Colt’s Manufacturing was on the firing line at the SHOT Show 2017 Industry Day at the Range, showing off their new handguns and rifles. Center stage was Colt’s re-entry to the double action wheelgun market, the reinvented Cobra. Unlike the previous Cobra, the new gun is all-steel, doing away with its nominal predecessor’s aluminum frame. This makes it closer to the old stainless fourth series Detective Special than the older Cobras, and therefore puts it in the same bracket as the S&W 640, Ruger SP101, and the new Kimber K6s.

At the range, TFB took the new Cobra out for a spin, and found it very comparable to its stablemates. Double action mode on the Cobra gave me no problems, with little stacking. Compared to my memory of Kimber’s excellent K6s pre-production models at last year’s Industry Day, I would characterize the Cobra’s double action as being a little worse, but it was highly comparable to the K6ses present at the show this year. This leads me to believe that in terms of trigger quality across production units, the Cobra and K6s overlap more than not, provided that the guns present at Industry Day are representative of the production Cobra.

Single action on the demo Cobra was very good, with no creep and a low pull weight, although single action is in general not that useful on a carry revolver.

Unlike the K6s, 640 Pro, or SP101 Wiley Clapp, the Colt sports fixed trench rear sights, but those are augmented by a fiber optic front sight that felt very easy to pick up. In trade, the Cobra is slated to be significantly cheaper than its stablemates, with Colt listing an MSRP of $699, $200 less than the K6s.