Unlike most people who owned a couple of Pythons and saw maybe a dozen or so of them over the years, I was a Master watchmaker/gunsmith specializing in Colt revolvers.
I owned 10 or so, and over 30 years I saw literally hundreds of Pythons made from start of production in the 50's to the end of production in 2003/4.
I not only saw them outside, I saw them inside, I gaged tolerances and shot them for accuracy after repairs, so I have a bigger "data base" then most people.
Python quality, like everything else did fall after the mid-1970's.
The level of polish wasn't quite as good as the original 50's and 60's guns, and you saw a few more factory defects slip by.
Some Pythons made during the big strike of the mid-80's were definitely NOT up to Python standards, and this was due to the workers who were good enough to work on the Python line being out on strike.
However, I've seen Colt's made in the 1930's when quality was at the very top, that shouldn't have been allowed to see the light of day.
I've also seen Python's made during the strike that were as good as any ever built.
One of the all-time best Pythons I ever saw was made in the late 1990's.
It was an Elite model, that EVERYONE assures us were nothing but absolute trash.
The owner had sold it to an old customer of mine because he was told it was junk, being a later gun.
The gun was flawless, perfect polish and blue, perfectly in tune, time, and alignment.
Accuracy was very near to the best I ever saw out of any 4" Python.
So, as I've said before, Guns are not vintages of wine.
There are NO "good years" or "bad years", there are only good or bad guns.
Year of manufacture tells you virtually nothing.
Right up to the end, the Python was hand polished, hand fitted, hand assembled, and hand tuned.
By the mid-1980's NO double action revolver was hand built, except the Python, and likely never will be again.
Dismissing 80's and 90's Pythons as being unworthy or junk will cause you to bypass some perfect guns.
On the internet and in the gun shop and gun show, you hear a lot of people who "got bit" by a "bad" Python, so they miss no opportunity to run the Python down to all who will listen.
This is the same for virtually ALL brands of guns.
You hear a lot about "Bad" guns, but you don't hear too much about the "good" ones.
About a year or so ago, there was one poster telling everyone that the German Korth revolvers were junk, because he had a problem with his.
Are there "bad" Pythons...you bet.
But 30 years of staring into Pythons tells me that "bad ones" are very much an exception.
