[banzaijohn]

I recently acquired a used and abused Colt WWII Reproduction (WM Serial No.). The mental giant who previously owned the gun took a hack saw to the rear sight notch in an effort to make the notch larger, cutting the rear of the slide and of course making a mess of the rear sight. The genius then tried to cut the front sight into an improved ramp with the now dull hacksaw blade. I purchased the gun for a very good price figuring at the very least, I had a Series 70 Colt that I could modify. I have toyed with the idea of sending the gun back to Colt to restore it (in addition to the damage, the box was torn, missing wax paper, manual, and spare magazine) or just having Ted Yost do a 1* enchanced on it, my 1911A2 if you will. What do you think I should do?

1. Restore it, to do otherwise is sacrilegious
or
2. Make a 1911A2

 

[dsk]

It is of no worth to a Colt collector now, so I'd say do whatever you want with it!

 

[K1500]

I vote Yost. It would be cool to have a custom built on a GI (or gun with GI rollmarks like yours).

 

[dsk]

Those of you who complain about product liability and the way guns are being made now should pay attention. Colt charged a lot for the WW2 repros, and the assumption was that only collectors and purists, and other informed buyers would be interested in paying that much for a limited-run Custom Shop item. But here we see where some moron paid a lot of money for one, then butchered it in a feeble attempt to make it shoot better for him. This person could just as easily have done something else like screwing with the trigger pull, so that the thing went off and shot him in the ass when he got knocked to the ground during a drunken brawl. Then he'd be suing Colt for not having a firing pin safety in the gun.

My only hope is the previous owner realized what a fool he was, and now knows not to do that sort of thing to an expensive firearm again.

 

[roboshred]

My .02

I recently acquired a used and abused Colt WWII Reproduction

I would restore it through Colt if it's a current (last 18 months) made WWII as you may be the only person in Ca. to own one!
4-500 bucks to restore it and I bet you can get every dime of it back. If it's some funky commemorative, I wouldn't bother.
Good luck.
RB

 

[DHart]

If it's important to you to have it be as original as possible, just send it to Colt... they'll take good care of you and make it back to normal.

Otherwise, I think the park finish on the WWII repros (I have one) kind of sucks. If you don't care to keep the gun really original, I'd go ahead and make a good knock-about carry gun out of it by putting on some good defense sights and then shooting the heck out of it! That'd be cool too!

I'm sure Ted's work is very, very good, but I think the "1*" thing is sort of trendy and over-rated myself, not that most of the modifications aren't good ones. I don't see the need to spend that much money. But I'd say a good set of sights and a nice trigger job would make that gun into a great working gun... no need to put any more money than that into it. (Unless the original owner screwed up more than the sights! )

 

[stfram]

That is EXACTLY like the gun that I saw at a gunshow a few months back (and posted about here).

It had a WK prefix serial, the rear side had been crudely widened, and the front sight was ground into a ramp, with white paint added to make it more visible.

The dealer in Phoenix wanted $699 for it, btw.

Hmm...I bet it is the same gun. I HOPE it's the same gun because that would mean that there are two idiot gun butchers wandering around.

I'd send it back to Colt for reworking, for replacement sights, and if still available, new packaging.

It is absolutely amazing what morons with too much money and no sense do to collector grade pistols.

 

[CastleBravo]

Since the gun will be a non-original copy of a real gun, I say do whatever you want to it.

 

[dsk]

It looks like the slide wasn't damaged too bad. Colt may be able to repair it for a modest fee.

 

[banzaijohn]

It looks like the slide wasn't damaged too bad. Colt may be able to repair it for a modest fee.

Unfortunately the cut in the rear of the slide is a little deeper than the picture depicts. The alignment notch for the rear sight is likewise damaged. Colt advised me to send it in for a quote, so I would already be into a $100 for shipping both ways. Luckily nothing else was damaged save for a few light scratches on the sides of the slide. It just sickens me that someone would do this....it would be really disheartening if this were a WW1 1911 repro.

 

[BrianMc]

You'd think they'd have slide or two for that model ... I know they stopped producing it, but wouldn't they keep some spare stuff?

Yeah, a slide would cost a bit, but probably be worth it if you want a nice example.

 

[Str8_Shot]

banzaijohn

My recommendation is to send it back to Colt. Deep down I will bet that you bought this pistol to have a COLT WWII spec pistol, so that is what you should have. There will be other pistols to use as base guns for a custom project.

Str8_Shot

 

[riverdog]

Send it to Colt. They can weld the scar, replace the front and rear sights and get it back to the way it should be. If you don't like that option, sell it to me and I'll do it. Seriously.