Colt Trooper Range Report

Range Report - Colt Trooper III built in 1976 Nickel plated 4"bbl .357 Magnum. I purchased this Colt last Monday from Ray's Sport Shop up in Plainfield for $250. I was able to check all the fit and finish items, but wasn't able to take it out for function testing until today. The cylinder to barrel gap miked out to .004, cylinder rotation at lockup was less than .006 at each position, and there was no cylinder movement from front to rear. In lockup the hammer could be wiggled without detaching from the sear, and the firing pin bushing was tight. I found no apparent forcing cone bulges or  marks. My only question with this gun was if the barrel had been shot out. The lands and grooves were clear and sharp, but appeared shallower than my .38 Smith & Wesson. The nickel finish is awesome. Not a mark, scratch, or de-plating anywhere on the gun. I used 38 Special 148 grain wad-cutters to test function. After shooting off a dozen rounds to check that it wasn't going to blow up I got serious. The following picture is 10 yards off-hand. An inch and a half group. Woohoo, the barrel was fine. After playing for a while, I moved the target out to 25 yards and shot 6 rounds from a rest. A two inch group from a 4 inch barrel. Double Woohoo. This is a heavy duty revolver and fun to shoot. Two guys came over to admire it and I had them shoot a cylinder full...I'm a sucker for gun praise. One of them was blasting away with a 8" SA 44 Magnum with a scope. He came over after watching me eat up a target at 25 yards using iron sights. I'm such a tease. My new shooting glasses are working very well, and you notice I've been using orange targets to help with the problem of loss of sight picture on black targets. It's hell getting old...but now and then I can still hit what I aim at. Now if I can just convince the goblins to wear orange and wait until I get my shooting glasses on... I've found my new house gun.