Colt Cobra Prototype Revolver with Factory Letter

Colt brought the Cobra name back in 2017, and this revolver sat inside the room where that decision got made. It's a development prototype built for Paul Hochstrate, Colt's Chief Engineer, and the factory letter spells out exactly what makes it different from anything that reached a dealer shelf. Bar stock hammer, trigger, and hand. A rapid prototype transfer bar. A prototype mainspring that never went into production form. These are the parts engineers cut and fit by hand while they're still proving a design, and they don't show up on guns built for sale.

The gun shipped on March 24, 2017, to Newington Gun Exchange in Connecticut, just up the road from the Hartford plant. Before that, it earned its keep. Colt ran it through company testing and put it on display at the 2017 SHOT Show when they unveiled the reborn Cobra line. So this is one of the actual examples the public first saw.

Mechanically it's the familiar small frame snub. Chambered in .38 Special rated for +P, with a 2 inch barrel and a six round cylinder. The stainless gets a matte bead blast finish, and the frame wears the rampant colt over the Hartford address. Up front sits a red fiber optic that catches light fast, a feature Colt carried into the production guns. The Hogue rubber grip with the molded Colt medallion fills the hand and tames recoil in a gun this light.

Wear is minimal and consistent with bench and show handling. The bore is clean, the action cycles smooth, and the lockup is tight.

It comes in the blue Colt hard case with the operator's manual, and the factory letter is the piece that ties it all together. For a Colt collector chasing the modern revolver story from the inside, an engineer's own prototype off the original Cobra program is about as close to the source as you'll get.