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Thread: 3" Colt d-frame joy

  1. #1
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    May 2012
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    South Louisiana

    3" Colt d-frame joy

    Greetings all,

    I am becoming quite a fan of the 3" d-frame. First I picked up this oddball Police Positive . 38 special a year or so back. It was rebuilt at some point in the past, and is a pre-war gun with a post war barrel on it. Carryup / timing / lockup is perfect, so plan is to 1) strip the nickel / bumperchrome, 2) open up the rear sight notch to match the wider front sight, then maybe 3) thin the right side of the front of the trigger guard a bit. Still debating how to refinish it. I am leaning towards a matte blue or old fashioned parkerized finish.

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    I stumbled onto this one last month and couldn't pass it up. I had a 22LR Courier a while back, but this is the first 3" .32 NP Cobra I have ever seen in person. The pictures on the green background are from when i first picked it up. I had bought the holster off of eBay a few years back because it was a NOS vintage cross draw IWB and those with seem pretty uncommon, plus not a lot of 3" d- frame holsters out there to begin with. I picked up the Fitz D-Frame grips recently after seeing RevolverRob post about them.I have been very slowly, carefully removing those rust patches. I doubt it ever had more than a box or two of ammo through it.

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    A very fun old popgun and I intend to shoot the heck out of with .32 wadcutter handloads.

    Thanks,
    Danny

  2. #2
    Thank you for sharing. Those are two little gems. I also love 3" D frames/D frame sized revolvers and consider them to be carry revolver perfection. I hope to see updates on the Police Positive in the future.

  3. #3
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    May 2012
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    South Louisiana
    Thanks for the kind words! I am still debating if I want to put a replica hammer shroud on the 3" Police Positive. It doesn't have any original finish to mess up, so I am tempted.

  4. #4
    Member GearFondler's Avatar
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    May 2019
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    Southeast Louisiana
    I love your lack of impulse control, my friend.

    Those should be fun to restore.

  5. #5
    Site Supporter OlongJohnson's Avatar
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    Mar 2015
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    "carbine-infested rural (and suburban) areas"
    With all the pitting under that nickel, it would take an unreasonable amount of buffing to look decent in blue. Parkerizing was made for guns like that.

    Plus if you get is slicked up and do a little burnish break in on the work prior to the Parkerizing, the Park will burnish in very nicely when saturated with oil and make it uber-slick.

    I find Hornady One Shot cleaner/lube on Parkerizing that was solvent soaked to remove whatever other oils were present is quite effective at preventing corrosion even in this SETX swamp.
    .
    -----------------------------------------
    Not another dime.

  6. #6
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    Sep 2017
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    South Louisiana
    +1 on Parkerizing. The 3" M10-7 I picked up a few months ago was rusted in a similar fashion as yours and I had it Parkerized. It's not pretty but at least it's presentable. There's no new rust in spite of it being carried IWB in Louisiana's climate.

  7. #7
    The R in F.A.R.T RevolverRob's Avatar
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    May 2014
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    Gotham Adjacent
    Yea...So I'm gonna need you to just go ahead and set these aside for me. That'd be great.

    Thanks.

    Congrats man, solid choices, all the way around!

  8. #8
    Wood burnin' Curmudgeon CSW's Avatar
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    Feb 2014
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    I can pee outside.
    That gun is very,very nice.
    Finish options:

    Parked, as you stated,
    Hard chromed in a nice matte finish.
    Or, send it back to Colt, at a higher cost, for a royal blue finish.

    Parkerizing and hard chrome will make it much more resistant to sweat as well.
    "... And miles to go before I sleep".

  9. #9
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    May 2021
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    3-inch Colt D-frames, YES!

    I have been on a Holy Grail Quest for the last 30 years to acquire multiple steel-frame and light alloy 3-inch D-frames in .38 Special, .32 Colt NP and .22 LR. The effort has been well worth it. I started with several steel frame 2-inch Detective Specials in .38 Special and .32 NP for which I found 3-inch barrels on Numrich and had these fitted to my snubs. I then found an alloy frame .22 LR Cobra and a .32 NP Courier and Cobra.

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  10. #10
    You are literally hitting on a good number of my "want that" buttons. Now I need to look for one of those .32s.

    You sir, are a horrible enabler.
    For info about training or to contact me:
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