Mill of Misconceptions: Colt was a civilian. Colonel Colt made all men equal
Wednesday, February 25, marks the 179th anniversary of one of the most popular weapons in human history - the Colt revolver. Let's remember the history of one of the main symbols of America, about which there was a famous proverb: “God made people strong and weak. Colonel Colt evened their chances."
Samuel Colt with one of his revolvers.
Samuel Colt was born in 1814 in Kentucky into the family of a farmer who moved to the city to do business. Samuel Colt's mother died of tuberculosis when he was six. Her father was an officer in the Continental Army, which fought for the independence of the States from England, so it is not surprising that little Samuel’s first toy was his grandfather’s flintlock pistol.
Samuel received his primary education at a rural school, where he was introduced to the Compedium of Knowledge, a popular scientific encyclopedia at that time. Reading this book gave Samuel much more pleasure than reading the Bible. The future inventor was especially impressed by articles about gunpowder and Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat.
At the age of 15, Sumuel begins working part-time in his father's textile factory, where he gains access to tools, materials and professional skills of the workers. Taking an article from the same encyclopedia as instructions, he designs his own galvanic cell. With his help, he arranges a demonstration underwater explosion in a local pond on Independence Day, which impresses the townspeople.
Having then become a student at a boarding school for some time, Samuel did nothing but entertain his classmates with pyrotechnics. One of these pranks caused a fire at the school, which meant the end of Samuel's education. After this, his father sends him to study maritime affairs on the brig Corvo.
As the inventor later said, it was what he saw on the brig that inspired him to create his revolver. While still a teenager, Colt heard a conversation between two soldiers about the success of the double-barreled rifle and the impossibility of creating a pistol that could fire five or six times without reloading. Even then, Samuel decided that he would certainly deal with this problem in the future.
Colt was inspired by the helm of the ship he was sailing on. Whatever direction the captain chose, each of the spokes of the wheel always formed a straight line with a special coupling where it could be secured. This mechanism secured the steering wheel in a certain place regardless of its position.
Immediately on the ship, Colt assembles from scrap wood a model of his Pepperbox revolver with an automatically rotating barrel, the idea of which was inspired by the mechanism for securing the steering wheel.
This is what Pepperbox revolvers looked like
Pepperbox revolvers by this time were the latest fashion in small arms. They had several rotating barrels, which made it possible not to reload the weapon after each shot. But rotation was usually carried out manually, which was time-consuming; in addition, the multi-barrel concept greatly affected the accuracy and reliability of the weapon.
The number of barrels in Pepperbox revolvers reached 24, as in this example from the Belgian company Mariette.
Colt's innovation was that he came up with a reliable mechanism for automatically rotating the barrels after each pull of the trigger so that they were locked exactly opposite the bolt. This was the first step towards a single-barrel multi-shot revolver.
After returning to the USA, Colt returns to work at his father's factory, but this time he is already doing his favorite thing - designing weapons. However, the easy life did not last long; soon the father ran out of money that he could invest in his son’s production, and he had to start earning money on his own.
To do this, Colt chooses a very unusual method - he creates a mobile laboratory for the synthesis of laughing gas, with which he travels around America. But the inventor remains true to his dream and, after some time, having collected a little accumulated money, decides to invest it in the production of the first revolver.
By this time, Colt had already abandoned the idea of a multi-barreled weapon in favor of a single barrel and a rotating drum. Having borrowed another $300 from his father's friend, Samuel hires a gunsmith to create the first copy of his revolver. This process took several years and on February 25, 1836, Colt finally patented his invention in the United States under the name Colt Patterson, in honor of the city where the production of the revolver was located. In addition, he also receives a similar patent in the UK.
The next model, the Colt Dragoon, was designed for shooting from a horse. It was lighter than its predecessor, and the design resolved some of the problems that Walker owners had encountered.
Next was a Colt Wells Fargo revolver, apparently designed for the Wells Fargo company, which was engaged in transportation. Oddly enough, despite the coincidence of names, there is no evidence that the revolver is actually related to the transport company.
This model became especially popular among security guards, detectives and gold miners, of whom there were more than enough at that time - the Gold Rush was in full swing. This revolver was distinguished by its light weight and size, which made it easy to hide under clothing.
During times Civil War one of the most popular types small arms was a Colt Army revolver. It was latest model, released during the lifetime of Samuel Colt, who died in 1863.
The official cause of death was gout, although there were persistent rumors of poisoning. The fact is that during the Civil War, Colt, being a resident of the northern state, without a twinge of conscience sold 2000 brand new revolvers to the Confederate army, which, of course, many did not like.
To justify Samuel, it can be said that he did not fundamentally distinguish between buyers and always tried to sell his weapons to both sides of any conflict. For example, during his visit to Turkey, he assured Sultan Abdulmecid I that Russians had been buying his revolvers for a long time, which persuaded him to place a large-scale order. Colt's words were true, but he kept silent about the fact that he had previously said the same thing to the Russians about the Turks.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal and other leading American media, the American arms company Colt Defense was on the verge of bankruptcy. The issue of restructuring the company's debt is currently being resolved. If the problem is not resolved soon, which is unlikely, the company's assets will be put up for auction. The bankruptcy procedure could be the end of the protracted agony of the 160-year-old company.
Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company was created by Samuel Colt in 1855. By that time, Colt's name was already well known both in America and abroad. In 1836, Colt patented the “revolving gun” - a weapon with a rotating breech partly, in combination with a firing mechanism and primer ignition.The idea of a multi-shot revolver was not new at the time of Colt (according to one of the popular versions, Colt himself learned about the revolver scheme during his trip to England, where revolvers of another inventor Elisha Collier were already being produced However, Colt was the first to combine a revolver design with a capsule invented shortly before (for example, Collier's revolvers had a complex design with a trigger with flint and flint on the drum casing.) Colt was able to find lenders to start production of his revolver in 1836 In Paterson, New Jersey, the production of revolvers began, named after the name of the locality - Colt Paterson.
However, Colt's first pancake came out lumpy - the revolver suffered from an unfinished design, and the level of technical equipment of the first factory did not allow achieving the proper quality of processing of parts. As a result, the revolver was not reliable and did not gain much popularity. In 1843, the first Colt factory closed and its equipment was auctioned off. For some time, Colt abandoned the idea of the weapons business and switched to the new fashion of the time - the production and sale of telegraph cable.
However, chance intervened here. The Texas Rangers, who during this period were engaged in clearing living space for the American nation, managed to purchase a certain number of Colt revolvers for testing. In one of the many skirmishes, a detachment of 15 rangers, armed, among other things, with Colt revolvers, shot down 70 Comanches.
Impressed by the capabilities of the new weapon, the commander of this Ranger detachment, Samuel Walker, went across the country to New York (then it was a non-trivial journey, this was before the era of transcontinental railroads) to convince the inventor of the Colts to continue producing revolvers. Walker gave the inventor money, plus he borrowed a little from banks on Walker’s recommendation. This made it possible to restore the production of revolvers in the workshop. The design of Colt revolvers was modified - a sixth cartridge appeared in the cylinder, shortened chambers for a cartridge with a smaller charge (less charge - less wear on parts and recoil), a longer barrel. Colt revolvers played a significant role in the outbreak of the Mexican-American War. As a result of this war, the living space for the American nation expanded into the territory of several modern states - California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, parts of Colorado and Wyoming. Conquests cost the lives of many famous sons of the American people, among whom was Captain Samuel Walker, who gave Colt a start in big business.
Things quickly went uphill for Colt himself. Production volumes were constantly growing, and the American Army and Navy were added to the Rangers. Colt revolvers reached Europe, where they managed to take part in the Crimean War, on both sides. The capacity of the old workshop was no longer sufficient for all orders. In 1855, Colt opened a new Colt Armory plant in Hartford and founded Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company. It is from this date that the history of Colt's arms empire is usually traced.
What are the reasons for the success of Colt and his revolvers? In addition to the innovative design, Colt's organizational abilities and the chance of Captain Walker, it is necessary to note the excellent marketing company. Colt, being a talented inventor, was certainly a real genius in advertising, marketing, product placement and, at times, outright selling. Colt's signature trick was to present his revolver as a gift to some person needed or important for promoting the product. At first these were newspaper editors - the printed press was then, in fact, the only media and the real fourth estate. As a reward, the newspapers did not skimp on praise in the spirit of “Colt revolvers are a reliable weapon against bears, Indians, Mexicans and others.” It is believed that the phrase “God Made Man, Colt Made Them Equal” was coined either by Colt himself or one of his gifted newspaper editors. As the business developed, effective PR was supported by powerful GR. Colt presented his brainchild to presidents, kings, and generals. In 1854, in St. Petersburg, Colt was received by Emperor Nicholas I and presented him with several of his revolvers.
Among those who received their “Colt” with the dedicatory inscription “From the Inventor” were not only crowned heads, but also those who constantly fought with them, such as professional revolutionaries Giuseppe Garibaldi or Lajos Kossuth. Who knows, maybe similar marketing moves - like the sudden appearance of Strelkovtsy or Motorolovtsy, say, ORSIS or A-545 - are not enough for our gunsmiths to promote their products on the market? Is it unethical, you say, to do PR by supplying weapons to participants in the civil war? Well, Colt himself never shunned this - the most commercially successful war during his lifetime was also a civil war, and in his own country - the American Civil War of 1861-1865.
However, let's return to the history of the Colt company. After the death of the great inventor and marketer, the leadership of his weapons empire was taken over by his widow Elizabeth Colt and brother Jarvis. The reputational and technological foundation created by Samuel was sufficient until the end of the 19th century. Calibers and cartridges changed, parts were added, but Colt revolvers continued to be recognizable as good old “Colts”. However, the 20th century came and the development of small arms approached new revolution– transition to semi-automatic and automatic schemes. Inventor John Moses Browning, who worked for Colt at that time, developed a magazine-fed self-loading pistol, which determined the development of personal small arms for more than a hundred years. Launched into production, the Colt M1900 and its development, the M1911, became one of the most famous pistols and an important part of American culture, just like its predecessor.
The next famous product of Colt factories were John Thompson submachine guns. Thompson’s own company Auto-Ordnance initially did not have enough capacity and therefore the first mass-produced “Tommy guns” were released under the name Colt-Thompson Model 1921. As you know, all sorts of highway bandits were first armed with them.
During the Second World War, Colt factories produced pistols, submachine guns and M1917 Browning machine guns - the main heavy machine gun of the American army in that war and in the Korean one.
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Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company's next major commercial success came during the Vietnam War. Armalite designers Eugene Stoner and James Sullivan developed this design
In 1959, Armalite sold the rights to manufacture this rifle to Colt, which began commercial production. In 1961, a trial batch of these rifles was purchased by the US Army. In 1964, the rifle under the designation M16 was officially adopted for service. Well, we won’t talk in detail about the M16.
Let us note something else: after Colt’s death, the company’s well-being was no longer based on its own developments, but on purchased licenses. Browning, Thompson, Stoner... No, of course, fine-tuning the purchased samples, the same M16, required a lot of work from engineers and production workers, but still a certain growing crisis of Colt’s Company’s creativity in the 20th century was obvious. The American army clearly hinted at this by choosing Colt’s as the main personal weapon at the 1985 competition. Beretta pistol 92F developed by Italian Beretta. For the first time in many years, the American army has received small arms developed and produced by a non-American company. The police followed the army, increasingly exchanging their American pistols and revolvers for the same Beretta and Austrian Glock 17. Since the end Cold War To the creative crisis, another one was added - the crisis of overproduction. Huge reserves of small arms accumulated by all sides over the years of confrontation were released onto the arms market. Why buy a new M16 for $1,600 when you can buy the same one from army warehouses for 600, and a Kalashnikov assault rifle for 300. Sales on the US civilian arms market began to fall following the fall in army orders.
Colt first faced bankruptcy in 1992. It was acquired by the financial group Zilkha & Co, which was then able to carry out a restructuring. The Corps also helped Marine Corps, issuing an order for the production of M4 carbines - a shortened version of the M16. With the start of the American campaign in the Middle East, new orders for the M4 followed - in the conditions of dense Iraqi urban development and Afghan villages, they seemed more profitable than the long and excessively powerful M16. All this won the company two extra decades of life. However, the experience of using carbines in Iraq and Afghanistan caused a lot of complaints about them from the military. In 2007, the US Department of Defense conducted a series of tests, as a result of which the number of failures of Colt’s M4 turned out to be higher than the total number of failures of other weapons that participated in the tests - the German HK XM8, HK 416 and the Belgian FN SCAR-L.
Another factor that crippled Colt was Obama's election campaign and his victory in the presidential election. Among his team's proposals were the United States joining International treaty on the arms trade and tightening the rules for private ownership of small arms. Everyone mobilized to defend the Second Amendment - the National Rifle Organization,
"Sisters of the Second Amendment"
and “Jews for Preserving the Right to Own Guns.”
As a result, Republicans and shooting enthusiasts managed to repel the attack on the Second Amendment, but frightened gun sellers staged massive gun sales in anticipation of the expected tightening, collapsing prices and once again undermining the position of manufacturers. Well, the final nail in Colt’s coffin was the lost 2013 competition to supply the US Army with 120,000 Belgian F.N. Herstal.
However, talking about death trademark Colt is definitely premature. According to Article 11 of the American Bankruptcy Code, the company will be put up for auction, where it could very likely be bought out by new owners. Let us recall that in 1992 a similar step was taken, as a result of which the company was bought by the current owner, the Zilkha financial group, in 1994. So Colt’s products will continue to equal people for some time.
Illustration copyright RIA Novosti Image caption President Gerald Ford gave a pair of vintage “peacekeepers” to Leonid Brezhnev
On February 25, 1836, a revolution took place in the arms business: 22-year-old American Samuel Colt received patent number 9430X for a “revolving gun” - a revolver with a rotating breech.
For the first time, it became possible to fire quickly from a short-barreled weapon and confront several opponents at once. All modern pistols and revolvers trace their ancestry to Colt's invention.
According to a number of historians, he contributed to the formation of American freedom and individualism. Availability on hand effective weapon quickly brought into circulation subjects with increased aggressiveness, and forced the rest to take into account each other’s rights.
The company's most famous product, a legend of the Wild West, a 45-caliber six-shooter model 1872 revolver, received the unofficial nickname Peacemaker.
This point of view is reflected in the famous phrase: “God created people, and Colonel Colt made them equal.” Another option: "Abe Lincoln gave everyone freedom, and Sam Colt evened the odds."
Many in the United States are now ready to argue with this: these days in the country the uncontrolled sale of weapons almost regularly leads to mass murders.
But no matter how you look at it, Colt’s product is one of the symbols of America.
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- The idea of using a rotating drum to create repeating weapons has been in the air for a long time. The first hunting rifle with a 6-shot cylinder was produced in France in 1629.
- The first revolvers had four or six barrels instead of a rotating breech, which occupied a firing position one after the other. Such a weapon was called a bundelrevolver, and in common parlance a “pepper shaker”. The last “pepper shaker” was patented and began to be produced in 1839 by the Belgian Mariette. Their disadvantages were their complex design and heavy weight. Illustration copyright Getty Image caption Samuel Colt
- Colt did not serve a single day in the army, and received the rank of brevet (temporary) colonel from the governor of Connecticut for his support in the elections.
- The future inventor became seriously interested in technology at the age of 12. Two years later, on Independence Day, he called the residents hometown Hartford, to demonstrate the underwater mine he had assembled, placed it in the middle of the lake, but did not calculate the strength of the powder charge. The spectators were drenched from head to toe, and the teenager was almost beaten. Mechanic Elisha Root, who stood up for him, later worked as a manager at the Colt arms factory.
- After a year of study, Colt was kicked out of the university, allegedly because he started a fire while doing chemical experiments. Young Samuel got a job as a sailor on a merchant brig. The main idea of life dawned on him when he watched the rotation of the ship's wheel and capstan (a device for winding the anchor chain). During the voyage, Colt carved a model of a revolving drum from wood, which is now kept in the company museum.
- When starting the business, Colt did not use a loan, but earned money by going on a tour, during which he entertained provincial audiences with demonstrations of the effects of “laughing gas” (nitrous oxide) on volunteers. Dentist Horace Wells, who happened to see the performance, was the first to use nitrous oxide as an anesthetic.
- The gunsmith shop founded by Colt in Patterson, Texas, went bankrupt in 1842 due to a lack of orders. The first Colt Patterson model produced there is today a collector's item.
- New life The business was inspired by a widely reported incident in 1845, when 16 Texas Rangers armed with Colts fought off 80 Comanche Indians, killing 35 of them.
- In 1846, the war with Mexico began, and the federal government ordered Colt a thousand cavalry revolvers, asking him to modify them in accordance with the wishes of the military. The army was represented in the design group by Captain Walker. He soon died in the war, and the model created with his participation was named in his honor.
- Founded by Colt in 1855, the factory in Hartford, Connecticut, is still the company's headquarters. It was there that Mark Twain's "Yankee in King Arthur's Court" worked.
- "Colt" in English means "foal", the image of which has become a trademark.
- When Samuel Colt died suddenly in 1862 at the age of 48, he was buried at public expense, although he owned a fortune of 15 million then (about 900 million today) dollars. The inventor was held in last way, shooting into the air from revolvers of his production. According to a local newspaper reporter, “the cannonade was like on a battlefield.”
- The company was passed on to Colt's widow and then became a joint stock company. Illustration copyright g Image caption "Colt" became the hero of countless action films and westerns
- Caliber is a measure of the diameter of a gun barrel, equal to one hundredth of an inch (25.4 mm). The most common pistol and revolver caliber in the world, 38 is equal to 9 millimeters. The Colt company produced various weapons, but its business card There have always been relatively rare 45-caliber samples (11.3 mm).
- One of the world's first multi-shot automatic pistols also bore the name "Colt" (1900).
- For several decades, the revolver competed with the pistol, surpassing it in reliability, but inferior in magazine capacity and reloading speed. Currently, revolvers are considered obsolete technology, but are produced and sold in large quantities, mainly in the USA, where they are an attribute of national history. In addition, the revolver can be stored loaded indefinitely for use in an emergency.
- Richly decorated Colts were in the personal arsenals of all Russian emperors, starting with Nicholas I. According to available data, the same brand was preferred by the great terrorist Boris Savinkov.
- The most famous Colt models are the Dragoon 1848, Peacemaker 1872 and Python 1955 revolvers (still in production), as well as the legendary 1911 army pistol. The company's most popular modern pistols are the 45-caliber Defender and the small 38-caliber Mustang. Illustration copyright ap Image caption M-16 - the main small arms of the US Army
- In addition to pistols and revolvers, the company produces heavy military weapons, including the M-16 assault rifle.
- The world's largest working revolver, made in a home workshop by Polish-American Richard Tobis, weighs 45 kg, has a 28 mm caliber and fires bullets weighing 138 grams. The smallest is the Swiss Swiss Mini Gun, 5.5 cm long and weighing 19.8 g; the caliber of specially produced cartridges is 2.34 millimeters, bullet weight is 0.128 grams.
- Over more than a century and a half, Colt's Manufacturing Company produced about 30 million weapons.
- The right to own guns is enshrined in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which took effect on December 15, 1791.
- Americans own about 250 million legal revolvers, pistols, shotguns and rifles, two-thirds of which are owned by 20% of the population. In 2012 alone, 18.8 million guns were officially sold.
- US Public Opinion. Gun freedom advocates say that the Second Amendment to the Constitution (on the right to bear arms) is necessary to ensure that the government does not forget about the First (on freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion).
Perhaps in all the stories about the famous weapons designer Samuel Colt (1814 - 1862), an American saying is mentioned that "Ab Lincoln freed all people, and Sam Colt made them equal".
“The Great Leveler” S. Colt was a real American: active, skillful and resilient. Like the hero of Mark Twain's novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Who, when he was in the nineteenth century, worked as a foreman at the S. Colt arms factory. The biography of S. Colt is still cited with pleasure as one of the examples of the realization of the “American Dream”.
Both young Sam’s head and hands worked as expected. Already at the age of 14, he made his first invention: an electric fuse for detonating an underwater mine. On July 4, 1829, the inventor demonstrated his invention. The mine exploded successfully. But, being placed too close to the shore, it doused the spectators with water from head to toe. Young Sam had to flee from an angry crowd. They wouldn't have lynched him, but they could have beaten him hard. However, every cloud has a silver lining. Thanks to this incident, Samuel Colt met a mechanical engineer Elisha King Root (1808-1865). E. Ruth hid the boy in his house, and later became an engineer, technologist and manager at the S. Colt arms factory.
Everyone knows: S. Colt invented the "Colt". But this does not mean at all that S. Colt is the inventor of the pistol. Handguns have been known since the 15th century. Infantrymen used pistols, and cavalrymen also used them. Cavalry pistols were longer and hit targets at a distance of up to 40 meters. But the pistol was still a disposable weapon - it took too long to load it. Attempts to speed up the rate of fire and make a pistol with two or multiple barrels were unsuccessful. Most often, a pair of single-shot pistols were used in battle. This way, at least it was possible to fire two shots one after the other.
Another option for increasing the rate of fire of pistols was revolvers. The revolver was pre-loaded with a rotating drum, filling it with gunpowder and hammering a bullet. (Let's not forget that the unitary cartridge is a rather late invention). When the drum was turned, the charged chamber appeared opposite the barrel and became, as it were, its continuation. Now all that was left was the small matter: somehow ignite the gunpowder in the chamber. The gunpowder, burning, will push the bullet out. Hurray, shot!
As we see, the revolver is not S. Colt’s invention. The main part of the Colt, the loaded drum, was invented long before a gun factory opened in Hartford, Connecticut, producing revolvers, the handles of which were decorated with the image of a running foal. After all, “colt” means “foal” in English.
Two circumstances contributed to the emergence of a truly combat multi-shot revolver. Firstly, a primer was invented, which made it possible to ignite gunpowder in the drum with “one blow”. Bulky flintlocks are a thing of the past. Secondly, machine production began to develop. It became possible to produce complex and precise revolver mechanisms in mass quantities. Now it was possible to make a rotating drum that would reliably cover the barrel while firing. After all, before, quite often, powder gases broke out in the place where the drum was pressed against the barrel. This not only reduced the effectiveness of the shot, but was dangerous for the shooter.
S. Colt, as often happens, was in the right place at the right time. He became interested in designing revolvers and believed that he could make a real multi-shot combat weapon. He believed so much that he began to mobilize funds for future production. No shares, no loans! S. Colt, under the name of "Dr. Colt", a chemist and naturalist, traveled around the country and demonstrated in small American towns the effect of laughing gas on humans. The performances were popular, the volunteers fell into joyful euphoria, and money flowed into the cash register.
In 1835, the first working model of a revolver was created. It was designed by a gunsmith from Baltimore John Pearson (John Pearson). Colt patented this revolver in England and America. Immediately after receiving the American patent, on March 5, 1836, he founded his own production.
The company was located in Paterson, New Jersey. Accordingly, the first model of the Colt revolver was called "Paterson". This revolver was produced from 1836 to 1842. In 1842, due to a conflict between partners, the company ceased to exist.
But S. Colt could no longer be stopped. He became sick with revolvers and wanted to resume production. To do this, he even remembered the “sins of his youth.” Having developed an underwater mine with an electric fuse, he sold the patent to the US government. At the same time, together with a famous American artist, and an even more famous inventor Samuel Morse (Samuel Finley Breese Morse) (1791 - 1872) S. Colt worked on improving telegraph communications.
Revolvers, meanwhile, proved to be in great demand during the Mexican-American War of 1846 - 1847. At the beginning of 1847, Colt received the first government order for the production of 1000 revolvers. He designed this weapon together with the captain Samuel H. Walker (1817 - 1847). The captain died early in the war with Mexico. The revolver was named after him, Walker.
Institute teachers of machine parts like to tell the legend that one of the conditions of the government order was the mutual compatibility of parts of all revolvers. If it were not for machine production and the system of tolerances and landings developed by that time - they conclude their story - S. Colt would never have been able to fulfill this condition.
In the early 1850s, Colt opened a gunsmithing shop in Hartford. In 1852, he became the first American entrepreneur to open a branch of his business in London. In 1855, a large arms factory was built near Hartford, which is still located here today.
In 1861, the Civil War began in the United States. Colt weapons were used by both warring sides. The “Great Leveler” sold its products to both northerners and southerners. As they say in America: “This is business, nothing personal.” S. Colt himself did not live to see the end of the war. He died suddenly in 1862. He left behind a fortune of $15 million. At current exchange rates, this is about 300 million. From the moment Samuel Colt entered the arms business until the end of his life, his enterprises produced more than 400 thousand small arms. At one time, S. Colt was among the ten richest people in America.
Samuel Colt's earthly life was short-lived, 47 years. But the Colt outlived its creator and took part in important events that determined not only the borders of the current United States, but also many features of the American character and American society. Revolvers in the United States were supplied not only to the army. Anyone could freely buy a not-so-expensive Colt. The revolver turned out to be a reliable defender in the event of an attack by bandits. Remember the episode with the attack on the stagecoach from A. Surikova’s comedy film “The Man from the Boulevard des Capuchins”! Initially, the desire for freedom and justice embedded in the consciousness of Americans received significant support. The presence of weapons among all conflicting parties, oddly enough, made it possible to “resolve” situations that otherwise could have led to lawlessness. No wonder the long-barreled 45 caliber (11.43 mm) cavalry revolver was called the “Peacemaker”. And also the “conqueror of the Wild West.” A 45 caliber pistol is not an episodic hero of Westerns at all!
Useful links:
- Anniversary legendary Colt.
If God created people, and Lincoln freed them from slavery, then Colonel Samuel Colt made them for real equal - provided, of course, that each of the applicants for equality had a toy of 45 or at least 36 caliber at hand in time.
Desire is the beginning of passion, and passion is the beginning of all beginnings!
Samuel Colt was born on July 19, 1814 in the town of Hartford, the son of textile mill owner Christopher Colt. When the boy turned four years old, one of his relatives gave him a bronze toy pistol for his birthday.
This forestalled his future fate.
The very next day the boy stole a pack of gunpowder from his father and began experimenting. It's not hard to guess how it ended. There was just a small explosion in the house. Thank God, there were no injuries, severe fright or fire. However, this did not discourage little Sammy from working with cars, mechanisms and... pistols!
Exactly ten years later, secretly from everyone, he himself personally designed and manufactured at his father’s factory, in a repair shop, a four-barreled pistol that fired simultaneously from all four barrels. History is silent about what happened next, but apparently the tests were... not very successful. Having given up this “stupid idea”, in the sense of firing from four barrels at the same time, he still “didn’t get over it” with the idea of creating a perfect, ideal pistol. And so, at the age of 17, Samuel blew up a raft with gunpowder on the lake, connecting electrical wires to it and exploding the gunpowder with a spark from a self-made battery. However, as a result of a mistake, a mine explosion sent a huge stream of water down on the assembled audience. He was saved from the crowd by a tall young man, whose meeting determined life path Colt. It turned out to be mechanic Elisha Ruth, the future designer and organizer of Koltova production.
After this incident, the father, apparently fearing for his factory, quickly sent the boy away from his hometown. Study. To university.
Sam was having trouble with his studies, and after a while, an explosion occurred in the university laboratory. It was not difficult to guess who was the reason!
Afraid to go home after such a disgrace, Samuel got a job as a sailor on the merchant ship Corvo. It was while sailing on this ship that he came up with his first design of a drum revolver, which later became the prototype of all revolver designs throughout the world. Observing the operation of the ship's mechanisms, he noticed two of them: a steering wheel with a lock after each turn and a mechanism for raising the anchor chain, which rotated only in one direction. Taking as a basis the principles of operation of these mechanisms, Colt created the first, then still wooden, model of a rotating drum with fixation, the basis for the design of any drum revolver. Spat on overseas countries and delighted with his great discovery, he spent several months creating a prototype of the world's first revolver. This significant event happened in 1835. And although neither friends nor gunsmiths believed that “this thing could shoot,” Samuel Colt patented his invention in America, England and France. In the patent application, Colt indicated the main differences of his system: central ignition of the charge and a cylindrical bullet (before that, pistols and revolvers had spherical bullets).
This patent application determined the whole later life Samuel.
Having received an American patent for his first revolver on February 25, 1836 (in France he received a patent a year earlier), 22-year-old Samuel Colt then borrowed money from his wealthy businessman uncle and, having registered the Patent Arms Manufacturing Co., opened a weapons workshop in the city of Patterson. This is where the first working model of a revolver, the Colt Paterson, appeared.
The main advantage of the Colt Paterson revolver, unlike other pistols of that time, was that it allowed rapid shooting and confronting several opponents alone.
And yet, despite the positive reviews, Colt's company was slowly but surely heading towards ruin. Purchase lots of revolvers did not exceed 100 pieces. As a result, the workshop, which had already grown into a small factory, was closed in Paterson, and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. To somehow stay afloat, Colt went on a tour of the United States with his popular science show using nitrous oxide, while simultaneously selling waterproof ammunition and those same underwater mines with an electric fuse, the prototype of which he tested at the age of 14. He, without any hope, filed a patent for mines, which, a few years later, brought him millions of dollars.
This continued until one of the officers of the Texas Ranger Corps, Captain Samuel Walker, highly appreciating the excellent fighting qualities of the new revolver, knocked out a government order for 1000 revolvers for the Texas Expeditionary Force.
The reason for this was the successful outcome of the fight between his group of 16 people, armed with Colt revolvers, with 80 Indians. At the same time, not a single person from the detachment was even wounded!!! It was then that the Texas Rangers forever refuted the Indian philosophy: “Trunks are for suckers, knives are the choice of real warriors!”
Such combat episodes and reviews from the rangers simply could not help but be noticed by military officials, and fueled the demand for Colt revolvers. Sales, and with it profits, began to grow rapidly. In 1846, when the war with Mexico began, the government urgently ordered Colt another thousand new, modified revolvers. At the same time, Captain Walker met with Colt and asked him to take him as an assistant. Colt and Walker create new model revolver "Colt-Walker", which marked the beginning of the industrial production of this type of weapon.
However, in order to fulfill this, at that time huge, government order, a new plant was needed, and Colt begged Eli Whitney (the son of the inventor of the cotton gin) to use his unused textile factory in Connecticut for production. It was there that the world's first production of weapons on an industrial scale was launched. After the new revolvers entered service with the army, the name Colt became known throughout America. Therefore, even after the end of hostilities with Mexico, government orders continued to flow like a river.
In 1852, Samuel Colt received a large government order for revolvers for naval officers.
That same year, he bought a vacant lot near his hometown of Hartford, the capital of Connecticut. It cost a lot of money, even for Colt. But even greater expenses were required by the newest weapons factory, equipped with last word science and technology, which cost more than three years. However, Colt made the right decision here too! During the Civil War alone, Colt supplied government forces with hundreds of thousands of small arms, mostly revolvers. All expenses paid off very quickly! In total, over a century and a half, the company produced more than 30 million revolvers, pistols and shotguns with the branded “Colt” engraving at this plant.
Colt was an innovative inventor not only in the field of weapons production. It was he who, for the first time in business, began to engage in marketing and advertising, organizing targeted mailings of samples of his products.
In 1851, S. Colt went to international market- not only weapons, but also labor, opening its first plant in England. At the same time, he systematized the development, design and production of various models of his revolvers and shotguns, using, wherever possible, the unification of parts.
When the opportunity arose, Colt divided production: in addition to the mass production of revolvers and shotguns, a line of expensive exclusive weapons was opened. These were works of weapon art, decorated with exquisite engraving and wood carvings. Exclusive samples of Colt weapons were presented at the most prestigious exhibitions and auctions, presented as gifts to politicians and royalty: “Colts” were kept in the collections of Nicholas I and Alexander II, Danish king Frederick VII and Charles XV of Sweden.
After the outbreak of the American Civil War, the health of the “arms king” deteriorated sharply. Samuel Colt died January 10, 1862 in Hartford, aged 47.
The funeral of the US Army colonel was held at public expense - units of the 12th Connecticut Infantry Regiment, led by the governor, General Thomas Seymour, stood on the guard of honor. America said goodbye to Colt in a purely American way - with volleys from thousands of rifles and revolvers of his production - in a word, so that, in the words of the local newspaper, “the cannonade was like on a battlefield.”
The “great equalizer” left behind a fortune estimated at $15 million - simply unimaginable money at that time. Around that time, the state of Alaska was sold by Russia to the United States for about HALF OF THIS AMOUNT!
Management of the company passed to his widow Elizabeth, who managed not only to keep the company's brand high, but also to lead it to further prosperity.
reference Information
Few people know that the world-famous Colonel Colt, equated with God and Lincoln, never served in the army for a single day! And yet, he was a real colonel! He simply received his title when he was already a millionaire, for his support in the elections from the governor of Connecticut. That's how it happens!
And yet….
1. The first underwater mine;2. first drum revolver"Colt Paterson" 3. the first cartridge revolver “Single Action Army”, with the original nickname “Peacemaker”, since where he shot, peace came very quickly;4. the famous gangster machine gun “Tommy gun”;5. the legendary Colt 1191, which was in service with the American army for more than 70 years (you heard right - seventy years, from 1911 to 1985!); 6. modern American assault rifle “M-16”; all these are “children” of the company founded by Samuel Colt.
And yet, Colt’s passion, what he considered the main achievement of his life, was precisely the revolver. And it is precisely as the inventor of the revolver that Samuel Colt is known throughout the world.
Material from the encyclopedia
“Samuel Colt (1814-1862) - the inventor of the revolver, an American, fled from his father’s home to India in his youth and during the journey made a wooden model of what later became known as the revolver. Returning, he studied chemistry, lectured on it in the United States and Canada, visited Europe in 1835 and took patents for his invention in London and Paris and founded a company for the manufacture of revolvers, but in 1842 he went bankrupt; For 5 years in a row, revolvers were not manufactured and became very rare.
When the government ordered the inventor 1000 pieces, he had to make a new model, since the copy previously manufactured by the company could not be found anywhere. This order was the beginning of Colt's prosperity. He replaced a small workshop in Withneyvilles with a large one in Getford, and in 1852 he founded a huge trading post, doubled in size in 1861, on the shoals of the Connecticut River. From here, a huge mass of revolving mechanisms was sent annually to Russia and England.”
Look, nothing is said here about underwater mines, or about the “Tommy gun”, or “M-16”. All this came later, after his death. And Colonel Colt’s lifetime monument was, in his personal opinion, an ordinary revolver!
Here they are, Colt revolvers, which became classics during the lifetime of their creator.
1. Five-shot "Colt Paterson" model 1836. Caliber 0.36 inches (9 mm). The world's first pistol, firstly, equipped with a safety lock, and secondly, allowing rapid fire, shooting back from several opponents. The rate of fire was achieved due to replaceable drums; the revolver came with two of them and it was possible to buy as many more as you wanted.
2. “Dragoon” or “Big Colts”, produced in three modifications. Caliber 0.44 inches (11.2 mm), size - almost 40 cm! A sort of small repeating shotgun without a stock! Not everyone could shoot accurately from it - the weight of this “toy” was four pounds (over one and a half kilograms!).
3. “Colt – Navy” Model 1851, caliber 9 mm is intended for navy, but was also popular on land. The special features of this weapon were an octagonal drum (probably to prevent it from rolling when pitching) and the complete absence of a front sight! Why shoot accurately at sea?
4. Army "Colt" model 1860, the main weapon of the war between North and South. The caliber is 0.44 inches (11.2 mm), but the weight is less than that of the Dragunsky - only about a kilogram;
5. Modernized “Colt – Navy”. Model 1861. Produced in 0.45 and 0.36 inch calibers. He began his military career during the Civil War and remained popular until World War II.
The rest of Colt's weapon "hits" were created by his followers after his death. And the “Peacemaker” revolver, and the “Tommy gun” assault rifle, famous from gangster “showdowns” during Prohibition, and the American “M-16” assault rifle, which is in service in more than 20 countries around the world.
By the way, it was in Colt’s shotguns that they first began to use a pump-action system for reloading a shotgun, in contrast to the “Winchester” system, in which the shotgun is reloaded with a special bracket near trigger. Then Winchester tried to introduce it into their guns, but after experimenting, he refused. These two systems have long been the strongest competitors in the American weapons market. Colt won here too!
Today, the company founded in 1847 by Samuel Colt remains one of the world's leading manufacturers firearms. Its model line extends from miniature ladies' pistols to heavy army machine guns, shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft weapons and other "killer tools."
