THE COLT TROOPER

http://picturearchive.auctionarms.com/4053102330/7217163/a881134d817728aefc18dad7f8d03cb0.jpg
A Colt Trooper 6" in .22 LR

This picture is from a great thread on The Firing Line and also appears in google images. It's a Colt Trooper .357 in a Western style SA holster, which I think is very cool. The guy that owns this gun posts a bunch of pics of other cool guns he owns, so check it out.
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=408433


I never paid much attention to the Colt Trooper in my younger days, when they were actually being made by Colt. I was carrying a Colt Python as a young police officer and so the need for a Trooper never rose at the time. Nowadays, I'd like to buy a .22 in a medium frame all steel revolver, and also on the list of guns I'd like to have is a nice 6" .357 revolver of some sort. I could buy a Trooper of each flavor used nowadays for what one 6" Python or Diamondback (in .22) would cost me.

So I started doing some reading on the Trooper. I've seen a few recently in gun stores, and even though the guns and their finishes were less than optimal, I had to give high marks to the actions of the ones I've seen. Now, I've never expected "Python-Like" triggers out of lesser Colt guns, but to be fair, my Cobra has an excellent set of DA/SA triggers as have many other Colts I've shot and handled over the years. I know that Colt did not put the time or hand work into guns other than the Python and select other high end offerings, and that that Trooper was not a series of gun thought of to be in the same class as the Python.

But I had forgotten that Colt did make a lot of Troopers in .22 caliber, and the later versions (Mark III0 have a solid ribbed barrel and more importantly, a protected ejector rod and apparently the Mark V version had the option of a Python like vent rib. So for me, anything in the Mark III or V catagory would be a fine gun.

Here's a link to a good GUNBLAST post on the Trooper from a few years back. As the author laments, it's a doggone shame Colt is not still making double action revolvers.

I think a double action revolver, particularly and perhaps fittingly due to western history, looks very cool in a western rig. This is one rig I don't have, and I know El Paso Saddlery does make many of their western holsters for DA revolvers as well. The rig pictured above is one of those perfect field rigs to accompany your favorite shotgun or rifle for your foray to the field and stream, or perhaps just the revolver alone.