50s/60s police revolver

Is the colt official police rival the s&w model 10? As much as I like colts, I like the s&w cylinder release better.

They were both very popular for many decades.
Either are solid revolvers.
I’m like you in preferring the S&W over the Colt. The cylinder release just seems more natural and doesn’t require removing your grasp on the grip handle.
They were made in the millions so finding examples of both is relatively easy.

I found a 10-8 for under 3

Being it’s the .8th revision I should be able to shoot plus p?

I have a Colt Army Special which is the predecessor to the Official Police. It was made 102 years ago, was obviously carried for a long time, and there is no telling how much it has been shot. It was also rode hard and put up wet a few too many times. To make a long story short, the collectors value was gone (there wasn't much of one to begin with), so I cleaned it up and cold blued it (I will hot blue it someday).

It still locks up pretty tight despite all of this. It's a great little gun, and I can definitely see the appeal it had. I do prefer a S&W style release though.

I prefer the Colt but both are nice revolvers

I like the size of the Colt Army Special more than the Smith K and N frames but have both and shoot both equally well. But IIRC while there were still lots of Smith 10s and Colt Official Police in use the S&W Highway Patrolman and later the S&W M-19 were the dominate police handguns from the mid 50s into the 1980s.

Let me preference this by saying I am a hard core 1911 guy. Have been for over 45 years.
A few years ago a guy wanted one of my 1911s. He offered me an old Colt Official Police 38 revolver in trade. As I was cleaning the Colt for the first time I became amazed at the quality of those old gunsmiths. The seams at all of the metal pieces was incredible. They didn't have all of our modern technologies back then. It was just a guy on a stool with a files that created those amazing firearms.

country_boy said:

Is the colt official police rival the s&w model 10? As much as I like colts, I like the s&w cylinder release better.

Click to expand...

country_boy,

Personally, I prefer the Colt's Official Police OR the Police Positive Special over any of the "plain Jane" S&W revolvers, other than the N-frame revolvers.

Truthfully, with proper care, I don't think that a person can live long enough to ever wear out either revolver.
(Fwiw, my FIRST police revolver was a PRE-Model 10 S&W, with Sam Browne, cuffs, HC case & a half-box of shells, that my mother bought for me to go to work, when I was sworn in at a "red hot 18YO". - Mother paid 40.oo for the S&W, with the whole duty rig!!)
I wish that I had been smart enough to keep it.

Note: I liked to have never lived down the ribbing that I got from the veteran officers, like: "Say 'college boy', has your mommy bought you anything lately?? ---- Did she get you a new teddy-bear for your birthday, too??"
(I also was "the designated officer" to attend every autopsy, as the older officers believed that I would be upset by dead bodies. - They didn't know that I "grew up in" a city-county hospital, drove the ME's wagon from the age of 14 & that my first GF lived over a funeral home.)

yours, satx

Became a S&W fanboy in the Air Force. The model 10 is easy to carry. I agree that you would be hard pressed to wear one out. Same for the Colt models. Had a 110 year Colt New Army that came close. The top strap had a bowl shaped deep burn just above the forcing cone. Still ran well though. I figured that if used often it was going to only last another 20 years.

45tex,

TRUE & the New Navy was NOT heat-treated in the same way that later Colt's & S&W revolvers were.

Note: I inherited a circa 1915 Colt's Police Positive Special with 4" barrel from an uncle, who was a Morris County LEO during WWI. = Even though it is in perfectly serviceable condition for a revolver of that era, I shoot only .38SPL mid-range wadcutters in it, as it is NOT heat-treated. - It is loaded in resides in a bedside table drawer.
(Btw, during WWI & WWII, many older men were sworn-in as peace officers to replace police officers who were "away with the Forces". = Until his death in the late 1960s, I knew an older gentleman who was sworn-in as a Special Texas Ranger in 1942 "for the duration of the war, plus 6 months". "Mr. Roy" had been a CPL in the USMC in WWI & had been a LEO in Red River County in the 1920s.)

yours, satx