At this exhibition of "paintings" only one "Colt" is present...
1. We won't start with the first Colt model, but with the most popular. This is the Colt Peacemaker, made in 1874, manufactured in Hartford, Connecticut. It is 33,02 inches long, has a barrel length of 19,05 inches, and is chambered in 11mm caliber.
“A soldier emerged from the bushes, putting a large Colt revolver into his holster, and silently got into the car next to the Chinese man.”
"At a Dead End" by V. V. Veresaev
"At a Dead End" by V. V. Veresaev
stories about weapons. It's always nice to learn something new. And it's unpleasant to read a rehash of something well-known, long ago. And to read about "automatic revolvers" where, as they say, there's not even a whiff of them. And then there are Colt revolvers. Only the lazy haven't written about them. But is there anything else we can write about them, and how, in what format, is it best to do so? In my opinion, given everything that's been written about them so far, we need to organize a... exhibition of them and provide the most accurate information in the captions, which hasn't always been provided in other articles by everyone. So that everyone can compare and contrast everything, and have precise size data. There's hardly anyone who could benefit from this, right? And so today we're organizing just such an exhibition of Colt revolvers here at VO. And for this, we'll be using the Colt repository, which is the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York...
2. The Wells Fargo revolver. Also a Colt revolver. Made circa 1851. Materials: steel, silver, mahogany! Length: 222 cm, barrel length: 10,2 cm, caliber: 7,9 mm. Weight: 618 g.
3. Colt M1860 Army Percussion Revolver, serial number 7569, with accessories, manufactured at the Hartford, Connecticut plant. Year of manufacture: 1861. Materials: steel, brass, silver, gold, mahogany, textile. Length 36,83 cm, barrel length 20,32 cm. Caliber 11 mm
4. Colt M1862 Police Revolver with a Thurer device for firing cartridges loaded into the cylinder from the barrel side. Hartford, Connecticut. Year of manufacture: 1862. Materials: steel, gold, silver, brass, wood (rosewood), textile. Overall length: 38 cm. Caliber: 9 mm.
5. Colt Dragoon, 1852, made in Hartford, Connecticut. Materials: steel, brass, silver, walnut. Length 35,56 inches, barrel length 19,05 inches, caliber 11 inches.
6. Colt Dragoon, Third Model, 1853, same manufacture, same materials. Length: 37,47 cm, barrel length: 19,5 cm, caliber: 11,4 mm.
7. Colt Model 1849, but manufactured in 1853. Hartford, Connecticut. Materials: steel, brass, silver, ivory. Barrel length: 6 in. (15,24 cm). Caliber: 8 mm.
8. And this is the engraving on its ivory-lined handle...
9. Colt Navy. Revolver manufactured in 1851. Materials: steel, brass, walnut. Barrel length: 19,5 cm. Caliber: 10 mm.
10. The engraving on its barrel…
11. The same Colt, manufactured in 1853-1854, but converted to the design of Thurer in 1868-1871. Materials: steel, brass, silver, wood, copper, ivory. Length 33,02 cm, barrel length 19,05 cm. Caliber 9 mm.
12. Colt pocket pistol, 1855. Trigger: nipple, hammer: side. Hartford, Connecticut. Materials: steel, oak. Length: 19,99 cm, barrel length: 8,89 cm. Caliber: 7 mm.
…and accessories to it
13. Colt-Police. Gift copy. Circa 1868. Materials: steel, gold, brass. Length 27,9 cm. Caliber 9,1 mm.
The goddess of justice on the hilt…
…and the bald eagle – the symbol of the USA
14. The Colt-Paterson often appears in articles about Samuel Colt's revolvers, but photos of this Paterson are rare. This is a Paterson No. 3, 1838 model. Made in Paterson, New Jersey. Materials: steel, silver, mother-of-pearl. Length: 42,55 cm. Barrel length: 30,48 cm. Caliber: 10,2 mm.
15. Colt-Paterson, but with a lever added under the barrel for tightly ramming the bullet. Materials: steel, silver, mother-of-pearl. Circa 1840. Length 35,56 cm, barrel length 22,86 cm. Caliber 10 mm.
16. Another Paterson, but this one is a pocket pistol, circa 1840-1843. Paterson, New Jersey. Materials: steel, walnut. Length 16,5 cm, barrel length 7,6 cm. Caliber 7,1 mm.
...and accessories for this revolver
18. Colt Derringer, circa 1870. Materials: steel, gold, mother-of-pearl. Length 11,7 cm, barrel length 5,9 cm. Caliber 10,4 mm. Weight 198,5 g.
19. The same pistol. Left side view.
20. Colt Dragoon, Third Model, made in 1853. Hartford, Connecticut. Materials: steel, brass, gold, walnut. Length 35,6 cm, barrel length 19,1 cm. Caliber 11,2 mm. Weight 1592 g.
21. Another gift Colt revolver of the same third model in a beautiful case with accessories. Similar revolvers were made in a special Colt workshop and then presented to Emperor Nicholas I in order to win his favor and secure profitable supplies of their weapons for the Russian Imperial Army. Year of manufacture: 1848. Materials: steel, gold, wood. Length: 24,8 cm, barrel length: 12,7 cm. Caliber: 7,9 cm. Weight: 671,9 g.
All of Samuel Colt's revolvers shown here date back to the period of his life and work. While his engineering abilities are sometimes debated, his talent as a talented organizer and marketer is undeniable. Long before Henry Ford, he established mass production of revolvers in his factories and achieved complete interchangeability of their parts.
At the 1852 London International Exhibition, he personally sat over boxes of revolver parts, taking any parts he could find and, without trying them on, assembling one revolver after another in full view of the public. This astonished even the seasoned Englishmen! Tours were organized at his factories to see how, instead of sturdy blacksmiths in sooty aprons, frail young women worked there, effortlessly crafting complex parts by machine. Colt built an entire town for his workers – Coltsville – complete with greenery, a pond, and picnic areas. Clubs for the women workers in Coltsville included home economics, knitting, sewing, music, choral singing (including for the male workers!), and even horseback riding!
Colt employed a staff of people whose job it was to read... a wide variety of American newspapers. As soon as a newspaper published a negative review of his revolver, a retraction was immediately written, and the dissatisfied party was offered a free replacement. "The editor printed an article about us?!" Colt would ask his staff. "Give him a revolver right now!" Colt's engraving shop produced revolvers priced at $400, with an average retail price of $12, and he didn't hesitate to give them to the right people—government officials, generals, and even ordinary army officers—so they would write glowing reviews from below.
Colt himself repeatedly traveled to Europe, where he also presented his revolvers to kings and emperors, generals and admirals. It's therefore not surprising that "revolver" and "Colt" were often considered synonymous, and Colt revolvers enjoyed exceptional popularity worldwide. It's no wonder that during the American Civil War, Colt revolvers were the most frequently copied by Southerners, although they could have copied other revolver designs used by the Union army.
Even after Colt's death, the popularity of his revolvers never waned. Engineer Thuerer's innovation—a barrel-loading cylinder chambered for a conical cartridge—kept it alive. And when Rollin White's patent for a revolver with a bored-through cylinder expired, the immediate introduction of the Colt Peacemaker honorably maintained that popularity and continued to do so for many years to come!
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