A Brief History
On March 5, 1836, Samuel Colt formed the gun-manufacturing company that would produce the pistols “that won the West.” We have already written about Mr. Colt and his innovative and successful revolver, but this time around, we are going to discuss the problems with it.
Digging Deeper
Colt created his invention when percussion caps were replacing flintlock ignition systems, and the percussion cap is what made a revolving cylinder firearm practical. When relying on flintlock ignition, powder could easily fall out of the individual pan or chain fire, with all cylinders going off at once. (This could happen to percussion revolvers as well, but only rarely.) Metallic cartridges containing the primer, propellant (gunpowder) and projectile (bullet) all in a nice water-resistant metal shell casing, however, were right around the corner, a logical step in firearms development and one that made percussion caps the shortest-reigning ignition type in firearms history.
Colt was happy with his invention and did not seek to embrace metallic cartridges until Smith & Wesson (S&W) had cornered the market (starting in 1856), leaving Colt as an also-ran (loser in the race). The Colt revolvers (percussion or cartridge) were prone to accidentally fire if the hammer was situated on a loaded chamber and the revolver falling on its hammer, leading wise “pistoleros” to keep an empty chamber under the hammer. Colt’s pistols also suffered from another design weakness, that being their open-top frame, whereas S&W and others had a stronger closed frame. The Colt pistol most associated with the Wild West was the Single Action Army of 1873, also known as “The Peacemaker.” Though being able to fire a potent .45 caliber cartridge, the pistol was ridiculously slow to unload and reload, with the operator having to individually push out one empty case at a time to replace it with a fresh round. In the S&W models, on the other hand, all 6 empty cases could be dumped at one time, which allowed for rapid reload of the chambers in short order. This colossal design mistake led the U.S. Army to seek a double-action revolver with a swingout cylinder to replace the cumbersome Peacemaker. What they replaced it with was the anemic Colt .38 caliber revolver that failed miserably in actual combat (because of the cartridge, not due to the pistol design).
By the start of the 20th century, with the introduction of semi-automatic pistols that could be rapidly reloaded with full magazines, there seemed to be no point in further developing the revolver for military use. Colt met the challenge head on with the magnificent M1911 .45 Automatic Colt Pistol (.45 ACP) that went on to serve the U.S. military and many police agencies from 1911 through the present. Even a transition to the M9 Beretta 9mm pistol did not make the M1911 obsolete, as special forces and other units kept using them, and now other U.S. military units are reequipping themselves with newly-manufactured M1911-type pistols.
Although the M1911-type pistol is the most popular pistol in the U.S., many aficionados are so enamored of the Old West that numerous organizations meet to shoot their single-action Colt revolvers and other period guns in what they call “Cowboy Action Shooting.” The Peacemaker is also the gun of choice for quick draw competitions and fancy pistol twirling exhibitions. Despite its drawbacks, the old Cold single-action revolver is apparently here to stay.
Question for students (and subscribers): Do you think anything is wrong with Colt’s revolvers? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Adler, Dennis. Guns of the American West. Chartwell Books, Inc., 2009.
Latham, Sid and R.L. Wilson. Colt : An American Legend. Artabras, 1985.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="9837 https://www.historyandheadlines.com/?p=9837">12 Comments
I thought it was neat to read the article about how successful Colt was compared to this one where it discusses his faults. Even with the issues he faced, it seems like he still made a lot of money and holds an important name in the gun industry.
After reading the previous article about Colt’s first revolver I wonder what some of its drawbacks were and this article answered my question. I think Colt was stubborn and that is why he was not open to new ideas and improvements on his revolver until his market was being threatened by Smith and Wesson. He seemed like an enthusiastic businessman who loves his product too much to be open to new ideas. That still did not stop him from being successful and leading the way to modern weaponry.
I agree with Maria that it sounds like he wasn’t open to new ideas or improvements to his invention. Once again, it sounds like he did whatever it took to make more money. He would choose the cheaper option rather than the safer option for manufacturing his weapons in the name of profit.
Colts biggest drawback was that he was too content with his invention and did not care to investigate ways that he could make it better. It is surprising he made as much money as he did before his death even though he was not willing to conform to better ways of producing his invention.
Colt had a great product with his guns and that is why he was able to be so profitable with his invention. He did have flaws in his design and he had no intentions of patching them. He ran the risk of all the cambers firing at one which could blow the hand off of a human. S&W capitalized on Colt’s ignorance and S&W design is still used today after almost 200 years later and Colt’s design is just a collectors item now.
I for one would not want to be firing an old Colt when it malfunctioned. I can’t imagine all cylinders in the gun going off at once would leave the hand of the person holding the gun intact. Guns seemed to be a booming but tricky business in the times of the Wild West.
Colt had a great product, but was stubborn to change. He eventually lost the market while better pistols were being developed. Instead of improving his product, he was content with staying put and not advancing his impressive guns.
Being the innovative and successful business man that Colt was, his stubbornness to change and make his product better surprises me. That had to be a drastic change for revolver users when all six cases could be released and reloaded at one time rather than having to push each case out and reload individually. Convenience of reloading had to have made the new guns much more appealing to these early gun users.
It is amazing that he was so reluctant to change. Imagine how much stronger the weapons could have been if Colt had been opened minded.
Colt’s product was great for civilian use (not that I condone this) but definitely not combat!
Although Colt’s design did have some flaws, it still was a big innovation of its time. It Colt wasn’t so stubborn and switched to metallic cartridges, he could have been even more successful.
Being a business major, it is interesting to see the competition between Colt and S&W at the time. People are always competing to make a better product, and it seems that the competition helped the gun evolve from a slow reloading, one shot pistol to an automatic pistol.