Opinion
At a commercial gun store in Cody, WY, called “The Cody Firearms Experience,” I had the opportunity to shoot a Colt/Walker Revolver (reproduction) for the first time in my life.
The Cody Firearms Experience has a number of historical guns, many black powder, that customers can handle and shoot. I had never shot a black-powder revolver, so a friend insisted I take advantage of the opportunity.
It took every bit of twenty minutes to get the Walker completely loaded. We used a black-powder substitute, popular with re-enactors and others who like to shoot historic weapons.
“Real” black powder is still available but very dangerous, particularly when kept in large quantities. In fact, during the 18th and 19th Centuries, factories that produced black powder regularly blew up.
The Walker’s sights were, by modern standards, a joke. Tiny front sight. The rear sight is merely a small furrow cut into the top of the hammer.
Sam Colt started in the 1830s and was a spectacularly successful arms manufacturer. He gets credit for being one of the first arms-makers to employ the idea of interchangeable parts. This notion would have a great impact on the rapidly-accelerating Industrial Revolution.
But, Sam got off to a slow start.
In the 1830s, his first commercial revolvers, Colt/Paterson, didn’t sell. It was a revolutionary idea but was greeted with much push-back, as new ideas often are.
Sam was probably influenced by Elisha Collier’s manually-indexing flintlock revolver, which had been around since the early 1800s. Collier’s revolver too, never enjoyed much commercial success.
The Paterson was frail, temperamental, and underpowered. It also had no loading lever to assist with charging the cylinders (added on later models).
After repeatedly exasperating his weary investors, Colt went bankrupt in 1843.
Then, Colt’s fortunes suddenly turned around.
Samuel Walker, a heavily-experienced US Army officer, and Texas Ranger, a veteran of many battles with both Indians and Mexicans, decided in January of 1847 to travel from TX to NYC in order to consult with Sam Colt with regard to an improved design for a serious, practical, fighting revolver.
Walker was familiar with the Paterson, as it had seen some exposure in TX. Walker wanted a six-shot revolver in 44 caliber (the Paterson was five-shot, 28 and 36 caliber), powerful enough to take-down a horse with a single shot (along with other improvements).
Among frontier fighters, this capability was critical! Most enemies Walker had confronted in his exciting career had been on horseback. Shooting the horse made much more sense than shooting the man on the horse.
The horse is a big target, much bigger than the rider, and when the horse stumbles (as a result of being shot), the rider will probably be significantly injured as a result of the subsequent wreck.
Even when he isn’t, he is far less of a threat on foot than when mounted.
Walker, with the backing of the Republic of Texas, came to Colt with enough money to finance the production of the first 1k copies of what would be forever known as “The Colt/Walker Revolver”
Walker himself died in October of 1847 (less than a year after his first meeting with Sam Colt), while fighting in the Mexican War.
Sam Colt was in business once more, and never looked back! The Colt/Walker Revolver marked the turning point in Colt’s life and ushered in a period of spectacular success.
Yet, the Colt/Walker Revolver was significantly flawed! Only 1k were ever made. Today, what few are still around are amazingly valuable, as you might imagine!
Many fractured their cylinders due to overcharging and faulty metallurgy.
Sights were poor, as noted above.
In addition, the reloading lever was unsecured (corrected on later models). During firing, it thus tended to “droop” downward, causing the plunger move to the rear, locking the cylinder (preventing it from turning). As a “field expedient,” many troopers armed with the Walker used a strap wrapped around the barrel in order to keep the reloading lever in place.
Sam Colt, John Browning, and Oliver Winchester all became multi-millionaires of the era.
Colt built a huge plant in Hartford, CT. Employees included Chris Spencer (Spencer Rifle), Henry Leland (founded Cadillac Motors), both Francis Pratt and Amos Whitney, Elijah Root (followed Colt as company president), and Rolland White (patented the bored-through cylinder, which Colt rejected, later regretted).
Sam Colt died in 1862, but his successors were all competent into the 20th Century.
Colt had only one child, a son named Caldwell. Caldwell was an unmotivated ne’er-do-well and never succeeded his father, nor in fact ever had any involvement with Colt’s company. Caldwell died ignominiously in his 20s, being shot by a jealous husband.
After the turn of the Century, Colt’s company linked-up with John Browning in the development of the 1911 Pistol.
Manufactured Maxim and Vickers HMGs during WWI.
The corporation that carries Colt’s name went bankrupt in 1992, being by that time little more than an unfocused shell.
Unimproved today!
/John
About John Farnam & Defense Training International, Inc
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“Many fractured their cylinders, due to overcharging, but also due to faulty metallurgy.” In addition, many of those “kabooms” were due to the improper, reversed, loading of the then new, conical, bullets. The Walker was designed for them, but most all shooters at that time were only familiar with round lead balls, and assumed that the cone shape was for easier loading, and seated them backward. This reduces the space available for expansion upon firing, increasing chamber pressure beyond what the firearm was designed for. This is an important point, as a significant number of those ‘gun failures’ were operator… Read more »
@Knute Knute, Interesting. Farnam says, “… “Real” black powder is still available, but very dangerous…” Any truth to that? I thought that black powder was very stable.
It’s kind of a misnomer. Black powder doesn’t get any easier to ignite in large quantities, but the larger the quantity, the more it wants to explode, rather than burn. So if one dumps a pound on the ground in a pile, it will likely just burn. But, like a train of powder leading to a keg of powder, like in the movies, it might well explode when the trail gets to the whole keg, instead of just burning. This is why it doesn’t come in 4- or 8- pound kegs, like smokeless does, but only one pound at a… Read more »
@Knute Knute, Hmmm, who knew!?
It also probably didn’t help the Walker that the bullets were so funny looking. If I had only had experience with round balls, I might think they went pointy side backwards too! Funny looking things…
https://oldwestbulletmoulds.com/products/44-walker-revolver-origional-colt-bullet
I can see that happening. If I knew nothing about conical bullets, and had to load a percussion pistol, I might assume that the projectile was tapered to make it easier to load. I’m sure not too many people were aware of air drag reduction on streamlined objects in those days. Heck, probably half couldn’t even read.
this is an OLD post 4 years so
I own a Uberti replica of the Walker Colt and enjoy shooting it very much. The author is correct in that, compared to modern revolvers, it is primitive and had drawbacks. I keep a piece of leather wrapped around the reloading lever to keep it from dropping when the gun fires. Having fired this “hand cannon” in proximity to the more modern handguns and the AR-15s, when the Walker goes off using 60 grains of BP, there is dead silence on the range as people want to find out “what the Hell that was”. It weighs 4.5 lbs empty, full… Read more »
Every time I think of one, I see Robert Duval as Augustus McRae in “Lonesome Dove.” I’d kind of like to have one just for that.
Until the invention of the .357 magnum the Walker remained the most powerful handgun in existence.
I love articles like this.
Off-Topic but why didn’t Ammoland tell us of Gaston Glock’s passing on December 27, 2023?
https://sofmag.com/gaston-glock-dies-age-94/
The Walker went through several design iterations as various model Dragoon pistols before morphing into the 1860 Army. My understanding is that the Walker cylinder could accept 40 grains of black powder making it perhaps the first .44-40 before such a cartridge even existed. In the later iterations, in order to reduce the blown cylinder issue, the part of the cylinder that holds the powder charge is bored to a smaller diameter and only holds 36 grains of powder. Not sure where in the redesign process that occurred but my 1860 Army (Colt branded but supposedly made by Uberti) has… Read more »
Samuel Walker, a Texas/American hero!
Very cool! And including the replica disclaimer stopped hollers of poor metallurgy and collector value. Hard to believe that was tmphitw until 1935 and .357mag