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Anyone able to help? Colt 1903 .38 ACP Pocket Hammer

partsproduction

Titanium
Joined
Aug 22, 2011
Location
Oregon coast
I have a Colt Pocket Hammer as per above, I think this is the correct name. It is .38 ACP (As opposed to .380 ACP) and is one of JMB's double link early predecessor to the brilliant 1911.
At the time all I have is a bag of parts, as long ago I took it apart and left it with my local gunsmith. I'm not blaming him, but somewhere between 2016 and 2019 the spring plug evaporated, or otherwise dissapeared. I've checked Jack First, Numrich, and Bob's gun parts, but canot find a replacement.
It is part #28 in the following print; Colt 1903 Pocket Hammer .38 ACP Pistol Parts Identification - Coltautos.com

Now, my question, finally (:-)) do any of you have a 1903 Pocket Hammer that you would be so kind as to make a drawing of this part? Even a sketch? It looks easy enough to make and I'd like to put all the parts back together again as that way they are less likely to get lost. I will paypal postage plus a small fee for your trouble, if that's acceptable.
Thanks,
parts
 
BTW, the reason I handed it over to the gun smith was in hopes he would reblue it. The gun was given to me with bad pitting on the sides of the slide on one side. I made a special holder for the surface grinder and ground it on both sides below the pitting.
He looked into having someone use replica roll marking dies on it but it began to look like the cost exceeded any possible value, so I parkerized it to use as a shooter.
 
BTW, the reason I handed it over to the gun smith was in hopes he would reblue it. The gun was given to me with bad pitting on the sides of the slide on one side. I made a special holder for the surface grinder and ground it on both sides below the pitting.
He looked into having someone use replica roll marking dies on it but it began to look like the cost exceeded any possible value, so I parkerized it to use as a shooter.

Got a lot of respect for JMB, but "exceed .." was already a given when you ground on it.

CNC laser cut elastomeric mask and electrolytic "swab" etch could do yah? There's a PM thread where a member did a long-gun barrel with outright lovely results, even on a CURVED surface. Stainless as well, IIRC.

The missing part fits to two others. Both of which you DO have?

That should be good enough to replicate it. Just make a trial one, first, Action-cycling, but non-shooting. Basic steel, Brass or shiney-wood, even. Then pull better dimensions and adjust for final (plus spare..) in decent steel.

At which point I'd retire it as a historical artifact. Got plenty of "shooters" with lower hassle-factor. Too much hassle under my roof already wot with 9 mm Parabellum (to be shed..) + 9 mm Kurz/.380 ACP & .45 ACP (both keepers..fodder is common, can't confuse the two, both do their respective jobs rather well).

A mere taste of the Interesting history:

.38 ACP vs. .380 ACP
 
Ahlmans Gun Shop has a surprising amount of obsolete parts on hand. I would give them a call 507-685-4243. If they do not have one available they may know of a place that does.
 
I'll look around for a Pocket Hammer spring plug.
Thanks, and I'll also call that phone number.

The weak area in these is the cross piece that is all that keeps the slide from coming back into the shooters face, if it broke. I loaded a couple hundred 38 ACP rounds as powder puff loads that seemed to cycle the gun. JMB solved all that in the 1911.
 
The weak area in these is the cross piece that is all that keeps the slide from coming back into the shooters face, if it broke. I loaded a couple hundred 38 ACP rounds as powder puff loads that seemed to cycle the gun. JMB solved all that in the 1911.

And it very much NEEDED solved.

That, in combination with orphaned (and somewhat feeble. [1]) ca'tridge is wot would make it a decorator, not "shooter" in my environment.

So did Charles Petter et al solve it as well, though in a rather different - and in my view, superior - way. with a form of plate cam. Unlike a fixed-geometry link, a cam can have creative profiles as to just where and how aggressively it unlocks and how much travel is to be allowed.

Both systems were then to be adopted, adapted, modified, and by this late date have come to numerically dominate due to how long they have each been in service, military-issue especially.

I actually HAVE both.. Star Model 41 and Star Model 50. Brute simple, highly reliable, the partners that make up my "Basque Lawyers". Ambidextrous.. As I am.

Ammunition, of course, the many flavours of .45 ACP, is simply not a problem.

[1] A .38 "Super" it was never. Modern .380 ACP are generally hotter. And that ain't sayin' much, actually, even with both my Walthers requiring the hotter loads to not smokestack jam for lack of enough blowback travel to fully clear the ejector port before (attempting to) return to battery.
 
Thermite,
I'm also a collector of Spanish automatic handguns, though I'm not familiar with the models you mentioned. I do have a model A in 9MM Largo and many others. It's said that the Star A's and B's were much used in motion pictures in the USA but I don't remember the reason why they didn't just use 1911's, there was supposed to be some advantage. The Stars use an exterior extractor and lack the grip safety, maybe that has something to do with it.
Doing my own loading means not being a slave to cartridge availability generally, and it also keeps old pistol prices down since many people sell them off cheap as being too expensive to shoot. I like the 9MM Largo, more power than a 9MM parabellum with lower pressure, I think that's because of extra case volume.
Oh,and the same dies work for all three, 9MM Largo, 38 Super and 38 ACP.
 
Thermite,
I'm also a collector of Spanish automatic handguns, though I'm not familiar with the models you mentioned.

You might better recognize each as the "Firestar" (a modernized/improved "PD", but in .45 ACP rather than 9 mm):

Star Firearms : Firestar Series Pistols

.. and the "Megastar", also .45 ACP, but designed for a hotter cartridge - 10 mm Norma Magnum - that never really went popular:

Star Firearms : Megastar

Which means it is also out-of-the-box comfortable with .45 +P+ and the .45 "tactical" as well.

Even lovelier is having enough MASS to only barely and briefly recoil off aim-point, "Treasury stance", rapid, my less-than-slender body mass & bone-structure (size 12 Wide boots, XXL gloves..,) .

Not for those with small hands, a Megastar - but at least doesn't require the tribe-of-the-Gorrilla reach-around of - for example - a Desert Eagle in .50 AE.

The Walther's are actually for the use of the five-foot-nothing Lady I share blanket with.

Use whatever you are at your best with.

:)
 
I remember being told by a movie weapons prop master, that the Star pistils were used because they could be made to fire blanks easier than a 1911.
 








 
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