Air Force Premium Grade Gold Cup

Robert H. Caldwell

I have an unusual pistol. It is a 4 digit S/N Colt Gold Cup from the Air Force Marksmanship Unit marked AFPG. Frame, barrel, slide and magazine are all serial numbered. Grips, bushing, etc are all stamped "AF" and the frame is marked "AFPG". Not many references to to this gun that I can find although Hallock does mention it in his book on .45s. I've never seen or talked to anyone else who has ever seen one of these.

Anyone know how many of these guns exist and what they are worth?

bobski

welcome to the boards.
perryshooter will be by soon. he'll set you straight. based on my exposure to military team matches, id venture to say its a rare pup.

perry shooter

Hello When I started shooting Bulls-Eye in the mid 1960's the air force was the team to beat and had some of the best pistols ever built how ever I am a bit surprised that it is built on a gold cup. There was a special run of pistols that were not finished but in the white shipped to the military pistol teams that were marked 45acp KIT but this started in 1964 before 1963 they used rack guns and just fitted slides to frames and used welded up barrels or later match barrels your pistol would be 1963 or earlier.But I don't think the airforce ever bought gold cups. Most of the heavy hitters did not like the early GOLD CUPS because of the lightning cuts in the slide and even though they liked the idea of a wide trigger there was problems because of the Gold Cup trigger was heavy and would bounce and cause the pistol to double with light trigger pulls. The best book to read IMHO is one by Bill Jenkins that is new on military match pistols . In the early 1970's a shooter by the name of WEBB was selling all of the air force pistols by the parts only at Camp Perry and I bought some to build my match guns on but I don't remember any GOLD CUP models . MY best guess is this and I base the next statement on what I know happened at Quantico and the Marine pistol teams. If you were on the marine team you drew pistols but when you left the team you turned in these pistols . However if you were on the BIG team the guys in the shop would build you a pistol to keep if you furnished the slide and frame. I think your pistol is one such pistol .It seemed like they did not have to account for small parts . In fact as a civ. shooter you may get them to help you with "REPAIRS" on your gun these repairs could involve many new parts if you had some unsafe/defective older parts. The pistol smiths marked the barrel, bushing, slide and frame usually with the frame number as these 4 parts are the major parts that must be fitted to shoot good groups the other small parts triggers etc make a pistol easier to shoot well but do little as to groupe size.The Springfield armory and Rock Island arsenal made many match pistols for military teams but these used RACK frames and new National match parts. Cheers Karl "PRAISE THE HARD-BALL GUN"

Robert H. Caldwell

"Hallock's .45 Auto Handbook" by Ken Hallock (1980) mentions the AFPG Gold Cup on page 64. I attempted to Google the topic and found one reference on the net that mentioned the AFPG Gold Cup as well. Unfortunately, that is all the info I've been able to come up with. Hallock says there were about 10,000 AF pistols of all kinds ever built. At any rate that is all the info I've been able to find, so I was lookiing for more. I have a friend that wants to buy it, but neither of us has a clue what the value is. Thanks.

iceracerx

Does your friend want to shoot it or collect it?

Seems to me that those would be two different prices. (but I'm funny that way - when I'm done with something and sell it, I sell it for what I think it is worth, or for what I have into it)

You know what you paid for this pistol. You know what your friend intends to do with it. Let that be your guide

I know that in the 60's anyone could go to "Perry" with a 1911 frame and come back with a "National Match" 45. All you had to do was find an armorer willing to build it. As Perryshooter already said, no one accounted for the small parts. And there were buckets of new and used parts at each and every Service's Armorer's shack. Prices ranged from cartons of cigs to pints of whatever. Those sure were different times.

Robert H. Caldwell

My friend is a collector of U.S. military arms.

iceracerx

It seems that Charles Petty was an AF armorer, perhaps you can email him and ask him about your pistol?

http://www.highbeam.com/library/docFree.asp?DOCID=1G1:133527170

The Blue Book lists AFPG National Match (No mention of Gold CUP) as:

98% $1593.75
95% $1250.00
90% $875.00
80% $781.25

These prices are for the Government National Match "Reworks"

I hope this helps

ICE