The Colt Official Police is a symbol of an era. This humble large framed .38 Special revolver was made from 1908 to 1969, but in that span, it ruled the American handgun market with a few notable rivals. It dates from a time where cops, citizens, and even military men, carried revolvers. It was also a bygone era in which the Colt company itself was known for innovation and competition long before it became just another American brand. Here is a look at how the Colt Official Police was developed, its features, and its long life of service.
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The Colt Army Special and the US Army’s Journey to the .45 ACP
The turn of the 20th century was an inflection point for Colt. Colt Firearms Manufacturing in Hartford, Connecticut had innovated the fighting handgun. Colt invented the revolver and the company constituted a dominating market share in that domain for decades, even as technology changed and new companies came and went. But that dominance was becoming ever more challenged in the 1890s by fellow Connecticut maker Smith & Wesson.
Colt invented the first swing-out cylinder revolver in 1889 and it was soon adopted by the US Army as the Model 1892 revolver in caliber .38 Long Colt. Smith & Wesson answered by launching their own line of revolvers that operated the same way. Worse, the military models began to have problems as they were shot and carried in the field. The Model 1892s tended to go out of timing and suffer from poor accuracy. After the United States declared war on Spain in February 1898, the US government turned to Daniel Wesson for a new handgun, not Colt. To make matters worse, the .38 Colt cartridge proved lacking in power, an issue that cropped up in the subsequent Philippine-American War after Spain’s defeat.
Smith & Wesson debuted the more powerful .38 Special cartridge in their Military & Police revolver even before the war started and the Army itself began looking to replace the M1892s. This kicked off a decade-long series of pistol trials in which the Army tested a number of revolvers and new autoloading pistols. The Thompson Laguarde trials confirmed that the Army needed a minimum of a .45 caliber round in their new handgun. The Army would ultimately settle on the Colt M1909 New Service Revolver in .45 Colt and finally the Colt M1911 pistol in 1911. But before that could happen, Colt released an updated medium framed revolver in 1908 with the intention of persuading the Army.
Dubbed the Colt Army Special, this new handgun was built on a .41 caliber frame size that was larger than the old M1892 but slightly smaller than the big bore New Service. The Army Special was available in the proven .41 Long Colt cartridge, but Colt also produced the revolver in .32-20 and .22 LR. But the most popular chambering was in the .38 Special cartridge, which was making inroads in police use. The new Army Special also featured new Colt’s Positive Lock.
The Positive Lock, as debuted with the Colt Pocket Positive and Police Positive small-frame revolvers, was a hammer block safety that prevented the hammer from contacting a cartridge unless the trigger was pulled. This made the Army Special completely drop safe and allowed the user to carry all six rounds fully loaded. It was a coup over the competing smaller-framed Smith & Wesson M&P, which did not have this feature. In addition, the previous timing problems experienced with the M1892 were alleviated as the cylinder of the Army Special rotated clockwise away from the cylinder release for a tighter lockup.
Although it quickly became obvious that the Army was going for the M1911, Colt continued to market the Army Special with an eye toward foreign and domestic contracts. Although there were a few foreign contracts, notably with Greece, during World War I, the primary buyer were law enforcement personnel. The model was so popular that Colt gave up the ghost and in 1927, renamed its revolver. The Colt Official Police was born.
The Colt Official Police: A Favored Pre-War Sidearm
Mechanically, the Official Police is little more than a name change from the Army Special. But it did have a few differences that would endear it even more to the market that actually wanted it. In lieu of slick-sided walnut grips and a smooth trigger, the Official Police came with checkered grips and a serrated trigger. The front sight remained a half-moon blade, but the rear sight groove was widened to make it easier to pick up quickly. It was also given a high polished blued finish, which was quickly become a trademark among Colt’s police guns.
The Official Police was made with 5 and 6 inch barrels, but the 4 inch model proved to be the most popular. The OP featured fixed sights, but an adjustable sight bull barrel model, the Officer’s Model, was produced concurrently. The latter was created to compete in bullseye competition at Camp Perry, while the former was quickly adopted by a number of law enforcement agencies ranging from the NYPD to the LAPD. In 1934, the FBI chose the Official Police in. 38 Special as its first service handgun.
In an era before two-handed combat shooting, double action revolvers were usually fired in single action, with the hammer manually cocked. Single action bullseye shooting won many a match with the Colt Officer’s Model and police qualification shoots were little better. The Official Police possessed a superior single action trigger pull and had better sights compared to its competition. In the era of the Prohibition motor bandit, the Official Police also had an advantage in power. In 1930 Smith & Wesson developed a .38 Special revolver developed in a heavy .44 caliber frame for high velocity metal piercing rounds. Colt did not bother to release a model that could, because the Official Police’s large frame could handle these .38/44 rounds and come in lighter on the belt than Smith’s Heavy Duty revolver.
The Official Police Goes Commando: Colt Commando
With the outbreak of World War II in Europe, the British Purchasing Commission contracted with Colt to produce their revolver in the .38-200 cartridge. A similar deal was reached with Smith & Wesson to produce their M&P in the same caliber. Close to 50,000 Official Police revolvers were purchased, but once the United States entered the war in December 1941, any further purchasing options ceased. Existing stocks of Colt M1911 pistols were not enough to satisfy the needs of the rapidly expanding US Army. Colt went all-in on M1911 production and suspended consumer sales of their revolvers. Four other contractors were brought in to produce 1911s, but even that was not enough.
Ultimately, the government contracted with Smith & Wesson to produce their M&P revolver as a substitute arm while Colt focused on the M1911. The government also commissioned Colt to furnish Official Police revolvers to fill a similar role for non-frontline troops, defense contractors, and intelligence agencies. The 4 inch Official Police, in parkerized form with plastic Coltwood grips was issued. A rarer two-inch snub nose model was also issued. Collectively about 50,000 of these Colt Commando revolvers were fielded during World War II.
Colt Official Police for Sale
Where to Find Yours Colt Official Police
Post-War: The Slow Decline of the Official Police
After the end of the Second World War, Colt resumed civilian production of the Official Police. The revolver regained its royal blue finish, but kept Coltwood grips until the early 1950s when checkered wood stocks were reintroduced. But the shooting world that the Official Police reemerged was different from what it left behind. With the peace came changes in revolver shooting techniques, changes in Colt’s work force, and renewed competition from Smith & Wesson.
Double action revolvers today are normally shot by pressing the trigger and allowing the hammer to cock and fall automatically. But for a fair portion of the 20th century, modern swing-out cylinder revolvers were still treated like the Colt Single Action and Smith & Wesson Schofields from generations previously. Like those old cowboy guns, revolvers were still shot by cocking the hammer for every shot. The short trigger pull made hitting a target effortless, but seriously slowed down follow up shots. It was also a liability for nervous cops in volatile situations, who might shoot unintentionally. In the 1937 Pennsylvania Highway Patrol handbook, The Manual of Police Revolver Instruction, author R.M. Bair reserves double action shooting for emergency use like in a hand-to-hand scuffle. But the work of Eric Sykes and William Fairbairn, as seen in their 1942 work, Shooting to Live with the One-Hand Gun, legitimized the merits of instinctive close-range point shooting over impractical bullseye styles. Their work was instrumental in training large numbers of GIs in a hurry in time for World War II and the benefits of the doctrine were taken to heart post-war.
Instinctive shooting from the crouch evolved with Jack Weaver’s bladed two-handed stance in the early 1960s and finally Jeff Cooper’s Universal Technique in the 1980s. By then, single action shooting had finally fallen by the wayside and police departments were training exclusively in double action. Agents and deputies began to prefer the Smith & Wesson M&P or Model 10 revolvers, whose trigger did not stack heaviest at the end of the trigger stroke like the Colt Official Police.
But the Model 10 was not the immediate obvious choice. The Official Police was a stronger handgun and until the 1960s was the more popular of the two. Economics also played into the equation. While Colt busied themselves with M1911 production during the war, Smith & Wesson took up the slack in revolvers and sold hundreds of thousands of their M&P, many of which trickled back to the US as cheap surplus.
To make matters worse, the skilled workforce that had worked on the Official Police line was, by the 1960s, heading for retirement and their replacements lacked the time to become skilled up. Those veterans that remained commanded a premium in the shortage of skilled labor. Colt attempted to go upmarket with a new generation of revolver based on the Official Police, the Colt Python. All of these concurrent circumstances left the Official Police as a costly and aging relic of a bygone era. In 1969, the Colt Official Police was discontinued. The Officer’s Match model continued on until it was quietly discontinued in 1972. Despite its demise, over 400,000 Official Police revolvers were produced, making it among the most successful handguns of the 20th century.
For another take on the Colt Official Police, check out Massad Ayoob’s article in Guns Magazine.
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