Comments by "Ken ibn Anak" (@kenibnanak5554) on "Colt Viper: A Rare Snake and a Great Revolver" video.

  1. Colt's timing on introducing their Viper sucked. 10 years earlier and it would have been a smash hit. The agency I worked for had hundreds of Police Positives and Official Police .38 Specials. We probably would have loved carrying a lightweight Viper instead of a heavy steel gun of the same caliber. Unfortunately for Colt the year they introduced this the US Treasury was developing their +P+ round and convincing the US DoJ to mandate that the +P+ load Treasury had come up with would be the only .38 Special duty load for any government .38 Special revolver. At Bldg. 202 in the Washington Navy Yard we began testing and very quickly determined that not a single .38 Special (the no longer made .38 New Service was an exception) revolver Colt made was strong enough to handle a steady diet of Treasury rounds without a major structural failure (aka they blew up). Usually with fewer than 20 rounds fired, often on just 1 or 2. Similar tests with the same results were done at FLETC and other locations. In 82 or 83 the DoJ decision blessing the +P+ US Treasury load as the new Federal standard was formally issued. No other .38 Special cartridge would be allowed in duty use by a Federal agency. As far as the Federal government (probably Colt's best customer) was concerned all Colt revolvers were now obsolete and to be scrapped. The Colt Viper was still born at birth. Colt products were not alone in being rejected for use with the new +P+ round. We tested dozens of other makes. Charter Arms, Rossi, Taurus, etc. Tons of burst cylinders. Only the S&Ws (and Rugers) had strong enough steel in their cylinders to handle the new cartridge. And they began making them in stainless steel too. My issued Police Positive was sadly cut into thirds with a torch and replaced by a Model 64 As a gun collector it hurt to watch. We torched shipments of Colts from around the country marked property of TVA, Colts marked AEC, Bureau of Mines, NASA, GPO, USNRL, etc. Thousands simply marked United States Property, or US. Commandos NIB with 2 and 4 inch barrels, A decision was made to include the New Services and they (some parkerized with lanyard loops) went too. GSA had multiple sites around the US where torching was done of .38 Colts owned by the Federal Government. I don';t know the total count but it had to be near 100,000 or higher. Many arrived in the original boxes, purchased forty or fifty years ago and never actually issued. The US Govt. had been buying Colt .38 Specials in bulk since the first day Colt began marketing them. Virtually every Federal agency of the 20th century had bought some. In some cases even when they had one type with many unissued and still in box spares they bought other models too. Want to know why old Colt .38s are so pricey? US Senator Ted Kennedy's mandated slaughter of the mid-80s plays a big part of that.
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  2.  @RedXlV  Unfortunately the lawyers of the DoJ and US Treasury were very reluctant to approve the wide sperad use of .357 magnum ammunition. Indeed it had been a 10 year uphill battle to approve the jacketed hollowpoints as the ACLU had (wrongly) labeled them to be a return to the banned Dum-Dum bullets of the 1800s. So the Feds were stuck with JHP .38 Specials. Of course most had 4 inch or shorter barrels, so that meant in standard velicity the tough jackets of the time would not allow expansion. The solution was more velocity so that even a round from a 3 inch Chiefs Special would reliably expand. And thus the +P+ was created.
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  3.  @sakamoto2467  Having watched the torching (without disassembly) of countless Commandos and 4" barreled New Services, .32 Hand Ejectors (NIB) turned in by the Smithsonian Zoo Police, FBI's Thompsons and Model 80s as well as all of the esoterica ATF sent in (such as Marble Game Getters, Luger carbines, NP-40s, etc) I fully understand. Unfortunately the legislation Senator Kennedy had gotten passed requiring the destruction of all surplus weapons and vehicles left no other option.
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  4.  @BigSam63  Imagine the joy (none) of the ones ordered to do it. Really the time to object to that was when Senator Ted Kennedy submitted his Senate Bill to have such things done to all surplus Federal weapons. But hardly anyone cared or objected and the Bill became law.
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  5.  @CreepyUncleStupid  It is the law and is also still how the Federal Government handles surplus firearms agencies own.
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  6.  @CreepyUncleStupid  Eventually maybe Congress will return to the issue and change the law. Until then, it is what it is.
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