The Gun That Embodied The American West

 

An Epic Lesson Coming Up

Hey guys! And welcome to another educational video. In fact, this is going to be an epic education because I learned so much in preparation for this video, we're going to talk about some antique Colts, which I knew almost nothing about. And I'm betting unless you are an antique collector, if you're like me, and you like German Lugers and 1911 Colts, this is all new to you. Now, don't flip me off, because I'm going to tell you some really cool stories about How the West Was Won. And this will be like a Clint Eastwood movie by the time we're done. 

 

Colt Paterson

So today we're going to talk about the Colt Paterson. I didn't even know what a Colt Paterson was, I actually thought Colt and Paterson came together and partnered on this project. But in fact, Paterson is Paterson in New Jersey. That shows you how much I didn't know. But Samuel Colt, who you can see here, he partnered with a board of directors that basically were his investors. And he made a factory in Paterson, New Jersey and put out the Colt Paterson. 

 

I Had To Do a Lot Of Research

So I have a couple of these, they rarely come up on auction. But I happen to have a local collector who has a couple of them, and I thought I would take this opportunity to share them with you. So in preparation for the video, I did a lot of background and research. And I learned so much I found it absolutely fascinating. I can't wait to show it to you. 

 

A Revolutionary Concept

Pretty much every source that you read will tell you that the Colt Paterson was the first commercially manufactured revolving cylinder. And that was the revolutionary concept from Samuel Colt. This is the middle variation, meaning there's basically three major variations. In fact, there's all different kinds, including engraves and longer barrel, shorter bows, there's all kinds of combinations, but they only made 2300 of these. So there's not a whole lot. But there's several combinations. 

 

There are several models of the Colt Paterson

This is the middle category, which they refer to as the belt model. There's actually a pocket model, which I'll show you in a minute, a belt model and a holster model. Now the belt model and the holster model sounds like they would be the same thing. But the holster, actually at that time, implied that you keep it in your saddlebag. So it's a little bit larger. So we have small, medium, and large, kind of like a Starbucks coffee. 

 

The Pepper-Box

So before this, when you think about a revolving or multi shot pistol, you probably think of the pepperbox, we happen to have one here. Again, we don't usually have these, let me come closer and you can take a look. Okay, so I don't know the exact era of this one, but the pepperbox, it was basically featured -- and by the way, they had a revolving barrel flintlocks. This one is actually early 1800s, because this is a percussion gun. It had several downsides. One would be that the barrel would become hot when you shot it and so you would have to rotate it. And of course, with a hot barrel that would burn your hand.

So it wasn't ideal. You can see that, that's where the nipple is. Don't tell my mother I said nipple on YouTube, but that's where the nipple is and you put the percussion cap and you fire, it hits the percussion cap and ignites the powder. You pre-load them, you're able to get six shots by manually rotating the barrel. And so this was the early development and it did not work real well. Although I guess in a crisis, you would just make it work or wear gloves. The other problem is the barrels especially on the rifles, and the longer bows made them incredibly heavy. You actually see the same concept later on with the Gatling gun, of course that used a cartridge. So this is one of the early attempts of a multi-shot flintlock or percussion weapon. 

 

Samuel Colt

So the beauty of Samuel Colt’s invention was one barrel rotating cylinder. Now Samuel Colt in reading the story of his life and of course, after he became rich and famous, and by the way, I did look up that when he died, he was worth 15 million. That's significant because today that would be hundreds of millions, but he died rich and famous. Even though he started out he didn't have money. He didn't have the money to actually start the factory, he had to bring in investors, but he was also a very proud man. They described him as being excessively litigious, which means he sued all these partners at one time or another, sued his board members. He sued a lot of people. And that really brings us to the story of this cylinder. 

 

I wonder where Samuel get the idea of the Revolving Cylinder?

He actually took a trip halfway around the world. From what I could tell he went all the way to India, but he was working on a passenger ship. And he tells the story that he came up with the idea of the rotating cylinder by watching a paddle wheel on a riverboat and it gave him this idea. And he actually defended that in court, told that story a number of times. And so it is recorded in history. If you read about where did he come up with this idea, he insists that he came up with it by watching the paddle wheel when he was on this ship.

 

The Collier's Flintlock

But I found another source turns out that was a result of a lawsuit. There was actually another rotating cylinder, it was the Collier's Flintlock, you can see a picture of the Collier's Flintlock, and right away, it really reminds me of the Paterson or even the Walker. You'll see in a minute, when we look at the Walker, which is one of the last guns we'll look at even the trigger guard looks about the same. In this case, it's a flintlock, and it was made in 1814.

 

This gun a full 20 years before Colt’s Invention

So a full 20 years before Samuel Colt came up with his invention. And you can see the rotating cylinder, and a flintlock. Now, the downside to this particular invention, and this is in England, they made them in England, they were handmade, so technically, it wasn't commercially manufactured. These were handmade guns. I don't know how many they made, but they're very, very rare. If I flip one picture back, you can see that there's drawings here. But they also made a rotating barrel flintlock rifle. 

 

All in all, the Flintlock Design Failed

So when I found this, this was news to me, because again, Colt gets credit for making the first revolving cylinder when in fact, 20 years earlier, Collier made one as a flintlock. As I said, the downside to this, however, is the rotating cylinder is manually rotated. So you would shoot the flintlock, you would rotate the cylinder and shoot it again. For some reason that design did not take off. 

 

Can we connect Colt to seeing the first Design?

Now the problem is we need to connect Samuel Colt, to seeing that design. And in fact, when he was on his trip around halfway around the world, he stopped in London, England, and it is documented the day he visited the London tower, the Tower of London, I guess that is, he visited the Museum at the Tower of London, and this gun was on display. And so we basically know he saw it. He said, he got the idea from the paddlewheel. 

 

Draw your own Conclusions

And we'll leave it to you to make up your own mind. But I find this incredibly similar to the Paterson design. And in fact, if you look at the trigger, this trigger guard, the cutout and this trigger guard is very similar. And actually the bell, see what they call a bell bottom grip, bell bottom grip, and here's the Patterson the first design, did not have a loading rod. We'll talk about that, later they added the loading rod. But that's the first design with the bell grip, and the bell grip. So I find it a little hard to believe that if you saw that, that that didn't influence his thinking. 

 

Colt Defended his Patent

But again, he wanted to make sure he got credit for the patent. And in my opinion, the design changed. He did get a patent in England, France and the United States for this design. And he vigorously defended his patent and sued several people who tried to develop similar models, including Smith and Wesson. 

 

The Earliest Design

So these are the first two models I already mentioned. This is the pocket pistol. It's amazing to me that he actually made one this small, but this is the pocket pistol. When we look at the profile, there's a couple of things that stand out. Now these have the loading rods, but the earliest ones and this is 1836 up until 1839 they had no loading rod. So the profile what you notice right away is no loading rod on this one and no trigger. That stands out. And so if you're at an auction or at a gun show, you probably would never see this at a gun show. But if you saw one at a gun show, the thing that stands out right away is the no loading rod and the trigger.

 

Comparing the Two Guns

On these two, and again, this is a local collector. I don't want to cover up the grip because they're just beautiful. I assume that's like a rosewood and these are blued finish. These are all original. You can see they have a cylinder design, although it'd be hard. It would be hard to see without magnification. We got a cylinder design. And here we have cylinder design. And the serial numbers on these, I'll put I'll take one apart to show you where the serial numbers are, because they're internal, not external. There's no serial number externally. It does have the wedge that was unique to Colt, the Colt Paterson was the first one. And they used that all the way through to the single action armies. 

 

What Caliber did these come In?

But let's talk about the loading rod because that makes this really important because before the loading rod, so if you look at it like that, so you get five shots. This is five shot, and it comes in 36 caliber. Now the pocket, the pocket came in 28 caliber, the middle sizedvone, which is the belt model came in 36. And let me introduce the holster model, here is the holster model. Now, right away, this is way too beautiful. So I need to say this is a replica, but it was hard for him to get all three variations. The first two are original. This is a replica, very well made. Again, you can see that it has the loading rod and no trigger. This one is engraved with the pearl grips. This model which is the holster model is also 36. Now this would fit in the holster, but more commonly it was kept in a saddlebag because these were used by soldiers, cavalry soldiers. They also caledl them Dragoons, which later on led to the named Dragoon, that Colt made a Dragoon. This is much heavier, but the same caliber as the middle size. So those are the sizes. 

 

Let's Pull the Middle Sized Gun Apart

So let's pick on the middle child, I'm a middle child. So we'll pick on the middle child that happened to me all the time growing up, but this is the middle child. So we'll take this one apart. The loading rod was added later. So they began to use the loading rod in '39. So again, they made these in 1836, '39 they added the loading rod. Because without it, you had to take the wedge out the cylinder out, reload it. So basically, you take the gun apart, put it back together again. So you get five shots, and you're done. 

 

The Famous Indian Battle

Now, as we will hear soon in a famous Indian battle, each of the Texas Rangers had one of these. Of course, they weren't engraved, they look more like this, but this size. They each had two of these. And so in this famous Indian battle with the Comanche Indians in Texas, they had 10 shots, and then they had to reload. So without the loading rod, it was quite an ordeal to take it all apart and reload it. 

 

We Needed the Loading Rod

With the loading rod, it's a little bit easier. Now the serial numbers on these are pretty early. So I know these originally came with no loading rod. And then when the loading rod was added, you can kind of see that they made the alteration to include the loading rod. So it helps a lot, because with the loading rod, they also added this cutout in the cylinder. So it would allow you to put the percussion cap on without taking it down. Then also put in your powder, and the ball, and then the loading rod to compress it together and ready to fire. Let me show you ready to fire. 

 

Where is the Trigger?

So where's the trigger? When you pull the hammer back, the trigger pops down. This one this spring -- I don't want to use this too much. Because one of the design flaws is this trigger is very, very frail. And for the military, they actually said, please improve it because the trigger is too frail. But we'll try that again. I don't know that it will pop down but it will pop down. See it starts to come down. But the way that they normally would work on this replica, it pops down immediately. And then you fire it. Let's try it again. When you pull the trigger, it pops down. We'll try the baby.

Here's the baby, pull the trigger back and it works. Again, I'll let it down. We'll do it one more time. Pops down, so that one works perfectly. Again, just look at that how frail that is. I just can't imagine putting this all together especially on this one which is a heavy cylinder, heavy barrel. This is a heavy gun to have a trigger that is that flimsy. They could have come up with something better, which they did on the next design. 

 

Was the Single Action Army the Gun that won the West?

Okay, so just like the Single Action Army, most of you are probably more familiar with the Single Action Army, we've sold quite a few of those. And that was a very successful pistol and some would say that's the gun that won the West, but this is the precursor to the gun that won the West. 

 

The Improvement on the next Design

If you half cock it then the cylinder will move. Timing on this is good by the way. You pull out the wedge, which I loosened, normally it wouldn't be this loose. Now this screw will capture it, meaning it doesn't get lost. So I'll leave the screw in because it will capture it, keep it from getting lost, and that just pulls apart. You load it up by taking the cylinder out. The ones without the loading rod, you take the cylinder out.

This is numbered, hopefully you can see that this is number 115. So that's marked on the frame, then the barrel is also marked 115, this is upside down. I hope you can see that 115, it does have a rifled barrel. So for accuracy, this has a rifled barrel. Now, I'm not going to shoot this, obviously people who shoot the replicas and their exact replicas, they tell me that these are accurate up to 50 yards. However, the anecdotal records say that as a cavalry officer shooting these while riding a horse, the accuracy was more like 10 yards. 

 

A close up of the Cylinder

We also have the cylinder, you can see the scene a little better on the cylinder. And if you look at the cylinder, you can see 1-1-5, so the cylinder is numbered, and this is all matching. And just to add icing to the cake, check out the wedge. We know from single action armies, they even numbered the wedge, and that one is very clear. So the parts are all numbered and all matching. 

 

After they added the loading Rod

This was an early one, they later added the loading rod. And this is how this works. You can see how it presses the ball and the powder into the back of the cylinder and allows the percussion cap to ignite. So before 1839 without the loading rod, you would have to take it apart, load up five more rounds. And again, if you're in a battle, you probably only get the five shots and then you're done. With the wedge out this pops together really easily. So it's really not a big ordeal that pops together and then you close the wedge. 

 

One Difficulty I Had

Now, one thing that I also found difficult and I tried it even with the replica, the loading rod, you have to line him up just right. And often I don't get it on the first shot. Like it I hit, I hit, I move it a little bit, there it goes. So it's not real easy when you're loading five of these and the Indians are shooting at you or the Mexicans are shooting at you. 

 

No, I am not Racist!

By the way, the reason I say that is not because I'm a racist. These were actually used in the Indian Wars in Florida in the 1830s, in Texas in the 1830s, throughout the West, most notably in Texas, but also they were used in the Mexican-American war. And then finally they were used all the way into the Civil War. 

 

The Most Successful Model

Okay, let's talk about the next chapter of this story and that would be bankruptcy. First of all, this was the most popular model. Now again, imagine this not engraved than just with the wooden grip. This model, the holster model was the most popular. There were 2300 pistols made and of those 1000 of them went to Texas. They actually went to the Texas Navy, the Texas Rangers, Texas Cavalry. So 1000 of the 2300 went to Texas. In addition, the factory made a rotating barrel rifle, and rotating barrel shotgun. The most successful of course, was the pistol, with this being the most successful model. 

 

How did they go Bankrupt?

So how in the world did they go bankrupt? As I mentioned before, they started making these in 1836. And they made them all the way to 1941 or '42, depending on where you cut it off. Because '41 they stopped making these and instead Colt declare bankruptcy ran out of money. 

 

Eller Bought the Company

One of his investors, a man named Eller, he then took over the factory. I guess he had the most money involved. So he bought the remaining inventory, the remaining parts and had 500 more put together. So post bankruptcy, he put together 500 guns. My understanding is those are all mismatched guns. The ones that I've shown you here today, including this replica are all matching guns. So technically, these were made before 1831. And in fact, these two originals both have early serial numbers. So probably were made around 1838 and then were modified with the loading rod and the cutout in the cylinder. 

 

Several Theories for Bankruptcy

So why bankruptcy? Well, there's several theories. First of all, I mentioned that Samuel Colt was a bit litigious and maybe the partners were arguing, I think, I know he took some of them to court and they  argued a lot about how the money was split. That's never good for a company, so maybe it was disputes with some of his financial partners. The second reason is people say that the gun was too expensive. 

 

Check out this gun with the Accessories

What's interesting about this one, this was put together by the way, this is the powder loader and you press it down and it discharges the right amount of powder. And then you can make the ball with one of these, these are all original. And this is original. This comes to $17.50. And in fact, from around this period of time, that's about what just the gun cost. So with the accessories, the total cost of this was about $20. So imagine a $20 gold piece, which at that time, was a lot of money. If we put it in today's dollars, a $20 gold piece is worth about $3,000. Yet this gun is probably worth now about $100,000. So what is a better investment, for you young collectors out there, is gold a better investment or an antique rare gun? Obviously, this would be about $3,000 in cost. And yet the gun today, I see them selling anywhere from $50,000 - $100,000. But some of them that were attributed to someone special, they've gone as high as a half a million dollars. 

 

Other Theories

So the second theory is they were just too expensive for the average buyer. And yet the Texas Rangers ordered 1,000 of them. So it seems to me that the orders were there if they had marketed a little bit. Some people said it had design flaws, but in my way of thinking if you manufacture something and it's version 1.0, you make alterations when you get feedback from people. And the final explanation would be that during this period of time, there was a banking crisis. I'd have to go back and look up the history of it. But some of the literature said that there was a banking crisis, you combine that with it was just too much money. And Samuel Colt was arguing with his investors, the company went bankrupt. 

 

Texas gave us the Colt Factory

So let's talk a little bit more about the history of this gun. If you look at the thumbnail, we talked about how this gun won the West. And I said before that if it weren't for the state of Texas, we might not have a Colt factory today. Let me talk about that a little bit. There was a captain in the Rangers, the Texas Rangers named Jack Hayes. And there was another Captain named Sam Walker, these are both historical figures. 

 

All Texas Hostory Lore

And really famous in Texas history lore. Now the reason I say Texas history lore, no offense to the state of Texas, I gave you credit for the fact that you kept cold alive. But what I find you know how everything is bigger in Texas? Well, the stories also get bigger in Texas. The only way I could explain it is there was there was no form of communication other than people telling other people. And by the time the story got back east, by whisper down the lane, you would see the published stories and on the East Coast they would tell the stories of the Texas Rangers and the the revolving cylinder Colt and How the West Was Won. Some of those stories were greatly embellished and and I'll tell you a little bit about what I found. 

 

Here's is what I Found

So Jack Hayes of the Texas Rangers, he went after some Comanche Indians who were attacking some of the settlers in the area. There actually had been a war with the comanches and other Indians going on for at least a decade. And in those battles, the Texas Rangers barely could hold their own, they would fight for a little bit and then run away because the Indians far outnumbered the settlers. But time and other factors was in the favor of the Texans, because more and more people were coming to Texas, and fewer and fewer Indians were surviving. Because with the Europeans coming in to Texas, they brought diseases that were killing the Indians. So the numbers on the Indian side were diminishing, the numbers of the Texan settlers were increasing. 

 

The Famous Indian Battle - The Variations

And so there was this turning point, and there's a famous battle, you can look it up. But there was this famous battle with Captain Jack Hayes, and 50 Texas Rangers took on 200 Comanche Indians. Now the story is told that there were only 80 of them. Then they said that they killed 80 of them and there were 200 of them. Then when they went back to the battlefield, they only found actually a dozen dead Indians. So the story varies and maybe got embellished a little bit, but the best I can tell and what would make sense is there are 50 Rangers, five were killed. There are about 200 Indians and at least 80 were killed or wounded.

And the difference in the battle, the Indians learned the tactic that the Europeans had flintlocks or percussion rifles with one shot. They would feign a charge, hide, the settlers shoot, they now know they have to reload and then they attack. In this particular battle is the first time that they were Rangers all had two, this is my prop. The Rangers all had to have these so they had 10 shots. So the Indians feigned charge. The Texas Rangers shot one time, the Indian said all clear, and they attacked and it would make sense that they would literally wiped them out. They now had 10 repeating shots. And the Indians were totally taken off guard. 

 

The Turning Point

Now this is called a turning point in the Indian Wars because before this time, the Texas Rangers typically came out on the short end of the stick. From this time on, the Indians never really won a major battle against the Texas Rangers. 

 

Sam Walker

Okay, now enter Sam Walker. And now Sam Walker was also a Texas Ranger. And he was also had one of these and he also absolutely loved it. Now, a direct quote from Sam Walker and Jack Hayes would be they heard the news comes that the Colt Company, the Colt Paterson went bankrupt. They said, are you freaking kidding me? What the heck! They couldn't figure it out. This won the battle for them. And now the tide has turned in the war with the Indians. They can't imagine, why would anybody discontinue making these pistols and rifles and they also ordered some of the shotguns. So they love this feature, this repeating cylinder, the repeating shot cylinder. So the state of Texas actually appointed Sam Walker to go back, he didn't fly, I was going to say fly back. 

 

Here Comes the Colt Walker

They had Sam Walker travel to Hartford, Connecticut, where he met with Samuel Colt, and he offered to partner with him on let's re-constitute the company. In exchange for you starting up again, the state of Texas we'll give you an order for 1000 new pistols, which has been named the Colt Walker. I have one here, I get a big smile on my face when I pick this up because this thing, first of all, it weighs five pounds. And you could definitely do curls using this. Very, very top heavy. I figure if you want to attack the enemy, the best thing to do is club them over the head with this thing, this is huge. 

 

A Quick Comparison, What changes did they Make?

Well, let's just compare it. So here is the Colt Paterson, again, not engraved. The Colt Paterson that they had been using. Sam Walker came with a list of improvements. He said, remember, everything's bigger in Texas. He said we need it bigger, the 36 caliber is not enough. He of course wants a 44 caliber. 44 caliber, I actually have one of the balls. No comment! That's the 44 caliber versus this one. So obviously, the ball is a lot bigger. And going into the cylinder and the loading rod, you can see the size of the 44 caliber ball. But this is a really heavy gun. So they made it in 44 caliber, they made it a lot bigger, more powerful. They did change the design on the trigger, you can see the trigger here with the square back is what it's called. They did order 1000 of these and actually the Colt company did reconstitute itself. It had new investors, which basically the state of Texas put up the money to order 1000 they only made 1100 of these. So 1000 went to Texas, and 100 went to commercial buyers.

 

Let's Make this Clear

If you look over my shoulder, this is actually a replica. So I need to say this right away that this is a replica. One of the characteristics first of all, the cylinder is huge, much bigger, much heavier, much longer barrel. And the loading rod actually has a pointed tip. 

 

The Success of the Colt Factory

The model that came after this was actually the Dragoon and this is where most of you go Oh yeah, I've heard of the Colt Dragoon. You can see that the loading rod is different. So in terms of the profile, the Dragoons actually had the same square back but then later on, they made about 20,000 Dragoons as opposed to 1000 of the walkers. The early ones had the square back and then later, they just went with the round. And the Dragoon eventually became the Single Action Army. That's basically the history of the success of the Colt factory. But again, with the help of the state of Texas, and Walker, Captain Sam Walker, with their help and the improvements that they made, they made 1000 and then they quickly went to the Dragoon. 

 

The Pistols arrived but Sam Died

Let's talk about that transition. This thing really is heavy. But before I talk about the transition, let me just tell you an interesting piece of history. So after all that work that Sam Walker did to have the redesign help them get started. He goes back to Texas. The pistols arrived and he was killed. Now it was the Mexican American war. It was 1847 these pistols I think this one is actually dated. And again, this is a replica. This is dated 1847. And in fact, these were delivered in 1847. And Sam Walker was killed in the Mexican American war. There are two accounts again, it's Texas. It's two accounts, one said he was killed by a lance. And then another story is that he was shot in the back with a shotgun. Most people say was the latter but that sounds very unromantic, so they would like their heroes to die at the end of a lance. 

 

Another Problem with the Design

Now here was the problem with this particular design, which nobody anticipated. After shooting about 200 rounds, the cylinder would break. What they found was that this cylinder actually was too large, and it held 60 grams of powder, and when you filled it with 60 grams of powder, the cylinder would weaken and eventually crack. 

 

Time to Problem Solve

So what they did is they told them don't fill it all the way. And then they immediately changed production, and came out with the Dragoon, which you see here, and that held 50 grams of powder. So instead of 60 grams, they lowered it, and that seemed to solve the problem. Again, they made 20,000 of the Dragoons. They're named Dragoon, because they went to pony soldiers or cavalry. Back then they called them Dragoons. And that's how it got its name. And that led to the production of the Single Action Army. For you movie buffs.

 

An Important Piece of History

One other important piece of history. I like this poster, The Outlaw Josie Wale, if you've never watched that movie, it's a classic. Outlaw Josie Wale and I think his female co-star, he ended up marrying her, I don't remember her name. But in this he had two of these Colt Walkers. And these things are beasts. So when he walks down the street, he's shooting the Union soldiers. He's walking down this wooden plank sidewalk and he just bam, bam, bam, just shooting them one after another. I can't imagine it because you have to cock it. I can barely hold it, see my hand shaking. I can't hold it. You try to hold it and caulk it and then fire it. It's just a beast, that's all I can say. So movie props, notwithstanding. This was a gun that helped to win the West. Also, another movie where this was used is used in True Grit. And I think the female character Maddie shot one of these in that movie. 

 

Did you learn anything new? 

Well, I hope you like that history lesson. I learned so much. I hope you did too. And I was really outside my wheelhouse. Actually, in this case, it was the paddle wheel house. Get it? Thanks for watching. Make sure you like and subscribe. I've been doing a lot on German guns and I'm going to go back to those, but I thought we'd take a pause and learn something new.