They both shoot so well that I’m really hard pressed to choose one over the other. I can still envision a scenario that requires me to clear leather and put a shot or two on target fast, and I do that better with the with the single-action mode of the S&W than I do with the Python. But a big revolver (at least for me) isn’t a tool for immediate-action. I like to have the predictability of the double-action accuracy. Which one would win?įor me, it would all come down to how I shoot a revolver. And let’s also assume that your knowledge of the basic shape of the trigger guard wouldn’t give one away. What if you had these two guns, side-by-side, with the same finish and grips, but with no branding? You didn’t know which gun was made by which company. Let’s look at this comparison from a different angle. I can’t imagine a world where the gun isn’t in production, and where a solid working gun becomes a collector’s item. Yet these aren’t the same model, like those are. Unless you’re comparing two 1911s (made by two different companies) or two AR-15s, it is hard to get any more common ground. Both guns are capable of gnat’s-ass accuracy. The 6″ barrels deliver the same velocity. It closes some of the gap behind the trigger guard, but leaves the steel of the backstrap against your palm.īut grips on common revolvers are as easy to change as your shoes. The Python’s grip is not the original, but close. The finger swells and recurve of the back make it ideal for those who like a custom molded grip. The Smith has a black rubber grip that keeps the backstrap covered. There’s nothing compact about these brutes. Otherwise, they both feature 6″ barrels and full-sized frames. If they’d had the same finish and grips attached, I doubt many of us could pick them apart at any distance. So the question is this: if the expense of producing the Colt Python was too much, how is Smith pulling it off with the 686? And what, besides the wide gap in prices, is the difference between these two guns? The visual distinctionsĪs is obvious to those of us with a functional sense of sight, the two guns we’re comparing are almost identical. So how is it that Smith & Wesson continues to pull it off with their production revolvers? The S&W wheel guns are considered to be the industry standard now. In a world that’s gone all-plastic, the Colt revolvers seemed antiquated. There is a lot of steel these old guns, which adds to the expense and the weight. The machines that produced them were run by humans, and not by computers.

The smiths at Colt had a lot of man hours in the finish work on their double-action revolvers. These guns were among the last of an era.

Why did the guns fade away? The answer isn’t too complex.

Colt anaconda vs python