I would consider something like an original unfired engraved Colt revolver as a collectible and wouldn't fire it. Anything else is to be enjoyed.
I did that with a Colt .22 Diamondback in 1978. The gun had the 6" barrel and was supposed to be a limited edition. In or about 2001 I decided to shoot it and pass it on to my son. It shot like crap with 6" groups and I had to move the rear sight all the way to the right to get it on paper. I sent it to a "gunsmith" about 5 or 6 years ago and he cleaned out some lead from inside of the barrel and chamfered the muzzle. It did shoot better but not by much.
I had a friend in 1978 who bought a similar Diamondback as mine with the 6" barrel. His serial number was only a few thousand off from mine. He shot his right away and his shot like crap with 6" groups at 25 yards. He sent his back to Colt and they put a new barrel on it and turned his into a bullseye shooter. I should of taken that as a hint. Colt has only recently started making Diamondbacks but they were out of the revolver business for almost 40 years.
I recently found a new 6" barrel on GunBroker and bought it for $250 and I'm having Cylinder and Slide put it on the gun. As per the owner of Cylinder and Slide, he was fixing these revolvers for Colt back in the late 1970's and early 1980's. That is until Colt ran out of barrels. I can only hope that this barrel works and shoots like my 4" .22 Diamondback. I wonder just how many other 6" .22 Diamondbacks are out there with the same issue?
The moral of the story is simple: Shoot the dam thing and make sure it's good to go. To hell with saving them for the future. So far I have put $750 into the gun and the best I can get is a 5" group at 25 yards and I've owned it 43 years.
kwg
