1847 Walker Colt
Howdy folks, and welcome back. Last week we looked at the revolver that started things spinning, the Colt Paterson of 1836. That first commercial revolver revolutionized firearms, but it was an odd, primitive little thing. Its folding trigger with no guard made it somewhat fragile for serious use. Five shots were certainly better than one, but those five shots were only .28 or .36 caliber, a far cry from the .54 caliber heavyweight single shots favored by the military. When combined with the Paterson's high price, $50 in a time when a working man's monthly wage averaged $8, they didn't exactly light the market on fire.
As obscure as the Paterson may be, the Walker is famous out of all proportion to the small numbers actually made. The weapon of choice for many a fictional hero, from Josey Wales to Augustus MacRae, much of that fame is due to its outsized proportions. Designed at the behest of Texas Rangers, I guess things really are bigger in Texas.
Of the less than three thousand Patersons the Patent Firearms Company managed to produce, some did see action, both in the Seminole War in Florida, and the Commanche wars in Texas. The potential advantage they represented was not lost on the more observant officers.
One of these was a young man named Samuel Walker. (Lots of Sams in this story.) Born in 1817, Walker had packed a good deal of fighting and service into his life. He volunteered for the Second Creek War in Alabama in 1836 at 19. A year later he mustered out and went to Florida to become a scout during the Second Seminole War, in which he served until he headed for the Republic of Texas in 1841. He participated in border skirmishes and Indian fighting, eventually being captured in one, and taken to Mexico City as a prisoner of war. Two year later, he escaped to Louisiana, and thence returned to Texas, where he joined the Texas Rangers under Captain Jack Hayes and later rose to the rank of captain himself.
Walker had used the Paterson revolvers extensively in both theaters, as had Jack Hayes. They thought the design showed potential, and eventually Hayes sent Walker to New York City, to talk to Sam Colt in person about possible improvements.
On arrival, however, he found Colt out of the firearms business. The firm had gone bankrupt; all the tooling in the Paterson, NJ factory were sold at sheriff's sale, bringing $6,500. Walker found Colt developing insulated copper wire with Samuel Morse. He explained the need for a much larger, more powerful revolver, one that could drop man or horse with a single shot.
Walker wasn't just window shopping, or idly wishing. He was empowered to make a deal, not just by the Texas Rangers, but the US Mounted Rifles, who were absorbing the Rangers ahead of the coming conflict with Mexico.
A contract was signed for 1,000 of the new pistols, to be issued in sets of two per man, together with the accouterments needed to fire and maintain them, powder flask, bullet mold, cleaning rod, takedown tool, etc, to be delivered for "not less than $28 per revolver."
Sam Colt was back in business. All he needed was a factory. Not one to let a little thing like that stand in his way, Colt in turn contracted with Eli Whitney Jr to actually produce the guns at his Whitneyville Arsenal. A clever clause in the contract gave Colt the tooling and machines built to make the guns at the end of the run.
Now for the guns themselves. The Walker Colt is an enormous revolver. It weighs about 4 ½ lbs empty. The cylinder is 2 ½" long, and each chamber holds up to sixty grains of black powder. For perspective, that's only slightly less than the 70 grains in the .45-70, and equal to the reduced loading designed for the carbine model Trapdoors. It had a 9" barrel to burn all that powder. Testing with modern reproductions show that they could throw a 141 grain lead round ball upwards of 1,200 feet per second, which is power that would not be equaled until the debut of the .357 Magnum in the 1930s. That's a 90 year reign as "Most Powerful Handgun in the World," compared to the .44 Magnum, which was eclipsed by the .454 Casull in only three years. It's still the most powerful handgun ever issued by the US Government.
Designed to serve as a carbine replacement for mounted troops, it's not really a "handgun" in the ordinary sense. They were issued in pairs to each trooper, and kept in pommel holsters. Let the horse carry the weight. They were said to be as accurate and powerful as a carbine at a hundred yards, and still better than a musket at 200.
I had one (a reproduction, they only made about 1,100 of them, and they tended to get used hard. Only about 175 of the originals are known to survive. One of them sold at auction a few ears ago for $1.8 million. So yeah, mine was Italian.) and they are quite interesting guns to shoot. All the power just discussed is tamped down pretty well by the thing's sheer mass. 4.5 lbs soaks up a lot of recoil. Compared to an SAA in .45 Colt with just over half the powder throwing a heavier 250 grain slug at something like 900 fps, it's kind of a pussycat.
They weren't perfect, of course. That much size is challenging to shoot well. Just look at a revolver, all the weight is out in front. Just holding it up and steady takes Popeye forearms. The metallurgy of the day wasn't really up to the large charge in so small a space. They showed a tendency to rupture the cylinder. (Though some attribute that to inexperienced troopers loading conical bullets backwards. After all, they do seem to fit that way.) Possibly the most obnoxious of their issues is the loading lever. It's held in place by a small spring with a cam tip. These don't grip all that well under recoil. The levers tend to fall every few shots, which ties up the gun until fixed. The period solution was usually a leather thong tied around the barrel to hold the lever up. A slicker system is a brass clip that fits around the barrel and lever to hold them together.
All in all, a magnificent (and massive) part of firearms and Texan history. If you ever get the chance to handle or fire one, by all means do so.
And Captain Walker? Lt Colonel Walker, actually. He raised a company of volunteers to join Then Colonel Jack Hays' regiment of US Mounted Rifles. His men from the Rangers formed the core of the unit. His own set of Walkers arrived as a special presentation just before they joined Winfield Scott's march south. Lt. Colonel Walker was leading four companies of Texas Mounted Infantry in pursuit of Santa Anna's lancers at the Battle of Huamantla when he was killed in action. Sources differ on how. Most written accounts say that he was shot by a civilian hiding in a house. The most common artistic depiction shows a Mexican lance. He was thirty years old.
Thanx
Josie Wales is my favorite western ✔️
(Boomer Sooner!) ~ 📜 2A ✍🏼🇺🇲 🕰️ 🎯
Great article, about a very interesting pistol.