By Joe Berk
This is really cool: Pietta is coming out with a reproduction of the original Colt Python, and rumor has it that it will sell for about half what a new Python costs. That puts the pre-tariff price at $750. Pietta plans to call it the Blacktooth. I don’t know about that name, but I don’t make thousands of guns like Pietta does. I’m thinking something like Copperhead would be a good name for this handgun. Copperhead would make an obvious connection with Python and Colt’s serpent-themed sixguns, and it sort of ties in with copper-jacketed bullets. Maybe put a touch of copper plating on the gun, too, to complete the copper connection (the trigger or the hammer, the grip medallions, or maybe the screws). Maybe even offer a tuned version with an action job, and call it the Competition Copperhead? Eh, what do I know?
The Python story goes like this: Colt originally produced the Python in 1955 as a premium double action revolver, and then it was discontinued in 1999. The original Pythons had hand-fitted components, and it just got too expensive to make. I’ve heard it said that they went out of time quickly, and the frames tended to stretch with full bore .357 Mag loads. I owned a couple of these original Pythons, and they were beautiful guns, but they both went down the road when in my youthful ignorance I decided I needed something else more. Colt reintroduced the new Python with redesigned internals and frames in 2020, and I quickly snapped up one. It’s a beautiful handgun, and I’ve written about it a lot on these pages (I’ll provide links at the end of this blog).
How is it that Pietta, an Italian gunmaker known for producing copies of Old West sixguns, is able to copy the original Colt Python? Well, Partner, I don’t know, but I’m guessing Colt’s patent on the original Python expired and Pietta picked it up. That’s what happened on the Colt 1911 (the .45 Auto) and why so many companies are now producing the 1911.
I’m guessing that the Pietta Python won’t be available in California (at least initially) for a while (or maybe ever) due to our nutty gun laws, but who knows…maybe Pietta will succeed in getting the thing California approved. I sure hope so. Or maybe I’ll buy a house and live part time in a state that respects the U.S. Constitution so I can have access to the guns California prohibits. Texas or Tennessee come to mind.
More Python? You bet. Here are our earlier Python related posts:
Python versus Blackhawk
110-Grain Python Load
Python TJ Trigger
Python Update
New Python Range Test
New Colt Python
A Colt Visit
Boudreau Bullets
A Pair of Prancing Ponies
A New Book?
I’m thinking of doing another book on guns. It would be a two-volume series. What I have in mind is a compendium of expanded articles based on our firearms-related blogs, with a working title of Tales of a Gun Collector. Volume 1 would be rifles; Volume II would be handguns. What do you think? Let us know by leaving a comment below, and thanks in advance for your inputs.
Speaking of Colt…did you know that the original Gatling guns were manufactured by Colt in Hartford, Connecticut? All that and more is in The Gatling Gun.
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