My friend loaned me his Gold Cup for a little look back and accuracy testing of a Colt Gold Cup around 2005. I can estimate it’s age based on the rear sight being a Colt marked copy of the Bomar the gun still having the old duck bill grip safety. Later replaced with a proper up-swept fitted beavertail.

I had one exactly like it back around that time but traded it for a more desirable ( to me ) Colt.

The pistols are pretty nice. Other than the grip safety I can’t think of many things you could have complained about at the time and even that is a little nit pick. I don’t know anyone who actually liked it. If I can’t have a proper fitted beavertail just give me the old style rat tail. Colt was very resistant to just fitting a proper beavertail grip safety for some reason. Every other Mfg was already doing it. Colt. A history of missed opportunities and being behind the curve…

I shot from 10 yards off hand. I could have shot from a bench and bags and I probably should have but I am trying to shake the rust off myself from winter.

Five rounds of speer 230 FMJ. Awful. One even went off paper.

Five rounds of Winchester Ranger T 230 +P grain HPs. Not bad!

This is a full 7 rounds of the Winchester 230 FMJ made to USGI specs. I wish I had more, I will be carrying this in my USGI 1911A1 on the rare times I carry it for special events. I pulled that lowest shot. No excuse on that.

This is a hand load of a 230 grain lead bullet. Five rounds at about 700fps. This is one of Brady’s loads for use in his CCWD training classes. Very mild but pretty accurate most of the time.

This is one of my handloads using the older style FMJ Hornady 185 match bullet. They haven’t made it in years. I wish they still did. Looks like the day has pretty much come that Ol’ Shawn has run out of components he’s been using since 1997.

I don’t really consider any of those groups anything special. Maybe slightly better than the carry type or combat pistols from the same decade. The XSE line also came with the same stainless NM barrel as the Gold Cups, and I honestly never could tell much different in accuracy from all the 1911 line. I guess the difference was the Gold Cups had the Bomar sights and the wider trigger and were otherwise plain. Like a target pistol only needed to slow fire target shooting. The Gold Cup National Match was a blued version with the Colt Elliason read adjustable sight. A much inferior sight in my opinion.

You can get a dozen variations of Gold Cups now. A lot of them with all the touches you’d have went crazy for back when it would have mattered most for them. Mag wells, in 9mm, .38 Super. Blue, staineless, two tone. I think I’d opt for this one if I was gonna buy a new one. As I’ve gotten older I have come to understand why the old guys like old stuff.