". $300 in 1991 took a lot more work to acquire than $900 today. So good deal.

The MK III guns have only one weakness; if the firing pin broke, the revolver had to go back to Colt for repair as the frame was easily damaged. Today Colt will not repair them. I am not sure if any smith has the tools or parts as Numrich shows only the .22 firing pin. As such, treat with respect.

The MK III guns also introduced sintered hammers and triggers, the predecessor to today's MIM components.