10mm is the Best Millimeter: the Colt Delta Elite

Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on Forgotten weapons comm I'm Ian McCollum And I'm here today at the Rock Island auction company taking a look at a Colt Delta elite a ten millimeter service Semi-automatic pistol, which means it must be totally awesome This was in fact only the second production ten millimeter pistol ever produced I mean not the second example done the second design It was introduced in 1987 and it followed closely on the heels of the infamous brand 10 The Bren 10 was a an idea largely backed by Colonel Jeff Cooper around a new firearms cartridge It was an evolution of what had been some various Wildcat experimental cartridges and the original concept here was to have a 200 grain bullet fired at about 1,200 feet per second ten millimeter, which is equivalent to 40 caliber the idea was this would be higher velocity than a 1911 and it would be overall a better service pistol day in the 1911 and Cooper got support for this Concept from Norma for ammunition and they and Dorn Ellis and Dixon company was set up to produce This conceptually ideal automatic pistol now. I have an entire video on the brand 10 So if you're not familiar with it, you should definitely go check it out. The upshot is the Bren 10 was an ignomious failure however There was a lot of PR surrounding it and a lot of hype and this new cartridge was really the hot thing and a lot of people are very excited about it and Colt made a pretty slick decision at that time that When the Bren 10 was looking like maybe it wasn't gonna do so well or perhaps even before that Colt decided to introduce a version of its model 18 1911 in ten millimeter automatic and that was the Colt Delta elite this basically follows the exact pattern of the 1911 service government model pistol has these distinctive grips that Red triangle was specifically the icon for the Delta elite pattern When these were initially introduced they were available in a couple different patterns The two common ones were the blued model like you see here, which had a de? Serial number prefix there also a stainless model which has a DES Prefix that allows you to distinguish them from blued guns that have been Nickel-plated for example, and then they also did a Gold Cup and a match version Those are much scarcer and we're not gonna get into those today The frame is the same basic size as the 1911. They didn't have to change that The magazine, however Does definitely look distinctive because it's a 40 caliber Cartridge instead of a 45 caliber cartridge. The magazine width is set for 45. The cartridge is narrower So it has these rails or indents pressed into both sides To help control the the 10 millimeter cartridges keep them right in the center. So Magazine capacity is 9 rounds instead of 8 in 45 or possibly 7 depending on your mags But the magazines are pretty easily distinctive and of course they're marked 10 millimeter We then also have a nice distinctive roll marking on the slide Delta Li 10 millimeter. They don't want you to mistake that The controls are all very standard 1911 thumb safety slide release basic 3 dot sights Grip safety single action only button magazine release you don't really need me to go over that This comes apart just like a standard Hank 11. The design is the same They've just changed the cartridge and that's where the problem lies or the potential problem so they did have to make a couple of modifications to Well to accommodate this new hotter cartridge because 10 millimeter is no question about it more powerful than 45 ACP first off the recoil spring they replaced at the single recoil spring with a Double nested recoil spring so you can see the second one starts right there Goes to the end. There's a little bit of a polymer buffer pad on the back of this and the idea there is This helps you control slide velocity This is gonna slow down the slide at the end of its cycling and slide velocity is the big issue For a conversion like this, you have to keep the slide slow enough that it's not slamming into the frame at the end of travel Now 1911's with high round counts, especially with full power ammunition do have a tendency to crack the frames This doesn't happen a lot but it is one of those known things, you know You get a guy who comes in with tens of thousands of rounds through his gun And it's not uncommon to find a crack having developed in the slide rail Right here and that happened on the Delta elites much more quickly than it would have on 45s because of the different cartridge So Colt solution pretty early in production was simply to cut out this section of the slide rail so normally on an early gun you would have this hole is kind of D shaped at the top and the slide rail is continuous there and This was simply a stress accumulation point so by cutting it out It's actually a really effective way to avoid the problem. It kind of sounds like It sounds like the the cheap way to just like hide something and throw a band-aid on it Well, okay, it cracked there so well will this cut out that section and then it can't crack there but in reality by removing that that stress accumulation point That's a very practical way to do it and in fact going forward Delta or the rest of Colts 1911's would also have this modification So this isn't uncommon to see in general today in addition to its application on the Delta leads So what we have here is a gun that was fundamentally reliable and safe But it had a smaller margin of error than a 45 caliber 1911 and On top of that you have people who decided to really try and push the envelope in ways that most people didn't with a 45 the the 10 millimeter auto has this absolute cult following and people who shoot it there's a substantial subset of those people who want Who kind of like insist on having absolute atomic loaded 10 millimeter Auto? and so they're pushing the envelope on bullet weight and velocity and they're doing it in conjunction with a gun that has Less potential less margin of error for this sort of thing And then there are a couple other modifications that can also cause further problems For example, the hammer spring remember this is a single-action pistol So the first thing that has to happen when you fire is the slide has to move back and actually recaulk the hammer There's a spring in there. There's not a lot of leverage on this for the slide This takes a non-trivial amount of effort So if you are trying to make yourself a better target gun a more precise gun and You lighten the hammer spring to get a better trigger pole Well, you're also going to be increasing slide velocity because you're reducing the delay in the slide opening It's gonna get going faster as a result by the time it cycles open and you're gonna increase the wear on your gun and that's going to result in things like cracked frame perhaps or simply broken parts a lot earlier in their lifespan than one would normally expect either for a stock Delta elite or for a 1911 in its original 45 So they're in I think lies the problem. This is partly the gun but the gun in its stock form is fine with stock ammunition and Most of the ammunition on the market today is loaded a little bit lighter than that 200 at 1200 initial Specification for the round you're much more likely to get things like 180 grain at 1100 Cartridges that are a little closer to 40 Smith & Wesson So if you want a gun more powerful than a 40 this is a decent option. This is a good option actually It's a class ii gun It looks like a 1911 but it's got an extra round of capacity and it is legitimately a 10 millimeter automatic pistol however If you want to go out and practice hand canyoneering and you know developing loads as hot as you can possibly handle in a pistol perhaps ten millimeter auto isn't even the best solution for you and definitely a gun like this isn't you can go get yourself something like in lar grizzly or a wildy or an Automag and use those To play around with loads that are really too hot for a gun that was designed more than a hundred years ago Well more than a hundred years ago now Colt decided to reintroduce the Delta elite in 2008 and the bait put them back into production in 2009 and they are still available today with a number of upgrades from this nothing really huge But things like a better beaver tail better sights. There's some basic 1911 upgrades and so if you're interested in a delta elite there's that new pattern available and then there's also Guns like this one that are good examples of the original production Series of the Delta Ely now if you'd like more information on this particular one You can take a look at rock island's catalog page that has their pictures and their description their price estimates and so on You can find that yourself Or you can go to the link in the description text below Which will take you to Forgotten weapons comm from whence you can continue on to rock island's. Hello. Thanks for watching You

Channel: Forgotten Weapons

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Keywords: 10mm, Delta Elite, Colt Delta Elite, Colt, Forgotten Weapons, 10mm is the best millimeter, the colt delta elite, Elite, 1911, Delta, handgun, 10mm Auto cartridge, Jeff Cooper, Bren Ten, RIA 10mm, Glock 20, 10mm Pistol, Elite Match 10mm, Dan Wesson Razorback, Tanfoglio 10mm, powerful ammunition, polymer guide rod, history, development, disassembly, frame crack, crack, fail, atomic 10mm, mccollum, kasarda, inrange, inrangetv, pistol, hand cannon, best mm, sidearm, gun

Id: Qxv8dw2hTBQ

Length: 9min 30sec (570 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 08 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/irishlyrucked]

I have one. I love it.