Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns An old Colt Commander

I traded into a Colt Commander last week. It was stock except for a huge set of target sights. Why anyone would hang Bullseye sights on a lightweight Commander is beyond me. The rear was an old Bomar BCMS that overhung the hammer to the point of making it impossible to manipulate. I replaced that with a new Colt 80 series fixed rear, which I had in the parts drawer.

I figured the ski-ramp front sight was silver soldered in place, as was the custom with Bullseye builds of the 60s-70s' so I decided to just lower it to work with the fixed rear sight. About a week of shooting/filing got it spot on at 50 yards with 230 grain ammo. It shoots pretty well for having a stock barrel and bushing. From a rest at 50 yards, I was able to keep five UMC 230 JHP in 5".

My 225grain Flathead load shot in the same place and about as well. From Mecgar, Metalform or McCormick mags, this Colt has fed 250 rounds of 215 grain Express, another hundred 225 grain Flathead, 50 Rem/UMC JHPs and 150 rounds of 230 FMJ. It ran like a sewing machine with that mulligan stew with the original barrel and GI throat.

In summary, the old Commander met and exceeded the performance I've come to expect from a Colt. Its odd sights and minor finish wear don't hurt it as a shooter or carry gun. Front of the slide just happened to reflect the late afternoon sky.

Great pickup, Sarge. Nice looking piece.

I've about given up finding a decent Series 70 Commander around here. The first thing most of the gun shops do is run to gunbroker and check highest prices, if they get one in on a sale or pawn. And forget gunbroker, anyway. I've had an ongoing search running there for months.

Found one about 2 years ago online at a gun shop in TN or KY at a decent price, but it was sold the day before I found it online.

Nice gun Sarge You don't find old semi autos around here, handguns were
never a thing until recently. And semis are illegal for hunting, so shops would
only order therm in the past.

Anyhow, I have been itching for a lightweight Commander, not sure if 38 or 45.

Nice 45!

Sarge, how much you want for the BoMar

I have a soft spot for colt Commander’s. Nice pistol you have their sarge, enjoy.

Both LWT Commanders I've owned shot better than the '70 Series Gold Cup I also owned at one time. It was just my impression, but I thought that maybe they took more time fitting them up because of the alloy frame.

In any event, my old Gold Cup was a lemon of the worst sort. Sights were always falling off, too many sharp edges on it, didn't like that fat trigger, either.

That's a fine looking old Colt.

I hadn't given it any thought. The sight was missing the elevation detent pin, which was I didn't care about since I was replacing it anyway. The spring and the screw are there.

I think the detent pins remained constant between models and you can get replacement parts from Kensight.

This is the old original model that requires drilling a 6-48 hole behind the front sight for the elevation screw; but I had a plug screw to cork the hole with. If all that hasn't skeered you off, PM me and I'll make sure the rest of it is sound.

Thank you all for the kind comments.

Great old Colt there.

I desperately wanted one of those back in the early 1980s, but couldn't lay my hands on one at any price. They were nearly impossible to acquire. I ended up, after about six months of having a Lightweight Commander on order in several different gun stores, giving up and buying a Mk IV, Series 70 Government Model, which I carried a bit, but not as much as I would have carried the Lightweight Commander.

That is a real nice one. Just enough wear that you don't have to worry about carrying it.

Commanders are my favorite semi-autos. I like mine in 38 Super but there's nothing wrong with a good 45.

Has any of you had a chance to compare the Commander to a Detonics in .45?

Great looking old Colt.

I picked up a LW Commander some years ago, a parts gun that someone had thrown together. It didn't function well, mostly due to a bad extractor, but the frame work - checkering, and trigger were excellent. The slide wasn't correct for it, and I hemmed and hawed for a while, then made a 9mm Commander out of it, with a 9mm slide and barrel. It ran fine, but the frame apparently has pretty worn rails, and there's a lot of slop in it. Locally Briley does Accu-rails, and I think they may be a smart addition to really fix it up. The LW Commander in 9mm is a pretty slick deal

Which model of Detonics? Without looking it up, I remember Detonics had a 1911 type that was basically an Officer's Model, then they had the full-size 1911 "Government" model. I don't recall a Commander size model Detonics.

The Detonics was a good gun, basically foreshadowing the Colt Officer's and being a copy of the Colt as opposed to the Star which wasn't an exact copy, but WAS popular as a concealment piece. Back then, it was a crap shoot as to whether you'd find a single action auto that would feed any profile bullet other than FMJ so these guns were used to punch a big hole, not worrying about feeding premium ammo.

IIRC the Detonics like the Randall, had galling problems with the stainless steels used at the time. As such it needed to be kept lubed well.

Personally, I'd rather have the Commander and sacrifice a bit of size to do so. I would run more than 50 JHP's through it to make sure it fed reliably though and if it didn't would re-profile and polish the feed ramp until it ran anything reliably.

...or you could save yourself the time and trouble, not to mention about $500, and get yourself a Smith M&P Compact or a Glock if you prefer them.

I had a detective friend who had a little Detonics Combat Master, or whatever they called their little Officer size gun. I shot it a time or two and liked it. It and my issued MkIV Government ran fine with dept issued Remington 185 JHP- about the only game in town in 1983.

His Detonics was all steel and heavy for its size, not a bad thing in a pint size 45 auto.

I had a chance one time to buy a detonics, but didn't.
from memory there were some problems with them depending on when and where they were built. Again, from poor memory those built in oregon were okay, but the later ones built i think in new york not so much.

Star P.D. was another interesting pistol from that era.
Fragile in my experience.