
The Colt Paterson
revolver
A revolver is a repeating handgun with at least one barrel and a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold six cartridges before needing to be reloaded, ...
was the first commercial
repeating firearm employing a revolving
cylinder with multiple
chambers aligned with a single, stationary
barrel
A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden stave (wood), staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers ...
. Its design was
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
ed by
Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company and made the mass production of revolvers commercially viable.
Col ...
on February 25, 1836, in the United States, England and France, and it derived its name from being produced in
Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.[caliber
In guns, particularly firearms, but not #As a measurement of length, artillery, where a different definition may apply, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel Gauge ( ...]
, with a .36 caliber model following a year later. As originally designed and produced, no loading lever was included with the revolver; a user had to partially disassemble the revolver to re-load it. Starting in 1839, however, a reloading lever and a capping window were incorporated into the design, allowing reloading without disassembly. This loading lever and capping window design change was also incorporated after the fact into most Colt Paterson revolvers that had been produced from 1836 until 1839.
Unlike later revolvers, a folding
trigger was incorporated into the Colt Paterson. The trigger became visible only upon cocking the
hammer
A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nail (fastener), nails into wood, to sh ...
.
A subsequent patent renewal in 1849, and aggressive litigation against infringements, gave Colt a domestic
monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...
on revolver development until the mid 1850s.
History
Early
Colt literature and later publications insist that Colt was inspired to design the revolver in 1830 by viewing the windlass mechanisms aboard the brig ''Corvo'' while bound from
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
to
Calcutta
Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...
. However, some believe he saw examples of the
Collier Flintlock
Flintlock is a general term for any firearm that uses a flint-striking lock (firearm), ignition mechanism, the first of which appeared in Western Europe in the early 16th century. The term may also apply to a particular form of the mechanism its ...
Revolver while touring the
Tower of London
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic citadel and castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamle ...
after the ''Corvo'' docked on the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...
. In any event, sometime while aboard the ''Corvo'' he produced a wooden model (the model is exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut) and further developed the concept during the early 1830s.
Samuel Colt's first factory, the Patent Arms Company (Plant ruins site at ) of Paterson, New Jersey, manufactured 1,450 revolving
rifle
A rifle is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a gun barrel, barrel that has a helical or spiralling pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus o ...
s and
carbine
A carbine ( or ) is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges.
The smaller size and ligh ...
s, 462 revolving shotguns and 2,350 revolving pistols between 1836 and 1842, when the business failed. A creditor and business associate,
John Ehlers, continued manufacture and sale of (approximately 500 of the total 2,850) pistols through 1847.
[ Revolving pistols held five shots and varied from "pocket" to "belt" and "holster" designations based upon size and intended mode of carry. Calibers ranged from .28 through .36 inches. The model most identified with the "Paterson Colt" designation is the Number 5 Holster or Texas Paterson (1,000 units), which was manufactured in .36 caliber.][
]
Operation
The early Colt revolvers were of ''single-action'' design, meaning that the trigger functioned when the hammer was cocked back. It was necessary to manually cock the hammer prior to firing. The close clearances, folding trigger and multiplicity of small parts and springs seemed more appropriate to a fine timepiece than a tool destined for field service and fouling from black powder residue.
The first Paterson Models (1836–1838) required partial disassembly for loading and had no definitive provision for safely carrying the revolver with all chambers loaded.
To load the revolver, the shooter would:
# Draw the hammer to half-cock to free the cylinder for removal and rotation,
# Push the barrel wedge from right to left until it stops against a retaining screw,
# Pull the barrel and then the cylinder off the central arbor,
# Fill the individual chambers with powder leaving enough room to seat a lead ball,
# Using a special lever tool or the arbor, seat balls beneath the chamber mouths.
# Replace the barrel, cylinder and wedge and with the hammer at half cock, place percussion caps on each tube using the Colt designed capping tool. The revolvers came with spare cylinders, and the practice of the day was to carry spare cylinders loaded and capped for fast reloading. Period users had few qualms about this practice even though it presented a real hazard of accidental discharge if the caps were struck or the cylinder dropped.[
Routine carry modes included leaving the hammer in the half-cock position, lowering the hammer to rest on a capped chamber, downloading by one cylinder, or lowering the hammer between the chambers of the cylinder. The first two options were (and are) extremely dangerous. Later Colt revolvers had a notched hammer that would fit over an intermediate safety pin located between chambers of the cylinder on the back of the chamber when all cylinders were loaded, thereby obviating contact of the hammer with the percussion caps until the single-action hammer was intentionally cocked.
In 1839, a hinged loading lever and capping window became standard for new revolvers and was retrofitted to the older designs. So modified, the revolvers could be loaded without disassembly. When the Paterson revolvers with loading levers finally reached ]Texas
Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
in 1842, Texas Ranger Captain John Coffee Hays was very pleased that his ranging companies could now reload from horseback.
Handling and shooting characteristics
To fire the Paterson, the shooter thumbed the hammer back and the action rotated a chamber in line with the barrel and locked the cylinder in place. This also caused the folding trigger to drop down from the frame into firing position. The sight picture consists of a front blade and a notch in the tip of the hammer. This sequence is repeated for each of the five shots in the cylinder (although the safety-conscious shooter will load only four, leaving the hammer down on an empty chamber for routine handling and carry.)
Compared to the later Colt Percussion Revolver designs, the Paterson is ergonomically flawed, but, even with the odd bell-shaped grip and jutting trigger, the revolver points reasonably well and delivers useful accuracy.[ That Samuel Colt intended the revolver to be accurate is evident because of the rifled barrel and the extra long accessory barrels present in some cased sets.][ Using modern-day Uberti replicas, the usual expectation is that careful, one-handed shooting will produce groups of at .
The Number 5 Belt Revolver would be an effective weapon to with ideal shooting conditions; however, from a moving horse, the useful range would be measured in feet.
The available power is comparable to a modern .380 pistol cartridge. The .375–.380-inch round ball weighs a near-identical and the velocity is also essentially the same.
The cylinder is somewhat shorter than that found on the later Colt Navy .36 revolvers but will hold of FFFg ]black powder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...
while allowing full seating of the ball.
Military acceptance
Colt sold the Paterson revolver and carbine to the United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...
and they saw limited use in the Second Seminole War in Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
.[ The firepower advantage that they offered was initially praised by the troops, but the ]United States government
The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States.
The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct ...
considered the arms to be excessively fragile and prone to malfunction.[
The ]Republic of Texas
The Republic of Texas (), or simply Texas, was a country in North America that existed for close to 10 years, from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846. Texas shared borders with Centralist Republic of Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande, an ...
purchased 180 of the revolving shotguns and rifles and a like number of handguns for the Texas Navy in 1839.[Grant, R. G. (2005). ''Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5,000 Years of Combat''. New York: D.K. Publishing. . p. 223.]
When Samuel Houston disbanded the Texas Navy in 1843, Captain Jack Hays armed his company of Texas Rangers with surplus stocks of the pistols. The repeating handguns became very popular with the Rangers, providing them with sustained firepower against their Comanche adversaries.
The Paterson revolver was especially decisive in the Battle of Bandera Pass, where each Ranger had 10 shots at his disposal when armed with two pistols as opposed to one. Captains Jack Hays and Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers became major proponents of the Colt revolvers and were successful in advocating military contracts for later models such as the Walker Colt.[
]Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was an American military officer and politician who was the 12th president of the United States, serving from 1849 until his death in 1850. Taylor was a career officer in the United States ...
, as a general in command of the border with Mexico, sent Captain Walker to New York in 1846 to meet with Colt and discuss improvements to the Paterson to make it more appropriate for use in battle. Walker at the time was serving in the U.S. Mounted Rifles and not the Rangers.[
]
Gallery
File:Paterson60ft.jpg, Slow-fire off-hand group from
File:Patersontoolsml.jpg, Combination tool including seating stem/lever, nipple pick, nipple wrench, screwdriver
File:Colt Paterson Belt 2nd Model.jpg, Colt Paterson 2nd Belt Model
File:Patersonbdsml.jpg, Exploded diagram of the Paterson Colt revolver showing internal mechanisms with cylinder reversed
File:Colt Paterson.jpg, Patent illustrations of the Colt Paterson "Holster Model"
File:Colt Paterson Gewehr.jpg, Colt Paterson 1838 rifle
File:Model 1839 Carbine Patent.jpg, Patent drawing Paterson Model 1839 carbine
References
External links
* , Colt's patent from 1836 for the design of the Paterson.
The Colt Revolver in the American West—The Patent Arms Manufacturing Company
Colt Paterson Reference
, Web site for past Colt Paterson guns sold at auction. Photos, descriptions and price estimates.
Texas Paterson Reference
Web site for past Texas Paterson guns sold at auction. Photos, descriptions and price estimates.
{{USCWWeapons
Black-powder pistols
Colt revolvers
Early revolvers
Guns of the American West
Revolvers of the United States
Single-action revolvers
Weapons of the Confederate States of America
Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1836