According to The Wall Street Journal and other leading American media, the American arms company Colt Defense is on the verge of bankruptcy. Currently, the issue of restructuring the company's debt is being resolved. If the problem is not resolved soon, which is unlikely, the company's assets will be put up for auction. Bankruptcy could be the end of a 160-year-old firm's prolonged agony.
Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company, Samuel Colt created in 1855. By that time, the name of Colt and him was already well known both in America and abroad. In 1836, Colt patented the "revolving gun" - a weapon with a rotating breech part, in combination with a firing mechanism and primer ignition.The idea of a multiply charged 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 produced However, Colt was the first to combine the revolver scheme with the primer invented shortly before (say, Collier's revolvers had a complex scheme with a trigger with flint and a flint on the drum casing). Colt was able to find creditors to start production of his revolver and in 1836 in Paterson, New Jersey, the production of revolvers was launched, named after the name of the locality - Colt Paterson.
However, Colt's first pancake came out lumpy - the revolver suffered from a lack of design, and the level of technical equipment of the first factory did not allow achieving the proper quality of parts processing. 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 a while, Colt abandoned the idea of a gun business and switched to new fashion of that time - the production and sale of telegraph cable.
However, chance intervened. A number of Colt revolvers were bought for trial by the Texas Rangers, who during this period were cleaning up the living space for the American nation. In one of the many skirmishes, a squad of 15 Rangers armed with, among other things, Colt revolvers, shot 70 Comanches.
Impressed by the capabilities of the new weapon, the commander of this ranger squad, Samuel Walker, went across the country to New York (then it was a non-trivial journey, it was before the era of transcontinental railways) to convince the inventor of the Colts to continue producing revolvers. Walker gave the inventor money, plus he borrowed a little from the banks on Walker's recommendation. This made it possible to restore the production of revolvers in the workshop. The design of Colt's revolvers was improved - a sixth cartridge appeared in the drum, shortened chambers for a cartridge with a smaller charge (less charge - less wear on parts and recoil), a longer barrel. Colt revolvers managed to play 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. The conquests cost the lives of many famous sons of the American people, among whom was the one who gave Colt a ticket to big business Captain Samuel Walker.
Things at Colt himself quickly went uphill. Production volumes were constantly growing, the American army and navy were added to the rangers. Colt's revolvers reached Europe, where they managed to take part in the Crimean War, and on both sides. The capacities of the old workshop were no longer enough for all orders. In 1855, Colt opens a new Colt Armory plant in Hartford and establishes Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company. It is from this date that it is customary to trace the history of Colt's weapons empire.
What are the reasons for the success of Colt and his revolvers? In addition to the innovative design, organizational skills of the Colt and the case in the person 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 gimmick was to give his revolver as a gift to someone needed or important to promote the product. At first they were newspaper editors - the print press was then, in fact, the only media and a real fourth power. As a reward, the newspapers did not skimp on praise in the spirit of "Colt revolvers - a reliable tool against bears, Indians, Mexicans and others." It is believed that the phrase “God Made Man, Colt Made Them Equal” itself was coined either by Colt himself or by one of his gifted newspaper editors. As the business developed, effective PR was backed up by powerful GR. Colt presented his brainchild to presidents, kings, 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 inscription "From the Inventor" were not only crowned persons, but also those who constantly fought with them, such as professional revolutionaries Giuseppe Garibaldi or Lajos Kossuth. Who knows, maybe such marketing moves - like the sudden appearance in service of riflemen or motor catchers, say, ORSIS or A-545 - are not enough for our gunsmiths to promote their products on the market? Is it not ethical, you say, to do PR on the supply of weapons for 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 - Civil War in the USA 1861-1865.
However, back to the history of the Colt company. After the death of the great inventor and marketer, his widow Elizabeth Colt and brother Jarvis took over the leadership of his weapons empire. The reputational and technological backlog created by Samuel lasted until the end of the 19th century. Calibers changed, cartridges were added, details were added, but Colt revolvers continued to be recognizable by the good old Colts. However, the 20th century came and the development small arms approached a new revolution - the transition to semi-automatic and automatic schemes. John Moses Browning, an inventor working for Colt at the time, developed the magazine-fed self-loading pistol that defined the development of personal firearms for more than a hundred years. The launch of the Colt M1900 and its development, the M1911, became one of the most famous pistols and an important part of American culture, to match its predecessor.
The next well-known products of the Colt factories were John Thompson submachine guns. Thompson's own company, Auto-Ordnance, at first lacked the capacity, and therefore the first mass-produced "Tommy Guns" were released under the name Colt-Thompson Model 1921. As you know, they were first armed with all sorts of bandits from the highway.
During the Second World War, Colt's 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.
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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 sells the production rights to this rifle to Colt, which begins commercial production. In 1961, a trial batch of these rifles was purchased by the US Army. In 1964, the rifle under the designation M16 is officially adopted. Well, we will not talk in detail about the M16.
We note something else - after the death of Colt, the well-being of the company 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 creativity in the 20th century was obvious. This was clearly hinted at by Colt's by the American army, choosing at the 1985 competition of the year as the main personal weapon. Beretta pistol 92F developed by the Italian company Beretta. For the first time in many years, the American army received small arms designed and produced by a non-American company. The army was followed by the police, more and more actively changing 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 stocks of small arms accumulated by all sides during the years of confrontation were thrown into the arms market. Why buy a new M16 for $1,600 when you can buy the same from the army warehouses for $600 and a Kalashnikov assault rifle for $300. Sales in 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 the restructuring. The Marine Corps also helped by issuing an order for the production of M4 carbines - a shortened version of the M16. With the beginning 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 to be more profitable than the long and excessively powerful M16. All this won the company two extra decades of life. However, the experience of operating carbines in Iraq and Afghanistan caused a lot of criticism 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 the Colt's M4 turned out to be higher than the total number of failures of other types of weapons participating in the tests - the German HK XM8, HK 416 and the Belgian FN SCAR-L.
Another factor that knocked Colt down was Obama's election campaign and his victory in the presidential election. His team's proposals included joining the United States to the International Arms Trade Treaty and tightening regulations on private ownership of small arms. Everyone was mobilized to defend the second amendment - the "National Rifle Organization",
"Second Amendment Sisters"
and "Jews for the preservation of the right to own weapons."
As a result, the attack on the Second Amendment by the Republicans and shooters managed to repulse, but the frightened arms sellers staged mass sales of weapons on the eve of the expected tightening, collapsing prices and once again knocking down the positions of manufacturers. Well, the final nail in the coffin of Colt was the lost 2013 competition for the supply of the US Army with 120,000 Belgian F.N. Herstal.
However, it is certainly premature to talk about the death of the Colt trademark. According to the 11th article of the US Bankruptcy Code, the company will be put up for auction, where it is likely to be bought out by new owners. Recall that in 1992 a similar step was taken, as a result of which in 1994 the company was bought by the current owner, the Zilkha financial group. So Colt products will equalize people for some time.
Wednesday, February 25 marks exactly 179 years of one of the most popular weapons in the history of mankind - the Colt revolver. Let's remember the story of one of the main symbols of America, about which there is a famous proverb: “God made people strong and weak. Colonel Colt evened the odds."
Samuel Colt with one of his revolvers.
Samuel Colt was born in 1814 in Kentucky to 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 fighting 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 then popular scientific encyclopedia Compedium of Knowledge. Reading this book gave Samuel much more pleasure than getting to know the Bible. In particular, the future inventor was impressed by the articles on gunpowder and Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat.
At the age of 15, Sumuel starts working at his father's textile factory, where he gains access to tools, materials and the skills of workers. Taking an article from the same encyclopedia as an instruction, he designs his own galvanic cell. With it, he arranges a spectacular underwater explosion in the local pond on Independence Day, which impresses the townspeople.
Becoming then for some time a student of a boarding school, Samuel did nothing but entertain his classmates with pyrotechnics. One of these amusements caused a fire in the school, which meant the end of education for Samuel. After that, his father sends him to study sailing on the brig Corvo.
As the inventor later said, it was what he saw on the brig that inspired him to create his revolver. As a teenager, Colt overheard two soldiers talking about the success of the double-barreled rifle and the impossibility of building a pistol that could fire five or six times without reloading. Even then, Samuel decided that in the future he would certainly deal with this problem.
Colt was inspired by the helm of the ship on which he sailed. Whichever direction the captain chose, each of the helm spokes always formed a straight line with a special sleeve where it could be secured. This mechanism fixed the steering wheel in a certain place, regardless of its position.
Immediately on the ship, Colt assembles a model of his pepperbox revolver from scrap wood with an automatically rotating barrel, the idea of which prompted him to fix the steering wheel mechanism.
Pepperbox revolvers looked like this
Pepperbox revolvers by this time were the latest fashion in small arms. They had several rotating barrels, this made it possible not to reload the weapon after each shot. But the rotation was usually carried out manually, which took a lot of time, in addition, the multi-barrel concept greatly affected the accuracy and reliability of the weapon.
The number of barrels for pepperbox revolvers reached 24, like this instance of the Belgian company Mariette.
Colt's innovation was that he came up with a reliable mechanism for automatically turning the barrels after each pull of the trigger so that they were fixed exactly against the bolt. This was the first step towards a single-barreled multi-shot revolver.
After returning to the US, 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 the production of his son, and he had to start earning on his own.
To do this, Colt chooses a very unusual way - 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 small accumulated money, he decides to invest them in the production of the first revolver.
By this time, Colt had already abandoned the idea of multi-barreled weapons in favor of a single barrel and a rotating drum. Borrowing another $300 from a friend of his father, 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 to be fired from a horse. It was lighter than its predecessor, the design solved some of the problems faced by the owners of the Walker.
Next was a Colt Wells Fargo revolver, designed, apparently, for the Wells Fargo company, which was engaged in transportation. Oddly enough, but despite the coincidence of names, there is no evidence that the revolver really has anything to do with the transport company.
This model became especially popular among security guards, detectives and gold miners, who at that time were more than enough - the Gold Rush was in full swing. This revolver was distinguished by its small weight and size, which made it easy to hide it under clothing.
During the Civil War, one of the most popular types of small arms was the Colt Army revolver. It was the last model produced 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, shamelessly sold 2,000 brand new revolvers to the Confederate army, which, of course, many did not like.
To justify Samuel, we can say 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 Abdulmejid I that the Russians had been buying his revolvers for a long time, which persuaded him to a large-scale order. Colt's words were true, only he kept silent about the fact that he had previously said the same thing to the Russians about the Turks.
On February 25, 1836, 180 years ago, the American Colt received the first patent for an automatic revolver.
“God made people strong and weak. Colonel Colt equalized their chances ”- this is how they say in the USA about Samuel Colt, the man thanks to whom the triumphant march of the revolver began. Sometimes Colt is even credited with the invention of this weapon - however, in fact, revolvers were made with late XVI century. The first revolvers were not popular and in demand - their manufacture was extremely expensive and difficult, and besides, they did not provide continuous firing.
In June 1818, the American officer and designer Artemas Wheeler patented a flintlock revolver - this weapon made it possible to shoot up to 7 times in a row. Nevertheless, the popularity of expensive revolvers increased slightly.
Grandpa's gun and electric cord
In 1814, Samuel Colt, the future reformer of revolving weapons, was born in Connecticut. According to legend, the first toy of the little Colt was a flintlock pistol, inherited from his grandfather - former officer Continental Army. According to another legend, at the age of four, Samuel tried to convert a toy gun given to him for his birthday into a real one - and set off an explosion that almost blew the whole house.
At the age of 14, Colt became seriously interested in pyrotechnics. And on Independence Day, the young man set up a raft filled with gunpowder in the center of the city lake, and extended an electric cord from the raft to the shore.
The result was a loud explosion that killed the fish in the pond and caused panic among the festive-minded townspeople.
Samuel's father, fearing that his son would burn down the house, sent the teenager to a boarding school. In the boarding school, Colt did nothing but entertain his friends with pyrotechnics. And some time later, a fire broke out in the school - of course, through the fault of the future reformer of revolving weapons. One of the buildings of the boarding school burned down in the fire, and Colt was immediately sent home to his angry father.
The indignant parent did not want the negligent offspring to live with him under the same roof, and sent his son to serve as a sailor on a two-masted Corvo ship bound for India. On the ship, Colt liked to watch for a long time how famously the helmsman turned the helm.
The result of these observations was the creation by Samuel of a wooden model of the future revolver. Colt's innovation was that he "introduced" a rotating drum system into the revolver, which alternately substituted several pre-loaded cartridges under the firing pin.
Among the first
February 25, 1836 in the United States, Colt acquires a patent for an automatic revolver, the rate of fire of which is five times higher than the rate of "predecessors". With the financial support of his uncle, Samuel opens the Patent Arms Manufacturing Co., as well as a gun factory in New Jersey.
It is important that Colt was one of the first industrialists to use machine-made weapons in their factories.
Although the inventor invested a lot of money in advertising his product, sales were not very successful. Then Colt went to Washington and showed the revolver to the seventh US president and one of the founders of the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson. The Democrat admired Colt's invention and even wrote a positive review of the weapon. Nevertheless, orders from Samuel did not increase. The industrialist actively tried to enlist the support of the American army, but at that time the US military called revolvers "weapons of yesterday."
As a result, the Colt company went bankrupt, and the inventor himself decided to start producing submarine cables. At the same time, Samuel's brother was in the dock.
Representatives of the yellow press immediately took advantage of the situation and began to write that the accused had committed the murder with a Colt revolver.
Colt vs Comanche
In 1847, Texas Ranger Samuel Walker witnessed how his team of 15, armed with Colt revolvers, dealt with a detachment of 70 Comanches. An enthusiastic Walker asked Colt for a meeting, during which the men agreed to cooperate. So there were revolvers with an increased capacity of the Colt Walker drum.
Colt Walker 1847
The weapon was quickly appreciated by the American army - a few months after the Colt Walker went on sale, Samuel received an order for 1,000 revolvers from the US military.
After that, Colt no longer had problems with sales.
In the early 1850s, Colt set up a gun shop in Hartford, the capital of Connecticut. And two years later, he opened a branch of his enterprise in London, which Charles Dickens, a classic of world literature, would later speak with enthusiasm about.
Colt Dragoon
At the same time, Colt Dragoon revolvers designed for shooting from a horse, as well as Colt Wells Fargo revolvers, are on sale. The latest model was lightweight and was created at a time of increasing demand for personal weapons - and it was immediately appreciated by security guards, detectives, officers. In addition, these were the times of the gold rush and the development of the Wild West, so gold miners quickly appreciated the Colt's weapons.
Colt Wells Fargo
It is known that James Butler Hickok, an American hero of the Wild West, a famous shooter, scout and poker player, was armed with two Colt Navy revolvers. Hickok was called Wild Bill, and also Dick Duck and Duck, because the shooter's lower lip protruded strongly.
In 1861, the American Civil War began, during which Colt sold weapons to both southerners and northerners. It is interesting that it was then that American politicians and journalists began to develop the idea that the presence of weapons on both sides of the conflict does not lead to lawlessness, but to a peaceful resolution of problems.
A few decades later, Colt Single Action Army revolvers would be called "peacemakers", and the famous expression "God made people strong and weak. Colonel Colt equalized their chances" will be turned into the phrase "Abraham Lincoln gave people freedom, and Colonel Colt equalized their chances."
Colt Single Action Army
Colt did not live to see the end of the war - at the age of 47, the inventor died in his native Hartford. Journalists wrote that "Colt died of natural causes." The great revolver reformer left behind a fortune estimated at $15 million.
Before Colt
The design of drum-loading small arms has been around long before the Colt, at least since the 17th century. But its first samples were not widely used due to the complexity of production and high cost. Reliability also left much to be desired. The revolution in the production of rapid-fire weapons became possible only with the spread of primer lock and machine production. In 1836, Samuel Colt proposed his model.
Texas Choice
Colt received a U.S. patent on February 25, 1836, and set up production in Paterson, New Jersey, where he created his first masterpiece, the Colt Paterson revolver, also known as the Texas Colt, due to its popularity among the rangers of the Wild West. The first revolvers, as well as rifles and carbines of a similar design, were acquired by the armies of the United States and the Republic of Texas. The standardization of parts made this weapon affordable and could be purchased for $20. But he still had flaws, in particular, army customers complained about "too much ammunition consumption" - a consequence of the high rate of fire. The number of buyers decreased every year and in 1842 the company went bankrupt. The production of Colt revolvers resumed only in 1847. By this time, competitors had already appeared on the market for Samuel, with whom Colt entered into a difficult struggle for a buyer.
Caliber and Marketing
Even before the bankruptcy, in 1842, a group of Russian officers visited the enterprise in Paterson and got acquainted with the sensational weapon. So the first official acquaintance of Russians with Colt products took place. Already by 1854, small-scale production of Colt revolvers was launched in Russia at three state-owned factories: in Tula, Izhevsk and Helsingfors. The following models dominated: "saddle pistol" (Dragoon), "belt pistol" (Navi), "five-shot pocket pistol with a 6-inch barrel" (Pocket). They were recognized by the military department as fit and useful. Contrary to popular belief, in Russian Empire they were used already during the Crimean War, but not everywhere, except perhaps the guards naval crew and officers of the rifle regiment of the imperial family. Colts were not issued to ordinary soldiers, believing that they could not cope. But, as you know, the results of the Crimean War showed that the modernization of the army is necessary. So, starting from the 1850s and until the first half of the 20th century, when the Smith-Wesson and Nagant revolver came into fashion, Colts were used everywhere.
Legendary "Peacemaker"
The symbol of the Wild West, the Colt Peacemaker revolver is still produced in small batches. The model was created in 1873 specifically for the American cavalry and was called the "Colt single action army" (Single Action Revolver). The weapon acquired the famous nickname later, thanks to the availability and ease of use of the revolver, even for untrained shooters. Together with the famous "Winchester", the "Peacemaker", which fired similar cartridges, is one of the attributes of the "typical" cowboy, whose image has come down to us in numerous "westerns". By the way, despite the fact that the revolver was six-shot, they preferred to load it with only five cartridges - the design did not provide for a fuse, so the cartridge in the drum opposite the barrel could already be fatal for the owner.
most famous phrase
"God made people different, but Colonel Colt made them equal." According to legend, this inscription is carved on the tombstone of the famous gunsmith. In fact, there is nothing on it except the name and dates of life. The witty phrase appeared during the American Civil War and sounded like: "Abraham Lincoln gave people freedom, and Colonel Colt equalized their chances." True, Colt did not serve in the US Army and was not a colonel. He died in 1862 at the age of 47, one of the richest and famous people in USA. His fortune was estimated at 15 million dollars, which corresponds to half a billion in modern money. During the Civil War, his firm was the exclusive supplier of the US Army, which did not prevent it from selling weapons to the Confederate troops.
Present day
In 1848, near his birthplace in Hartford, Colt built a gun factory that is still in operation today, one of the largest in the industry. And the restored enterprise in Paterson switched to the production of small-scale, personalized and piece models. Dozens of revolvers and pistols were produced under the Colt brand, including such famous models as the Colt 1911 pistol, which was in service with the US Army of the 20th century, and the Colt Detective Special compact revolver, the "star" of detectives and films of the genre " Noir". In 2006, Samuel Colt was inducted into the US Inventors Hall of Fame.
Perhaps in all the stories about the famous weapon designer Samuel Colt (1814 - 1862), an American proverb is mentioned that "Ab Lincoln freed all people, and Sam Colt made them equal".
The "great equalizer" S. Colt was a real American: active, skillful and resilient. Like the character in Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." Who, when he was in the nineteenth century, worked as a foreman at the arms factory of S. Colt. The biography of S. Colt is still cited with pleasure as one of the examples of the implementation of the "American dream".
Both the head and hands of young Sam worked as they should. Already at the age of 14, he made his first invention: an electric fuse for undermining an underwater mine. On July 4, 1829, the inventor demonstrated his invention. The mine was successfully detonated. But, being placed too close to the shore, she doused the audience with water from head to toe. Young Sam had to flee from an angry mob. They wouldn't lynch him, but they could beat him hard. However, there is no evil without good. Through 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 arms factory of S. Colt.
Everyone knows: S. Colt invented "colt". But this does not mean at all that S. Colt is the inventor of the pistol. Manual firearms known since the 15th century. Infantrymen used pistols, cavalrymen also used them. Cavalry pistols were longer and hit the target 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, to make the pistol two- or multi-barrelled were unsuccessful. Most often, a pair of single-shot pistols were used in battle. So at least two shots could be fired one after the other.
Another option for increasing the rate of fire of pistols was revolvers. In a revolver, a rotating drum was preloaded, stuffing gunpowder into it 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 turned out to be opposite the barrel and became, as it were, its continuation. Now it was a matter of "small things": to somehow set fire to the gunpowder in the chamber. Gunpowder, burning, will push the bullet out. Hooray, shot!
As you can see, the revolver is not an invention of S. Colt. The main, it would seem, part of the "colt", a loaded drum, was invented long before an arms factory was launched in the city of Hartford, Connecticut, producing revolvers, the handle of which was decorated with the image of a running foal. After all, "colt" in English is "foal".
Two circumstances contributed to the emergence of a truly combat multiply charged revolver. Firstly, a primer was invented, which made it possible to set fire to gunpowder in the drum "with one blow". Bulky flintlocks are a thing of the past. Secondly, machine production began to develop. Complex and precise mechanisms of revolvers became possible to produce in mass quantities. Now it was possible to make a rotating drum that would securely close the barrel for the duration of the shot. After all, before, quite often, powder gases broke out at 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 the design of revolvers and believed that he could make a real military multi-shot weapon. He believed so much that he began to mobilize funds for future production. No shares, no loans! S. Colt, under the name of "Doctor Coult", a chemist and naturalist, traveled around the country and demonstrated in small American towns the effect of laughing gas on a person. The performances were popular, volunteers fell into joyful euphoria, money flowed into the cashier.
In 1835, the first workable 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 established his own production.
The firm was located in Paterson, New Jersey. Accordingly, the first model of the Colt revolver was called "Paterson" (Paterson). This revolver was produced from 1836 to 1842. In 1842, due to a conflict between partners, the company ceased to exist.
But S. Kolt could no longer be stopped. He "fell ill" with revolvers, and wished to resume production. To do this, he even remembered the "sins of youth." Having developed an underwater mine with an electric fuse, he sold the patent to the US government. At the same time, together with the famous American artist, and even more famous inventor Samuel Morse (Samuel Finley Breese Morse) (1791 - 1872) S. Colt worked on the improvement of telegraph communications.
Revolvers, meanwhile, proved to be in great demand during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1847. In early 1847, Colt received the first government order for 1,000 revolvers. This weapon he designed 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 for the government order was the mutual compatibility of the 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 gun 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.
In 1861, the American Civil War began. Colt weapons were used by both warring sides. The "Great Equalizer" 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 the current exchange rate, this is about 300 million. From the moment Samuel Colt entered the arms business until the end of his life, more than 400,000 small arms were produced at his enterprises. At one time, S. Colt was among the ten richest people in America.
Samuel Colt's earthly age was short, 47 years. But the Colt outlived its creator and took part in important events that determined not only the boundaries of the current United States, but also many features of the American character and American society. Revolvers in the United States came 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 "The Man from the Boulevard des Capucines"! The desire for freedom and justice, originally embedded in the consciousness of Americans, received significant support. The presence of weapons in all the conflicting parties, oddly enough, made it possible to "resolve" situations that otherwise could lead to lawlessness. No wonder the long-barreled 45 caliber cavalry revolver (11.43 mm) was called the "Peacemaker" (Peacemaker). And also "the conqueror of the Wild West." A 45 caliber pistol is not an episodic western hero at all!
Useful links:
- Anniversary of the legendary Colt.
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