Author Topic: THE COLT WALKER .44 First Of The Big Bore Boomers  (Read 830 times)

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THE COLT WALKER .44 First Of The Big Bore Boomers
« on: July 17, 2019, 12:33:41 pm »
Guns Magazine By Mike "Duke" Venturino

Part 1 Of 12 Part Genesis Of The Colt Single Action

Editor’s Note: We’re excited to begin this exclusive on-line series by Duke on the Genesis of the Colt Single Action revolver. It will be running monthly on Handgunner’s website, over the following 12 issues. Make sure you return each month (even on the month we don’t publish the print edition!) to catch the next installment! Roy Huntington

The Colt Single Action Army revolver has to be the most famous, most recognizable handgun in the world. But it didn’t spring from the drawing boards in 1873 as a brand new idea. It evolved slowly over a quarter century.

Actually the genesis of the Colt revolver story started in 1836 with that odd-looking duck called the Paterson after the New Jersey city in which it was manufactured. That’s not where we’re going to start this series, however, for the Paterson revolvers did not carry the Colt name and besides, Patersons excited almost no one except a few Comanche-fighting Texas Rangers.

The first revolver with Samuel Colt’s name on it is today called the Walker and it appeared in 1847. Here’s how it came about. A former Texas Ranger turned U.S. Army Captain of Dragoons (The army’s name for mounted troops at that time.) named Sam Walker remembered how well those Paterson revolvers served for Indian fighting. Because Samuel Colt had gone bankrupt with the Paterson, Sam Walker had to travel back east to find him so they could put their heads together. He didn’t go empty handed. He had authority from the U.S. Government to order 1,000 revolvers. It was a meeting of one mind who knew how to make things and another who knew how to use them: i.e. the inventor and the fighting man.

What those two brains developed could rightly have been named “The Behemoth.” It had a 9½" barrel with a six shot cylinder 1 9/16" long. Weight was four pounds, nine ounces. Caliber was .44 but in those days the bore size of a barrel was considered the caliber, not its groove diameter as is the norm today. That means .44 caliber Colt/Walkers used .457 diameter projectiles. Such could be either round balls or bullets commonly called “conicals” in that era. That huge Colt/Walker chamber could hold a full 60 grains of blackpowder under a pure lead round ball weighing about 148 grains. To put that in perspective consider the following. The .58 caliber rifle muskets used in the American Civil War of 1861-1865 were charged with 60 grains of blackpowder under 460 grain Minie balls.

More: https://gunsmagazine.com/handguns/the-colt-walker-44/


Show for size perspective with a common Colt Model 1911A1 is the “behemoth” of Colt single
action revolvers — the Colt/Walker .44 with 9 ½" barrel and four pound, nine ounce weight.