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
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