Thursday, June 14, 2018

Cleaning up a Colt 1908 Vest Pocket

Happy Flag Day everyone....don't forget to fly Old Glory!

just a short post today.

The owner of the FN model 1906 that I refinished also had this Colt model of 1908 "Vest Pocket" that he wanted me to polish the barrel and guide rod on.


As you can see the gun has been nickel plated, although not by the factory, this greatly reduces its collector value. It is still a cool little gun though. According to the Sam Lisker's Colt Autos web page, the gun was made in 1909.


The person who nickel plated the gun did not plate the barrel and guide rod for some reason. Maybe the added material from plating would prevent the parts from going back together?

Removal of the barrel is just like the FN, you pull back the slide a small amount, rotate the barrel so the key ways line up, then pull the slide forward.

It took some finagling, but I finally got the gun apart, this is what I found....


After scrubbing the inside of the barrel I took the parts to the wire wheel, no real pitting so they should clean up nice


Starting with 320 grit sand paper and working up to 600 grit I got the metal pretty shiny, then I spent some quality time with the buffer.


Before reassembling the parts I cleaned the inside of the frame and slide, luckily there was no sign of any corrosion.

 Here it is put back together