Quote:
Originally posted by wild cat mccane
Wow wow wow.
To be fair the Colt Python 2020 isn't worth 1,600. The "old" Colt Python wasn't worth that either. Nothing like a revolver that destroys it's own arm.
The 686 takes the Python to the competition woodshed ever single time. That's speed, accuracy, and durability. US comp shooters weren't ignoring the Python because it's "too pretty to shoot."
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Not all competitions are the same and what makes one gun well suited for one doesn't mean it will be well suited for another. You must remember that the Colt Python was introduced in 1955 and was, from the outset, designed to be a high-end revolver primarily focused to target shooting (I have read that it was originally designed as a .38 Special and, at the last minute, it was decided to chamber it for .357 Magnum to make it seem more "deluxe"). The "practical shooting" competitions that you site the Python as being deficient in didn't exist in the 1950's and the ideas on how a DA revolver should be shot were different back then than they are today.
A lot more people, including police, shot their DA revolvers predominantly one-handed and in SA. Back then, the predominant school of thought was that revolvers should be shot single-action whenever practicable as that would increase accuracy and that double-action should only be used emergently at very short distances. Also, most of the competitions back then were one-handed, slow-fire bullseye-type shooting.
For that type of shooting, the old Colt double-pawl lockup (as the original Pythons had) is arguably superior. You see, when in proper time an older Colt will have no perceptible rotational play when the action is at full lockup (this is often called the "bank vault" lockup) and thus the chambers are more precisely aligned with the barrel thus delivering slightly greater accuracy especially with full-wadcutters which do not have a rounded or SWC type nose to "guide" them into the forcing cone. Also, many at the time felt that while S&W had a smoother DA trigger, Colts generally had a crisper SA trigger which was preferred by target shooters though in the specimens of both that I personally own the difference is very small if perceptible at all.
Colt slipped into second and then third place behind S&W and Ruger due to both different ideas about how DA revolvers should be used and cost. The old double-pawl lockwork is complicated and expensive to make and produced a DA trigger which "stacks" noticeably before it breaks. Colt did attempt to revise its DA lockwork starting with the Mk. III series and continuing with the Mk. V, original King Cobra, and Anaconda. Unfortunately they still weren't able to out-compete S&W and later Ruger for price and the died-in-the-wool Colt aficionados tended to look down their noses at the revised lockwork as "cheap" or "not real Colts" (not an opinion I share as every one I've ever handled seemed to be a very nice revolver.