a robust contractor to the U.S. government (and to other, friendly governments as well) on the defense side. Consequently, the majority of Colt’s internal resources and external public relations and lobbying efforts are targeted to meet defense-contracting opportunities.
Still, Colt has a commercial handgun capacity with both legacy and product that remain in high demand. According to Roberts, “Colt’s Manufacturing has not defined its niche as bells and whistles, guns with seven sorts of whiz-bang features and any ‘gun of the week’ syndrome. We believe that at this time, our niche is the basic, mil-spec single-stack .45 and some offshoots of that trusted firearm. We are also committed to maintain a very strong presence in the single-action community with our Model P, the classic Colt Peacemaker. These directions are intended for the Colt purist, the person who likes guns with the refinement, aesthetics and quality they had 40 and 50 years ago.” To promote the brand, Colt’s continuing task is therefore to maintain a competitive competence in price, quality and distinctiveness.
So, according to Mark Roberts, Colt’s commitment to the civilian market remains solid, even if it may not carry as extensive a product line as it once did. For example, the Hartford manufacturer went through a major “commemorative era” from the 1960s to the 1980s wherein dozens of special guns were produced in the “Lawman Series”: the 3,000 guns designated the 1967 Bat Masterson Frontier Scout, or the 250 .45 automatics in the 1979 Ohio President’s Special Edition. Colt has made a decision to move beyond that market, perhaps finding that the resources invested in building and marketing a few hundred specialized guns, even one for which the pattern was well-established, could not be recouped in profitability and that the dozens of commemoratives produced may, in effect, have softened the brand when the guns did not hold their initial commemorative values.
“Although the manufacturing process is continually changing, we, like other companies that manufacture intricate mechanical instruments continue to look for ways to build excellent, durable parts at less expense,” Mark Roberts says. “Basically though, we still operate the way we did a generation ago, with high quality forged steel and machined bar stock, and making very limited use of MIM (metal injection molded) parts. I believe that most people would be truly astonished at the amount of hand finishing and team evaluation that our quality inspectors require for that perfect Colt fit and feel.”
THE RAMPANT COLT:
SAM COLT
(1814 - 1862) – American Genius, American Original
Sam Colt was a prodigy. In 20 years, he went from penniless to immensely wealthy; from being a literal nobody to consorting with the richest, most famous and, occasionally, the most powerful people in the world. Beginning with a prototype revolver carved from a chunk of wood, he orchestrated a firearms revolution and organized one of the largest and most successful industrial enterprises in America. Almost 200 years after his birth, his story is still amazing and inspiring.
The son of a sometime farmer, sometime small businessman, Samuel Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1814. Although his father and stepmother worked hard to give him a good education – his biological mother died when he was just a few years old – at the age of 11, he was indentured as a farm servant. And like most rural youngsters, he was at home with the muzzleloaders of the day.
As a youth, the boy had a profound mechanical curiosity and was greatly influenced by a book titled the Compendium of Knowledge, an encyclopedia of a scientific nature. This book contained articles about inventors such as Robert Fulton who – by linking an idea with a challenge, and with the ability to work mechanically with gears, wheels and levers – succeeded in expanding the frontier of human accomplishment. When Sam’s father subsequently took over the operation of a Massachusetts textile mill, the young Sam worked there also.
Shortly afterward, Sam Colt spent a year at sea. It may very well have been there, watching the action of the ship’s wheel as it spun and locked (or perhaps the capstan, a rotating wheel used to control lines to sails and spars, and to redirect the force of the wind) controlling the sailing ship’s movements, that he conceived his idea for spinning or rotating chambers that would hold firearms ammunition. On board the ship, he even worked with the carpenter to carve a realistic model of a six-shooter. The boy was just 18 years old.
The best-known American gunmaker of all time, Samuel Colt (1814-1862).
Returning to New England, Sam and his father commissioned several gunsmiths to build revolving cylinder firearms to Sam’s specifications, but because the Colts lacked the finances to hire truly first-class metalsmiths, these models operated poorly or not at all. One of the first two exploded in Colt’s hands. So to raise money to bring his ideas to fruition, the young man took to the road as an entertainer (“Doctor Coult of Calcutta”) giving lectures about and demonstrations of laughing gas (nitrous oxide) in fairs and auditoriums from the Mississippi River to Montreal.
The income from his laughing gas tour allowed him to commission excellent working models and engineering drawings of his revolvers. The tour also gave him valuable experience in promotion and marketing, experience he would soon put to the test with his own inventions. At just 21 years of age, in 1835, he sailed to England and France to patent his revolver, fearing that the Europeans would immediately pirate his work. Afterwards, he returned to the U.S. and patented his drawings and ideas at home.
In his book COLT: An American Legend, R.L. Wilson reminds us that when Colt organized his first factory in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1836, the president of the U.S. was Andrew Jackson, and that the Union encompassed only 25 states and a vast frontier had been purchased just 33 years before by Thomas Jefferson.
Although that time seems an eternity ago, financing options were about the same. With patents, working models and a personal investment, Colt incorporated as the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, borrowed enough money to capitalize his factory and begin turning out revolving cylinder handguns, rifles and even shotguns for the cap-and-ball or percussion era that was replacing the older flintlocks.
For a collector, finding a Paterson Colt in a dusty, rarely-visited attic would be better than finding a friendly Irish leprechaun willing to take him to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It did not turn out as well for Colt, however. His Paterson models were functional, even remarkable for the time, but hardly efficient or reliable. In New Jersey, Colt developed and produced three different revolving-cylinder handgun models – pocket, belt and holster; two types of revolving long rifle – one cocked by a hammer and the other by a finger lever or ring; a revolving carbine; and a revolving-cylinder shotgun. In all cases, gunpowder and bullets were loaded into the front of the cylinder while the primer was inserted into a hollow nipple located on the outside of the cylinder, where it would be struck by the hammer when the trigger was pulled.
But Sam Colt’s designs were still immature and the black powder of the day was extremely “dirty,” leaving a great deal of fouling that complicated the functioning of moving parts. For these reasons and because of the lack of government orders, Colt closed the doors of his Paterson enterprise in 1842.
Nevertheless, Colt’s Paterson plant did in fact produce working models of multi-shot handguns, rifles and shotguns. His guns were used in the Seminole War in Florida and, most important, in the fighting to establish the Republic of Texas that would culminate in the Mexican-American War.
The Paterson failure was not the end of Sam Colt, though. Filled with ideas and with insufficient
