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Handgun Review: BCP Colt Delta Elite

7K views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  Sean Smith 
#1 ·


Overall: 5/5
Reliability: 5/5
Accuracy: 5/5
Durability: 4.5/5
Rust Resistance: 4.5/5
Ergonomics: 5/5
Trigger Pull: 5/5

When I left the Army in early 2001, I decided to irresponsibly blow some of my hard-earned savings on a customized pistol. The past year and a half that I have spent shopping, spending, waiting and getting pissed off generally, has been a great learning experience. That's another way of saying that it sucked, but won't have to be repeated. But don't worry, this story does have a happy ending.

It started auspiciously enough. I managed to get a slightly beat-up, but otherwise outstanding, stainless steel Colt Delta Elite for about $725. The gun worked remarkably well, dire stories about Colt's quality control when was made notwithstanding. It also had something intangible going for it. Colts just feel different than their copies, no matter how nice those copies are. On top of that, the Delta Elite has something unique about it. The guns feel different than a normal Government Model, more top-heavy from the oversized slide and thicker-walled barrel. And if the common .45 caliber Government Model has a reputation as a formidable "man-stopper," the 10mm Delta Elite has a reputation for being downright brutal and overpowering to shoot.



In fact, it could be said that the Delta Elite has a rather extensive bit of mythology and exaggeration attached to it for a gun that was only made from 1987-1996. The recoil of the gun has been variously described has heavy, brutal, wrist-wrenching or even wrist-wrecking. If the stories are to be belived, the guns literally all shot themselves apart, blew up, or cracked in two from the strain of the spectacularly overpowering 10mm Auto cartridge. Its reputation was beyond that of a "man's gun," more along the lines of the firearm of a reckless power-glutton who thinks they have too many fingers.

All of which appealed to my primitive mind, stunted somewhere around age 15, but none of which is really true. The subjective "kick" of the gun with most ammunition is more than a .45, but nothing physically painful or hard to control. Even using some of the most powerful factory ammunition you can buy, the gun is controllable, if not to be taken too lightly. But my wrist was more than strong enough afterward for such important duties as shaking hands and holding up beer mugs, so it can hardly be called "wrecked" by shooting the gun. And since my main wrist exercise consists of... shaking hands and holding up beer mugs... this shouldn't be seen as exceptional endurance on my part. I can shoot the gun with either hand with little drama, and small women have been known to shoot 10mm (or .44 magnum, for that matter) guns just fine, thank you very much.



Related question: What kind of people make gun mythology, anyway?

Let me give you some advice: don't take gun advice from people who know less about guns than you do. If you do, you will find yourself giving obscure Colts to people who charge massive fees for the privelige of making your gun not work. This is what actually happened to me; I went to a gunsmith who was highly recommended by several people. The catch: they knew less about guns than I did. And come to think of it, so did the gunsmith. He did some nice looking work to the gun, with the only small caveat being that it didn't actually work anymore. That is bad enough, but he actually lied about fixing it, on the assumption, I guess, that I wouldn't notice the lack of ear-splitting noises and large balls of fire that show up when you pull the trigger on a working gun.

So I had been duped. I was so pissed that I could have shot somebody, except of course my gun didn't work. So I contacted pistolsmith Dane Burns, who has been featured in such publications as The Complete Book of Handguns, S.W.A.T. Magazine, and Women & Guns. I wasn't too optimistic, figuring that offering a relatively well-known pistolsmith a botched gun to fix up would be about on par with offering Carrol Shelby a rusted-out Pinto and the modest request to "make everything perfect forever." That being my desired end-state for this Delta Elite, of course.

From there it gets pretty boring. Dane was great to deal with, and happily took on my crippled Delta Elite. The end result of his work is pictured on this page. The work on the gun was spread out over three trips to his shop over the course of about a year. Not the smartest way to do it (one trip saves you money on shipping by Fed-Ex), but I didn't know what the hell I was doing at the time. The complete list of modifications performed on the gun is as follows:

Bar-Sto barrel fitted, muzzle cut flush & crowned
AFTEC extractor
BCP #14 "Hard Use" trigger, 4.5lb pull
Smith & Alexander grip safety
Wilson Combat #6SN thumb safety
Novak LoMount night sights
Colt stainless steel mainspring housing
Serrations added to top of slide & frontstrap
BCP #73 micarta stocks with Delta medallions
Mild cary bevel
Wilson Combat #25 full-length steel recoil guide rod
Wolff 20lb variable-rate recoil spring
CP Tuff Buff
Colt 8-round 10mm magazines with Wolff XP springs



... And all that work (Dane's), money and waiting (mine) paid off handsomely. Objectively, this is a handgun that can take on all comers in any kind of performance category you can think of. It has gone thousands of rounds without a single mis-feed, shot into under 1" at 25 yards, and runs perfectly even when completley filthy. Subjectively, Dane's craftsmanship and attention to detail shines through in everything about this gun. Everyone who picks the gun up has said "wow," or said something to that effect, because everything about the gun feels right. And I'll be damned if he doesn't joke about it "not being finished yet." (!)

The cost of the parts and labor put into this gun would run about $1,200 or so, and with the $725 I spent just to get the Delta Elite in the first place my total investment is knocking on the $2,000 mark. That is no small hunk of change, especially when you realize that it equates to about 4 new Glocks! But the picture is not quite as bleak as it seems. To get an "off-the-shelf" gun with comparable features and performance you'd need to spend about $1,800 on a Wilson Combat CQB or Ed Brown Kobra, and Dane's work easily surpasses the quality of either one of those fine products.

As an aside, most of the modifications (and about half the expense) that went into the gun were not even related to the objective performacne of the gun, but to asthetic and ergonomic improvements. If you restrict yourself to things that contribute to objective performance (reliability, trigger, sights & accuracy) you can easily shave $600 or more from the figure I quoted above. On the flipside, you can easily spend another $1,000+ having your weapon perfected beyond all reason. Which I would have done if I didn't need to save some money for lunch.

It is easy to be eloquent in criticizing things that are bad, but it is sometimes harder to come up with original-sounding and witty praise for what is good. But I think it is enough to say that I got more than I paid for from Dane Burns. I can't recommend the man or his work highly enough.

Footnote: The durability and rust resistance scores are not 5/5 because there are tougher (hard chrome, boron carbide) and more corrosion resistant (nickel, NP3) finishes for a gun than bare stainless steel. They do not reflect anything "wrong" with the gun.
 
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