Two-inch Colts: when it's okay to be a Dick

American Handgunner, Nov-Dec, 2006 by Massad Ayoob

In 1927, Colt put a 2" barrel on their Police Positive Special and created the Detective Special. It was the first small-frame .38 Special snub-nose. Some still insist it was the best.

Before WWII, Colt had rounded the butt to make it conceal better, creating the distinctive silhouette the gun would have for most of its production period. When production resumed after the War, Colt (and S&W) went to work on the Aircrewman project, ultra-light .38 Specials for Air Force pilots. Colt's now super-rare Aircrewman had a higher grip hump on the backstrap for better recoil control, and a lengthened ejector rod. The latter feature would be absorbed into production guns in the 1950s for more positive ejection: the former would not.

The Aircrewman guns didn't wildly excite the Air Force, but in 1950 Colt introduced a gun that revolutionized the small-frame revolver market--an aluminum-framed Detective Special. This Colt Cobra became hugely popular. Colt offered a hammer-shroud attachment allowing thumb-cocking while preventing snag against fabric on the draw. In 1955 Colt shortened the Cobra's butt to the stubby length of the standard J-frame Smith, and called it the Agent.

These guns soldiered on unchanged until 1972, when Colt offered a makeover now referred to by collectors as the "second issue." There were bigger stocks on all but the Agent, and a two-ounce heavier barrel with stovepipe configuration, an ejector rod shroud, and a steeply-ramped front sight that went all the way back to the front of the frame. Other variations would be offered, a Parkerized Detective Special (called the Commando) and Agent, both efforts at keeping Colt's traditionally higher price down. That failed, and the guns were discontinued for good in 1986. A decade later, a clone with redesigned action emerged, known as the SF-VI (Small Frame, six-shot) and DS-II in stainless. Purists thought they weren't "real" Dick Specials, and they didn't last long. The best of that short-lived breed was what may have been the nicest pocketsized six-shot .357 ever built, the Colt Magnum Carry.