Ian disassembles 1,000 year old guns down to the last screw, but the Double Eagle... “I’m going to only take off the side grips to show you the flying paper clips, and hopefully I can put it back together” what a terrible design.
I imagine part of the problem with this gun, other than marketing, was that when you strip it, say for cleaining, you have the little bits going everywhere. As we saw, that's not cool
@@jeffreyknickman5559 I hope that Dean Speir's Article is still online somewhere. He had a site called The Gun Zone many moons ago. A former writer for handgun publications, he wrote of an experience with the Double Eagle. Well, a couple. One of those was a gun sent to him by Colt for an article he would be writing. The pistol came with a 10mm frame and markings, but a barrel bored to .45 ACP. Dean found this out when he took out the barrel, tried to see how well the case was supported at the breech, and set a 10mm round into the chamber. Upon this, the 10mm cartridge slid down the barrel and dropped on to the floor. Again, I really hope that somewhere out in the bits, bytes, and electrons, this article is still online somewhere. Dean concluded by calling the piece a "Double Beagle."
I can imagine the engineer showing Colt's management a proof-of-concept prototype made with bits of wire - and then being horrified when Colt put it into production without any changes.
The trigger was spongy! If you broke a grip panel the trigger parts would just fall off the gun! Colt had a program of hiring engineers that had been rejected by British car companies!
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine I'd never heard of the Seecamp conversion except as the throwaway line in this video, but now that you also mention it, I'll have to look it up. Sounds like a cool bit of gun history.
I used to have one of those. I am normally very forgiving of bad triggers, but that one was on a new level of bad. Still sold it for profit though since I got it super cheap.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine A staple gun has a much more obtainable break than a colt 2000. Its also weird because its straight back, instead of pivoting like most guns. If you shortened it by half and inch, and decreased it by 15-20 pounds it would be a good SMG trigger though.
I remember I used to have a BB gun version of this when I was a kid. The decocking lever acted as a really bad safety that just made the trigger harder to pull.
Let's be honest... the "next evolution" of the 1911 was the FN Hi Power, and later the CZ75/95. Colt failed to innovate much through the 20th century and it really hurt them later, and currently. Love the video Ian. The weird guns are always my favorite.
@Juan Sanchez Without Browning selling them designs what could they do? Really, what firearms of significance has Colt designed in the twentieth century? If we take out designs they bought from Browning and acquiring AR-15 rights from Armalite what is left? The Colt Python and ...
I wouldn’t take comments as complaints... we all appreciate the content and work you put into your content... anyone truly complaining doesn’t appreciate the love of firearms... from a fellow illinoisian I appreciate you!
I appreciate the fair and balanced treatment you give to the subjects you cover. Few things are either perfect or terrible, so it's nice to hear both sides from one source.
Since he's reviewing a gun that is currently for sale at RIA, I suspect that if he trashed it in the review, possibly decreasing the number of people who would bit on it, they might not want to let him review other firearms that they have for sale.
@@CurmudgeonExtraordinaire I can see that side of it, but I also think I have heard him say that some of the guns just plain sucked, except for 1 unique feature or another. Sometimes, some stuff gets to be so bad, it's good. (for collectors)
I actually own one of those. It's worse than you describe. Can O' snakes not springs. The DA is long and heavy for a gorilla. I'm spitting distance from RIA, if you're in area want a shooting video of it PM me.
I've seen exactly one Double Eagle. The guy who had it collected odd and rare pistols. He specifically pointed out what a pain it was to disassemble, while he had a Papa Nambu spread out in front of him. He did say it was pretty good to shoot. He likes 10mm.
I own one, bought double eagle officer model, 2 years ago and think it’s not that bad. It’s part of my Colt collection ( 1903 .32 , 1911 series 70 .38 super, Pre- series 70 lightweight Commander .45 , Double Eagle series 90 .45)
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine Para-Ordnance is the one company that immediately comes to mind as having figured out how to make DA 1911s that aren't awful. And even those guns don't seem to have been a big hit. I feel like part of the issue is that 1911 buyers and high-capacity DA/SA buyers are two distinct groups, and few people in either camp are interested in a weird gun halfway between the two.
The Elbonian military would want an inch of barrel sawed off, a perforated barrel shroud welded on, the grip cut to fit an unrelated drum magazine or belt-feed, the rear sight filed off to save weight, a slightly bent front sight attached with a single hex bolt, and a paracord belt lanyard looped through the hole in the hammer.
@@googiegress it also needs a lanyard loop both on the bottom of the mainspring housing and also on the bottom of the magazine, perplexing slide cuts and probably an unorthodox hammer.
To be fair, it's contemporaries the P220 and frame-decocker S&Ws (1026/1076 and 4526/4576) also have pretty fragile looking springs hanging off the frame when you remove the grips. I've never heard of a P220 failing in the same way though. The frame-decocker S&Ws DID run into issues since while they were DA/SA from the start their frame decockers were kind of a bolted on afterthought that could cause problems as well, which was part of the demise of the FBI 1076s. S&W did fix those issues but ultimately quietly discontinued their frame decocker guns a few years after their introduction.
I once modified one of these for a customer put a match grade barrel and bushing in then he wanted a Beavertail grip safety like a standard 1911 well you can imagine that wasn't really possible. In the end we settled on a Smith &Alexander magazine well extension, cut the plastic back strap to fit and everything worked great if memory serves me correctly I stoned and polished all the metal surfaces in the trigger mechanism and smoothed out the double action pull immensely and single action was super crisp. Wished I would have bought the gun after all that work she was a tack driver!
I was in the market for a .45 double action pistol back when the Double Eagle was introduced. I read a number of magazine reviews that described various problems it had, and went with a Smith & Wesson 4566 instead. I never regretted it. The Double Eagle became well known for having a whole slew of issues afflicting it.
I worked, for years, with a fellow LEO that owned two DA semi-auto pistols that were "big" for about thirty minutes historically speaking. The first that he purchased, and carried on duty, was a S&W in .45ACP and the second was a Colt's Double Eagle also in .45ACP (our department standard caliber at the time). Of the two pistols the Colt's was retired from daily carry in, if memory serves me, in 2000 while the S&W became his daily carry until his retirement in 2016 and remains his daily carry to this day while the Colt's is only taken out and fired now and then.
For those who find the little "paperclip" wire springs disconcerting, have a look under the grip panels of an older SIG P226. The SIG P226 is one of the best double action autos ever made and it had an almost identical setup.
Bought one brand new in .45 in the 90’s. Granted it’s a little weird but it’s accurate, has a smooth action and I’ve never had any problems in roughly 5000 rounds.
@@AsbestosMuffins Nah. 38 Super. 38 is a quite reasonable caliber, and super obviously means it's better. I'm sure everyone will be ditching wimpy 9mm for this clearly superior round. Or we could neck 10mm down to 9mm and get a round that is extra awesome!
They had some QC issues. My brother had a .45acp version. He sold it when it literally fell apart when he was shooting it. The firing pin retainer came out and jammed everything up. It could not get through more than a couple mags of ammo before some stoppage. I rarely use the term "junk" when describing a firearm, but a few examples were junk.
I'm a huge fan of the classic stylings of the 1911, and I love the look of the Double Eagle. I've never had the chance to shoot one, but would love to get one. The 1911 has always felt really nice in my hand. It just fits my hands nicely. So I think a Double Eagle would be a comfortable gun for me.
It's my understanding that part of the Double Eagle's problem was just that Colt had completely horrid quality control with the things. I've read a story from a gun writer, Dean Speir, who tried to review the gun back in late 1990 to early '91, and he got two Double Eagles that gave him grief - one had a round explode in his face when he fired it because the chamber looked like, in his words, it had been "assaulted by a Dremel-wielding dope fiend two days into withdrawal", and the other he couldn't even fire because a 10mm-marked gun somehow ended up with a .45 barrel.
more like they want to make a double-action auto-pistol to suit the market but too lazy to re-design the frame properly but still want some quick cash.
I bought my Colt 1991A1 from the USMC and loved it. Great accuracy no problems feeding no jamming problems. I saw the Colt double Eagle at a gun show! I looked at it the former Marine let me break it down along with the grips! I said NOPE!!!! I sold my Sheriff buddy from college my Colt 1991A1 cause he didn't have a backup! I had and used my Smith and Wesson 4006 in Security when others used the same weapon in the 9mm. That 40 was a great gun in the 40 but had bad groupings with the 4 inch barrel. I tried all kinds of ammo. I eat the paper away with my Colt 1991A1. I sold it to another cop buddy of mine and got me a SIG Sauer P220 45 ACP And ate the paper away again. I carried that weapon through out my law enforcement and security Career. I just bought 6 years ago the new Sig Sauer P320 45 ACP. And that weapon I ate away the paper also. My Glock 40 and HP Browning 40 cal was good but a bitch to break down that dam action rod spring. It almost put my eye out! Took that back to the gun store. My HK Mark 4 45 ACP was great to that ate the paper away. I didn't care for the Beretta a fellow co worker had it in 40 cal. A former Marine to. I had to teach him how to shoot it. Not as accurate as Colt Sig HK and Glock! These are the best Weapons ever. 40 cal and 45 good cal. I would love to get a 10 mm in Glock in the 20. 15 rounds of 185 grain semi jacket hollow points trucking at 1300 feet per second OH YAA!
Sig really was the leader in DA/SA back then with their 226/228. S&W tried everything to copy but when I saw him remove that grip panel, that is identical to a 226 design
Oh hey, I believe this is what the Falcon 2 from Perfect Dark was based on. While the FBI wasn't too impressed with this gun, it seems the Carrington Institute went all in and made it their agents' standard-issue sidearm. I can only imagine how disgruntled the agents must be, after seeing that partial disassembly. No wonder Jonathan used a Colt Python instead, lol
My cousin had one of these and I have always kicked myself for not buying it from him when he wanted to sell it. He just couldn't handle the full house 10mm rounds and I loved how this handled and shot.
So being a guy that grew up in the 80's & 90's (born in '78, class of '96) and "trained" on DA/SA pistols ever since I started shooting, I still prefer them over polymer, striker fired guns. Love the fact that you can carry sans safety (revolver style). The first, long DA with subsequent SA shots are second nature. And while I like pretty much all the wonder 9's & their immediate descendants, my favorite are the 3rd gen Smiths. My 5906 isn't the greatest CC option by today's standards. But to me, it's a fantastic nightstand gun. I guess Colt back in the 80's & 90's was really struggling . Unless it's a pure 1911 design or a revolver, anything they tried in order to play catch up and compete seems lackluster and uninspired. Like the gentleman said below, minimal effort. Their new product design team back then must have been a bunch of burnt out, long time employees in their 60's & 70's just waiting to pension out and retire. How they submitted some of these pistols for military trials and didn't die of embarrassment is beyond me. I think the worst of all was the one they submitted for that SOCOM trial that H&K eventually won and became the Mk 23. Offensive Handgun something or other. Come to think of it, I recall even more of a monstrosity that Ian made a vid for. Don't remember the details though...
I remember reading about the Double Eagle from a gun magazine during the 90's, in which not a lot was written about it. I wasn't sure at that time how really good or bad this pistol actually was, but certainly thought it looked quite ugly. To me, both the Colt Double Eagle and the FN 9x19 Browning BDA were examples of how people tried to put a double-action mechanism into John Moses Browning's classic pistol designs and turned out with less than desirable results and market flops. There was no way the Double Eagle could even come close competing with all the steel-framed DA/SA Smith & Wesson pistols that were so popular in the 90's! In fact, some of those remain my favourite Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistols to this day. I don't really care for the polymer M&P family that came after, since there are so many other good polymer pistols on the market.
I collected 10mm guns in the 90's because I thought the 10 would die out. I got the Colt DE in 10mm for a nice price. Also in my collection is a 1006. Only put a magfull through the Colt and it was actually a pretty sweet shooter with it's fatter grip, fatter than the 1006. 1006 has a fatter slide. Also it's NOT a Seecamp copy.
I’ll take a Colt 1911 Defender over the Double Eagle because it’s basically the same stainless look, but simpler and cuter, and it’s released in 2000, so just in time for the millennium.
That was a pistol in search of a market for it. It is what you offer if you were trying to design something worse but couldn't quite figure out how to do that.
Law enforcement legend has it that the motivator for adopting double action auto loaders in stead of the then US prevalent single action (ie 1911 style) was that the population was used to seeing police with a revolver, (hammer down) and that an officer carrying a 1911 style gun, cocked and locked, was viewed as "Gung ho" and ready to shoot someone.
Here in the Philippines, the Double Eagle is the most popular BB gun design. The funny thing is, growing up, I thought it was just a fictional name of the gun based on 1911
@@charlesdemers1197 yes, I think so. I think I have heard about the brand. altho the ones I encountered are the generic substandard chinese toymaker products lol
So many of my cheap childhood spring loaded airsoft (back then softair) guns had that double eagle on it. It was used like a brand, sometimes also STAR thrown in. Somewhere is a Double Eagle Mac-10 and a SSP stored away in a box.
So they tried to convince fudds to upgrade from the 1911, with a better 1911. You'd think they'd have realized that wouldn't work. Fudds never upgrade, cause they want a 1911 as JMB intended (ignoring the fact that JMB made the Hi-Power, a gun that fixes many of the 1911's flaws.)
I SOOOO wanted the Officer’s Model of this 10mm. I think I might put that on my list of things to look for in upcoming Morphy’s or RIAC Auctions... That and a 1st Release Detonics Combat Master to replace the one my wife stole.
Back in the day (the 'Wondernine' Era of the '70s and '80s), the DA/SA was touted for a long, safe DA pull, and a short, crisp SA pull for actual shooting. After several civil lawsuits against police depts for alleged negligent discharges due to 'hair trigger' SA triggers, 'Double Action Only' became popular, so makers modified both autopistols and revolvers to have only one moderately heavy trigger pull. This set the stage for striker pistols, with relatively heavy but consistent triggers. ENTER Glock and ilk.
Ian disassembles 1,000 year old guns down to the last screw, but the Double Eagle... “I’m going to only take off the side grips to show you the flying paper clips, and hopefully I can put it back together” what a terrible design.
I imagine part of the problem with this gun, other than marketing, was that when you strip it, say for cleaining, you have the little bits going everywhere. As we saw, that's not cool
@@jeffreyknickman5559 I hope that Dean Speir's Article is still online somewhere. He had a site called The Gun Zone many moons ago. A former writer for handgun publications, he wrote of an experience with the Double Eagle. Well, a couple. One of those was a gun sent to him by Colt for an article he would be writing. The pistol came with a 10mm frame and markings, but a barrel bored to .45 ACP. Dean found this out when he took out the barrel, tried to see how well the case was supported at the breech, and set a 10mm round into the chamber. Upon this, the 10mm cartridge slid down the barrel and dropped on to the floor.
Again, I really hope that somewhere out in the bits, bytes, and electrons, this article is still online somewhere. Dean concluded by calling the piece a "Double Beagle."
This, the G11 and the snabb semiauto conversion are the only guns so far that have made me laugh out loud upon dissasembly
"Those are in fact eagles, not elephants"
I fell off my chair, man; and he was his usual deadpan humor saying it.
here, take my like ;)
haha good one
loved that bit :)
Somewhere, a graphical designer just burst into tears.
Alternate title: "Lets talk about Colt Double Elephant in the Room."
If it was advertized that it can kill 2 elephants with one shot.... mmm. Maybe?
almost perfect, but you forgot the put the word "the" before you put the word "about" lol if you did, it'd be a perfect comment
Colt's attempts to keep up with what everyone else did twenty years prior could be an entire playlist.
"But I wanted a Deagle."
"I did get you a Deagle."
Tbh, I'd be fine with either one. One for the muscles, the other one for rarity 👌
I want a double elephant. I don´t know what weapon it is and what calibre. but I want one :)
We have Deagle at home.
Baby deagle tho...
@@exploatores If Colt made a double rifle in 450 Nitro Express, you could still call it your "Colt 45".
_Colt: Minimal effort for minimal results™_
I'm the 30th like!
B-buh-but muh SaM CoLt MaDe MaN EqUaL! That means the company's still great!
@@themadkraken1912 Wait... Samuel Colt was a communist?!
And you get minimal profit
I feel bad for which ever engineer was told "hey, see that P226? Make a 1911 into that."
This is now the Colt Double Elephant in my mind.
white elephant, more like
@@kenbrown2808.500 S&W Magnum version?
@@yetanotherbassdude
That was my first thought for caliber of it.
@@yetanotherbassdude Or .50AE perhaps?
@@AndrewAMartin So an LAR Grizzly?
Looks like beretta 92 and a 1911 had a kid they dont talk about.
Thats why alcohol and sex is not a good idea...you regret instantly what happend last evening when you wake up. Trust me.
This actually made me for real LOL.
There's some SIG in there.
But 10 mm ammo... Рerhaps Mr. S&W joined them.
So an orgy of drunk gun designers?
Introducing the All New Colt "Double Albatross"! For when you're trying to fail twice as hard.
Me: "Why is he ragging on this thing so much? It looks pretty great!"
Ian: *removes grip panels*
Me: "Oooooh... well, damn."
I can imagine the engineer showing Colt's management a proof-of-concept prototype made with bits of wire - and then being horrified when Colt put it into production without any changes.
@@AshleyPomeroy hahaha, that sounds like exactly what happened.
The trigger was spongy! If you broke a grip panel the trigger parts would just fall off the gun! Colt had a program of hiring engineers that had been rejected by British car companies!
It's got fucking piano wire in it, jesus...
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine I'd never heard of the Seecamp conversion except as the throwaway line in this video, but now that you also mention it, I'll have to look it up. Sounds like a cool bit of gun history.
Friend of mine owns an All American 2000. He tried trading it at a gun show a few years ago and couldn’t get squat for it.
May be worth a lot in about 60-70 years.
I had one briefly, it worked and shot alright but the trigger pull was bad enough that it made the tendons in my arm hurt.
I used to have one of those. I am normally very forgiving of bad triggers, but that one was on a new level of bad. Still sold it for profit though since I got it super cheap.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine A staple gun has a much more obtainable break than a colt 2000. Its also weird because its straight back, instead of pivoting like most guns. If you shortened it by half and inch, and decreased it by 15-20 pounds it would be a good SMG trigger though.
So basically it’s the “New Coke” of the 1911 world lol.
coke life ... with stevia? :-D
Except Coke learned not to do it again.
Crap! I just made a "New Coke" analogy before seeing your post. It's the EXACT concept. It failed for the EXACT reason!
I remember I used to have a BB gun version of this when I was a kid.
The decocking lever acted as a really bad safety that just made the trigger harder to pull.
Bless you for showing what’s going on below the grips!
Ian, I have a Double Eagle in 45 ACP, Officers model. I quite enjoy this pistol and it’s been very reliable. Thank you for your videos.
Let's be honest... the "next evolution" of the 1911 was the FN Hi Power, and later the CZ75/95. Colt failed to innovate much through the 20th century and it really hurt them later, and currently.
Love the video Ian. The weird guns are always my favorite.
Agreed
Yep. Love my CZ clone.
It wasn't for lack of trying.
@Juan Sanchez Not true, they attempted several designs that flopped in the marketplace. They tried, they were just not very successful.
@Juan Sanchez Without Browning selling them designs what could they do?
Really, what firearms of significance has Colt designed in the twentieth century? If we take out designs they bought from Browning and acquiring AR-15 rights from Armalite what is left? The Colt Python and ...
"those are in fact eagles, not elephants."
Thanks now I can't unsee that.
Speaking of 10mm FBI trial guns, I'd love it if you could somehow track down the Thompson SMG in 10mm that the FBI tried. And take it to the range.
I wouldn’t take comments as complaints... we all appreciate the content and work you put into your content... anyone truly complaining doesn’t appreciate the love of firearms... from a fellow illinoisian I appreciate you!
I appreciate the fair and balanced treatment you give to the subjects you cover.
Few things are either perfect or terrible, so it's nice to hear both sides from one source.
Since he's reviewing a gun that is currently for sale at RIA, I suspect that if he trashed it in the review, possibly decreasing the number of people who would bit on it, they might not want to let him review other firearms that they have for sale.
@@CurmudgeonExtraordinaire I can see that side of it, but I also think I have heard him say that some of the guns just plain sucked, except for 1 unique feature or another. Sometimes, some stuff gets to be so bad, it's good. (for collectors)
I actually own one of those. It's worse than you describe. Can O' snakes not springs. The DA is long and heavy for a gorilla. I'm spitting distance from RIA, if you're in area want a shooting video of it PM me.
Try sending him an email
+1 for Ian’s schedule (and christine’s generosity) allowing this. For Elbonia!
Paging Gun Jesus. Please respond @forgottenweapons
Paging Gun Jesus. Please respond.
I read this as IRA.
Glad for you to talk about this! I've been curious about this firearm for a while.
I've seen exactly one Double Eagle. The guy who had it collected odd and rare pistols. He specifically pointed out what a pain it was to disassemble, while he had a Papa Nambu spread out in front of him. He did say it was pretty good to shoot. He likes 10mm.
I carried a MKII series 90 Double Eagle in .45 for a few years. It was a awesome weapon. Tack driver as well.
Does it have the spring issue im buying one from a close friend the mk2 in .45
Maybe they should've named it the Half Ass instead of the Double Eagle, it pretty much sums up the design anyway lol.
I think it counts as quarter-assing at most when all you did was slap some extra parts onto an old gun without even bothering to attach them properly.
Feather less eagle?
@@HansLasser Wouldn't an eagle without feathers be a bald eagle?
@@CptJistuce I suppose so but bald eagles are respected in USA. Featherless sound better for me. It carriesmore the negative tone of Ian's vid.
It's probably just me, but I've always liked the look of the Double Eagle.
Looks like a far 1911.
I own one in 45cal. The spring issue sucks but I bring it to the range everytime I go. Shoots great and never fails. I like it...
You're not alone. There's probably 5-10 other people too. 😉
I like the way it looks, probably because it is literally a 1911 with a different handle
As the British would say, "bit of a bodge".
I dare suggest it's a right cock-up.
@@UTubeHandlesSuck nah. A cock-up doesn’t really work at all. A bodge job works but in a horrible, ugly, inefficient and likely to fail fashion.
I was waiting for the term "kludged". I fear that our friend Ian has been kidnapped and replaced.
They made a bit of a hash of it.
bit of a buggery
I own one, bought double eagle officer model, 2 years ago and think it’s not that bad.
It’s part of my Colt collection ( 1903 .32 , 1911 series 70 .38 super, Pre- series 70 lightweight Commander .45 , Double Eagle series 90 .45)
I remember these. I didn't care for the feel of it. Thanks Ian. Another great evaluation. God bless all here.
That is a design that should have never left the designer's drawing board. Those springs were a total joke
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine Para-Ordnance is the one company that immediately comes to mind as having figured out how to make DA 1911s that aren't awful. And even those guns don't seem to have been a big hit.
I feel like part of the issue is that 1911 buyers and high-capacity DA/SA buyers are two distinct groups, and few people in either camp are interested in a weird gun halfway between the two.
I bet the Elbonian military would love these!
It's not bubba'd enough.
The Elbonian military would want an inch of barrel sawed off, a perforated barrel shroud welded on, the grip cut to fit an unrelated drum magazine or belt-feed, the rear sight filed off to save weight, a slightly bent front sight attached with a single hex bolt, and a paracord belt lanyard looped through the hole in the hammer.
@@googiegress it also needs a lanyard loop both on the bottom of the mainspring housing and also on the bottom of the magazine, perplexing slide cuts and probably an unorthodox hammer.
@@stevenbobbybills Hahaha #elboniandesignteam
It would also need to be in .30 Luger lol.
To be fair, it's contemporaries the P220 and frame-decocker S&Ws (1026/1076 and 4526/4576) also have pretty fragile looking springs hanging off the frame when you remove the grips. I've never heard of a P220 failing in the same way though. The frame-decocker S&Ws DID run into issues since while they were DA/SA from the start their frame decockers were kind of a bolted on afterthought that could cause problems as well, which was part of the demise of the FBI 1076s. S&W did fix those issues but ultimately quietly discontinued their frame decocker guns a few years after their introduction.
Double seagulls on the side mean this is meant for the landfill.
too be fair, the eagle they used as a model basically looks like a seagull and has the size of one.
Mine !
Mine mine mine ?!!!
The slide guide thing tapering down and the trigger guard really make this funky lookin
When you're comparing a Colt gun to a Llama Omni...ouch
Well take down is easy. All you have to do is take off the grip frames, The gun does the rest of the work.
"Its a Feature!" ~some colt exec in marketing, 1996
And hope you have a table to do it at. Try doing this out in the field
I once modified one of these for a customer put a match grade barrel and bushing in then he wanted a Beavertail grip safety like a standard 1911 well you can imagine that wasn't really possible. In the end we settled on a Smith &Alexander magazine well extension, cut the plastic back strap to fit and everything worked great if memory serves me correctly I stoned and polished all the metal surfaces in the trigger mechanism and smoothed out the double action pull immensely and single action was super crisp. Wished I would have bought the gun after all that work she was a tack driver!
Isn't weird that any firearm that Colt is famous for making is made better by other manufacturers
Heresy
As a colt fanboy, I kinda have to agree with you. I would even say my 686 is a better gun than my python. Though I still love and collect colts.
Colt Python
@@weasle2904 As a work of art, sure. As an actual working gun, GP100 is better.
@@sky4149 im talking more like clones of colt guns the 686 isnt really a colt clone but colt themselves cant even clone it right lol
I was in the market for a .45 double action pistol back when the Double Eagle was introduced. I read a number of magazine reviews that described various problems it had, and went with a Smith & Wesson 4566 instead. I never regretted it. The Double Eagle became well known for having a whole slew of issues afflicting it.
The DA/SA is the safest and most accurate style of pistol. Things went backward when the Glock 17 superseded the Beretta 92FS as the tactical sidearm.
Wow, what a way to end my birthday, Watching my favorite UA-camr. Thanks Ian!
I worked, for years, with a fellow LEO that owned two DA semi-auto pistols that were "big" for about thirty minutes historically speaking. The first that he purchased, and carried on duty, was a S&W in .45ACP and the second was a Colt's Double Eagle also in .45ACP (our department standard caliber at the time). Of the two pistols the Colt's was retired from daily carry in, if memory serves me, in 2000 while the S&W became his daily carry until his retirement in 2016 and remains his daily carry to this day while the Colt's is only taken out and fired now and then.
For those who find the little "paperclip" wire springs disconcerting, have a look under the grip panels of an older SIG P226. The SIG P226 is one of the best double action autos ever made and it had an almost identical setup.
I had one of them, 0069. A piece shit. Only gun I ever had that failed completely. A spring actually rusted and broke.
Sounds like the only thing nice about it was the serial number
@@TheTerminatorCarrot Nice.
Is it the gun's fault if a spring rusted and broke? Rusting sounds more like user error
@@flightlesschicken7769 No because parts are expected to be made to a quality standard that prevents that
@@TheTerminatorCarrot ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
" The Colt is not as good as the S&W but more expensive." Well that is about as close as you can get to a universal truth!
These are actually really enjoyable to shoot.
Bought one brand new in .45 in the 90’s. Granted it’s a little weird but it’s accurate, has a smooth action and I’ve never had any problems in roughly 5000 rounds.
Paper clips used in the mechanism, this sounds like an ideal gun for the Elbonian armed forces
This is what happens when Elbonia sets about modernizing.
10mm in general sounds like the up and coming cartridge that they would standardize on
@@AsbestosMuffins Nah. 38 Super. 38 is a quite reasonable caliber, and super obviously means it's better. I'm sure everyone will be ditching wimpy 9mm for this clearly superior round. Or we could neck 10mm down to 9mm and get a round that is extra awesome!
@@taccovert4 10mm necked down to 9mm honestly doesn't seem that bad.
@@bagochips834 that's called 357 SIG
I own several Sig Sauer pistols and the basics of the trigger and decocker are remarkably similar.
If you're talking about the old Made in Germany pistols, the right side is similar. But the left is nothing like this turd.
Engineering has three angles: cheap, fast and good. And you can go after only two of them. The 'suits' left the good on the wayside as a roadkill.
My management pretends it is possible to get the three of them. I suppose with a huge discount on the third one. 😣😫
@@HansLasser 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
And 'cheap' was probably only for the design department, not the consumer.
Intersting video. You are an articulate speaker.
They had some QC issues. My brother had a .45acp version. He sold it when it literally fell apart when he was shooting it. The firing pin retainer came out and jammed everything up. It could not get through more than a couple mags of ammo before some stoppage. I rarely use the term "junk" when describing a firearm, but a few examples were junk.
Thank you , Ian .
I'm a huge fan of the classic stylings of the 1911, and I love the look of the Double Eagle. I've never had the chance to shoot one, but would love to get one. The 1911 has always felt really nice in my hand. It just fits my hands nicely. So I think a Double Eagle would be a comfortable gun for me.
It's my understanding that part of the Double Eagle's problem was just that Colt had completely horrid quality control with the things.
I've read a story from a gun writer, Dean Speir, who tried to review the gun back in late 1990 to early '91, and he got two Double Eagles that gave him grief - one had a round explode in his face when he fired it because the chamber looked like, in his words, it had been "assaulted by a Dremel-wielding dope fiend two days into withdrawal", and the other he couldn't even fire because a 10mm-marked gun somehow ended up with a .45 barrel.
So the simple philosophy of "if it isn't broken don't fix it" killed this pistol then.
more like they want to make a double-action auto-pistol to suit the market but too lazy to re-design the frame properly but still want some quick cash.
@@1179125 Beretta and S&W pistols were based on Walther P38, so naturally they were way better.
Don't let perfection be the enemy of good enough...ish
I bought my Colt 1991A1 from the USMC and loved it. Great accuracy no problems feeding no jamming problems. I saw the Colt double Eagle at a gun show! I looked at it the former Marine let me break it down along with the grips! I said NOPE!!!! I sold my Sheriff buddy from college my Colt 1991A1 cause he didn't have a backup! I had and used my Smith and Wesson 4006 in Security when others used the same weapon in the 9mm. That 40 was a great gun in the 40 but had bad groupings with the 4 inch barrel. I tried all kinds of ammo. I eat the paper away with my Colt 1991A1. I sold it to another cop buddy of mine and got me a SIG Sauer P220 45 ACP
And ate the paper away again. I carried that weapon through out my law enforcement and security Career. I just bought 6 years ago the new Sig Sauer P320 45 ACP. And that weapon I ate away the paper also. My Glock 40 and HP Browning 40 cal was good but a bitch to break down that dam action rod spring. It almost put my eye out! Took that back to the gun store. My HK Mark 4 45 ACP was great to that ate the paper away. I didn't care for the Beretta a fellow co worker had it in 40 cal. A former Marine to. I had to teach him how to shoot it. Not as accurate as Colt Sig HK and Glock! These are the best Weapons ever. 40 cal and 45 good cal. I would love to get a 10 mm in Glock in the 20. 15 rounds of 185 grain semi jacket hollow points trucking at 1300 feet per second OH YAA!
Sig really was the leader in DA/SA back then with their 226/228. S&W tried everything to copy but when I saw him remove that grip panel, that is identical to a 226 design
Oh hey, I believe this is what the Falcon 2 from Perfect Dark was based on.
While the FBI wasn't too impressed with this gun, it seems the Carrington Institute went all in and made it their agents' standard-issue sidearm. I can only imagine how disgruntled the agents must be, after seeing that partial disassembly.
No wonder Jonathan used a Colt Python instead, lol
Got to shoot a 45 DE last week, Decocker was very stiff. the owner never used that feature. He bought it 35 years ago, never took it apart either.
hey look, it's the official Carrington Institute sidearm
My cousin had one of these and I have always kicked myself for not buying it from him when he wanted to sell it. He just couldn't handle the full house 10mm rounds and I loved how this handled and shot.
After watching these videos, I wonder: is Colt its own worst enemy?
Ian always has the best things to say.
"In case you don't get it theirs two eagles" I spit out my coffee
This looks like a home garage design. It is hard to believe this is a factory made item.
Ian is the type of guy who bought every gun he has reviewed.
I'll give Colt credit, they never gave up.
Honestly it seemed like a great idea until you said that the trigger mechanism was on the outside of the gun.
Why is Colt like this?
Because every clone they have of John Moses Browning deep in the Ogden factory basement has banged it's face into it's tube and died in the vat.
Beretta and Sig seem to have done OK with those concepts.
@@MeatGuyJ The clones hear the high-pitched note of JMB rotating in his grave, and know that Now is Not the Time.
This is what happens when people buy your product because of the name and not the actual product.
@@owllymannstein7113 cough cough Harley Davidson cough cough
*Picked up a Falcon 2*
Ah yes, I fondly remember this one. It served me well during my fights with friends.
It was a pellet gun.
The Double Eagle was the single most accurate factory 1911 or variant I have fired.
And the trigger was as good as a Beretta 92.
So being a guy that grew up in the 80's & 90's (born in '78, class of '96) and "trained" on DA/SA pistols ever since I started shooting, I still prefer them over polymer, striker fired guns. Love the fact that you can carry sans safety (revolver style). The first, long DA with subsequent SA shots are second nature. And while I like pretty much all the wonder 9's & their immediate descendants, my favorite are the 3rd gen Smiths. My 5906 isn't the greatest CC option by today's standards. But to me, it's a fantastic nightstand gun.
I guess Colt back in the 80's & 90's was really struggling . Unless it's a pure 1911 design or a revolver, anything they tried in order to play catch up and compete seems lackluster and uninspired. Like the gentleman said below, minimal effort. Their new product design team back then must have been a bunch of burnt out, long time employees in their 60's & 70's just waiting to pension out and retire. How they submitted some of these pistols for military trials and didn't die of embarrassment is beyond me. I think the worst of all was the one they submitted for that SOCOM trial that H&K eventually won and became the Mk 23. Offensive Handgun something or other. Come to think of it, I recall even more of a monstrosity that Ian made a vid for. Don't remember the details though...
I remember reading about the Double Eagle from a gun magazine during the 90's, in which not a lot was written about it. I wasn't sure at that time how really good or bad this pistol actually was, but certainly thought it looked quite ugly. To me, both the Colt Double Eagle and the FN 9x19 Browning BDA were examples of how people tried to put a double-action mechanism into John Moses Browning's classic pistol designs and turned out with less than desirable results and market flops.
There was no way the Double Eagle could even come close competing with all the steel-framed DA/SA Smith & Wesson pistols that were so popular in the 90's! In fact, some of those remain my favourite Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistols to this day. I don't really care for the polymer M&P family that came after, since there are so many other good polymer pistols on the market.
I imagine some “manufacturer” from Khyber Pass watching Ian and cringing as he takes off the grips and those poor bits and springs falling out.
I collected 10mm guns in the 90's because I thought the 10 would die out. I got the Colt DE in 10mm for a nice price. Also in my collection is a 1006. Only put a magfull through the Colt and it was actually a pretty sweet shooter with it's fatter grip, fatter than the 1006. 1006 has a fatter slide. Also it's NOT a Seecamp copy.
I’ll take a Colt 1911 Defender over the Double Eagle because it’s basically the same stainless look, but simpler and cuter, and it’s released in 2000, so just in time for the millennium.
I'd probably take the Colt SSP 9mm.
I’ve seen a lot of 1911 spin-offs that didn’t go well. You’d think colt would learn
My Family should not have bailed them out the first time, is that what you are saying? Were is our return, we deserve better.
That was a pistol in search of a market for it. It is what you offer if you were trying to design something worse but couldn't quite figure out how to do that.
Both birds on slide have a T and look like a Thanksgiving bird .
The Colt Double Turkey ?
Yes .
Beat me to it!
Why are they looking backward? It seems like they are laughing at the shooter.
Very unique Colt DA/SA 10mm firearm !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Law enforcement legend has it that the motivator for adopting double action auto loaders in stead of the then US prevalent single action (ie 1911 style) was that the population was used to seeing police with a revolver, (hammer down) and that an officer carrying a 1911 style gun, cocked and locked, was viewed as "Gung ho" and ready to shoot someone.
Here in the Philippines, the Double Eagle is the most popular BB gun design. The funny thing is, growing up, I thought it was just a fictional name of the gun based on 1911
It’s also an airsoft brand, yes?
@@charlesdemers1197 yes, I think so. I think I have heard about the brand.
altho the ones I encountered are the generic substandard chinese toymaker products lol
Speaking of the Philippines, what's your opinion on PH's local gun industry, like Armscor etc?
"Guys, what if we put on the market what is basically a sloppy prototype? That can't possibly go wrong, right?"
- You need DA on your 1911.
- NO. Pistol is fine!
dude, as you said " this are not elephants" i can't unseen it now
My dad has one in 45. I really don’t like the da pull on it and disassembly sucks but we got it for a good deal at an estate sale
Ian's extra snarky today, I like it!
It's a modern Colt gun, snarkiness guaranteed
The pistol is very accurate!
So many of my cheap childhood spring loaded airsoft (back then softair) guns had that double eagle on it. It was used like a brand, sometimes also STAR thrown in. Somewhere is a Double Eagle Mac-10 and a SSP stored away in a box.
It literally is a chinese airsoft gun brand
This era of Colt is why nobody missed the 6920.
I'm digging the Best Millimeter though, points for that.
Kid: Mom I want a deagle
Mom:We have a deagle at home
deagle at home:
So they tried to convince fudds to upgrade from the 1911, with a better 1911. You'd think they'd have realized that wouldn't work. Fudds never upgrade, cause they want a 1911 as JMB intended (ignoring the fact that JMB made the Hi-Power, a gun that fixes many of the 1911's flaws.)
There are "better" 1911 around. This is not one. It's unnecessarily complicated, and fragile too.
I SOOOO wanted the Officer’s Model of this 10mm.
I think I might put that on my list of things to look for in upcoming Morphy’s or RIAC Auctions... That and a 1st Release Detonics Combat Master to replace the one my wife stole.
Back in the day (the 'Wondernine' Era of the '70s and '80s), the DA/SA was touted for a long, safe DA pull, and a short, crisp SA pull for actual shooting. After several civil lawsuits against police depts for alleged negligent discharges due to 'hair trigger' SA triggers, 'Double Action Only' became popular, so makers modified both autopistols and revolvers to have only one moderately heavy trigger pull. This set the stage for striker pistols, with relatively heavy but consistent triggers. ENTER Glock and ilk.
From an armorer perspective it looks preferable than a 3rd gen smith, even accounting for the spring gymnastics
I am surprised Colt survived the 90’s they made kinds of blunders then that caused them to lose customers
I have a first gen of this firearm (.45 version). Still oddly enjoy it.
Colt proving that 120 years after their first attempt they still can't build a good double action handgun