Colt Paterson

On February 25, 1836, Samuel Colt obtained patents in the United States, France, and England for the first marketable repeating arms employing a revolving magazine with multiple chambers aligned with a single, stationary barrel. A subsequent patent renewal in 1849 and aggressive litigation against infringements gave him a domestic monopoly on revolver development until the middle 1850s.

Early Colt literature and later publications insist that Colt conceived of the revolver during his early seafaring days when he observed the stearing mechanism of the ship. It is just as likely that he saw examples of the British Collier Flintlock Revolver Patented in 1818 or possibly even a rare example that had undergone conversion for use with percussion caps. In any event, he produced a wooden model and developed the concept during the early 1830s.

Samuel Colts first factory, the Patent Arms Company of Paterson, New Jersey manufactured 1450 revolving rifles and carbines, 462 revolving shotguns and 2350 revolving pistols between 1836 and 1842 when the business failed. A creditor and business associate, John Ehlers, continued manufacture and sale of (approximately 500 of the total 2850) pistols through 1847. (Colt An American Legend, R.L. Wilson) Revolving pistols held five shots and varied from "pocket" to "belt" and "holster" designations based upon size and intended mode of carry. Calibers ranged from 28/100s through 36/100s-inch. The model most identified with the "Paterson Colt" designation is the Number 5 Holster or Texas Paterson (1,000 units).

The early Colt revolvers were of single action design meaning that the trigger functioned only to discharge the weapon. It was necessary to manually cock the hammer prior to firing. The close tolerances, folding trigger and multiplicity of small parts and springs seemed more appropriate to a fine timepiece than a tool destined for field service and fouling from black powder residue.

The first Paterson Models required partial disassembly for loading and had no definitive provision for safely carrying the revolver with all chambers loaded. To load the revolver, the shooter would:

• 1. Draw the hammer to half cock to free the cylinder for removal and rotation;
• 2. Push the barrel wedge from right to left until it stops against a retaining screw;
• 3. Pull the barrel and then the cylinder off of the central arbor;
• 4. Fill the individual chambers with powder leaving enough room to seat a lead ball;
• 5. Using a special lever tool or the arbor, seat balls beneath the chamber mouths;
• 6. Replace the cylinder, barrel, and wedge and with the hammer at half cock, place percussion caps on each tube using the Colt-designed capping tool. ( The revolvers came with spare cylinders and the practice of the day was to carry spare cylinders loaded and capped for fast reloading. Period users had few qualms about this practice even though it presented a real hazard of accidental discharge if the caps were struck or the cylinder dropped.)

Routine carry modes included leaving the hammer in the half-cock position, lowering the hammer to rest on a capped chamber, downloading by one cylinder, or lowering the hammer between the chambers of the cylinder. The first two options were (and are) extremely dangerous. Later Colt revolvers had a notched hammer that would fit over an intermediate safety pin located between cylinders on the back of the chamber when all cylinders were loaded, thereby obviating contact of the hammer with the percussion caps until the single-action hammer was intentionally cocked.

In 1839, a hinged loading lever and capping window became standard for new revolvers and was retrofitted to the older designs. So modified, the revolvers could be loaded without disassembly. When the Paterson revolvers with loading levers finally reached Texas in 1842, Texas Ranger Captain John Coffee Hays was very pleased that his ranging companies could now reload from horseback.

Handling and Shooting Characteristics To fire the Paterson, the shooter thumbed the hammer back all the action rotating a chamber in line with the barrel and locking the cylinder in place. This causes the folding trigger to drop down from the frame into firing position. The sight picture is composed of a front blade and a notch in the tip of the hammer. This sequence is repeated for each of the five shots in the cylinder (the safety-conscious shooter will load only four, leaving the hammer down on an empty chamber for routine handling and carry.)

Compared to the later Colt Percussion Revolver designs, the Paterson is quite anergonomic but, even with the oddly bell-shaped grip and jutting trigger, the revolver points reasonably well and delivers useful accuracy. That Samuel Colt intended the revolver to be accurate is evident because of the rifled barrel and the extra long accessory barrels present in some cased sets. Using the Uberti replicas, the usual expectation is that careful, one-handed shooting will produce groups of two or three inches at sixty feet. File:Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Paterson60ft.jpg The Number 5 Belt Revolver would be an effective weapon to fifty yards with ideal shooting conditions though, from a moving horse, the useful range would be measured in feet.

The available power is comparable to a modern .380 pistol cartridge. The .375-.380-inch round ball weighs a near-identical 83 grains and the velocity is also essentially the same. The cylinder is somewhat shorter that found on the Colt Navy .36 revolvers but will hold 22 grains of FFFg black powder while allowing full seating of the ball: Paterson With Loading Lever 22 Grains Goex Brand FFFG 879 feet per second 37fps extreme spread 90 Year Old FFFg from cartridges 943 feet per second 75fps extreme spread ImagePatersondouble.jpg

Colt sold a few of the long arms and handguns to the United States Army and they saw limited use in the Second Seminole War in Florida. In general though, the United States government considered the arms to be excessively fragile and prone to malfunction. The Navy of the Republic of Texas bought 180 of the revolving shotguns and rifles and a like number of handguns. The repeating handguns were very popular with the Texas Rangers, providing them with sustained firepower against their Comanche adversaries. Captains John Coffee "Jack" Hays and Samuel Hamilton Walker of the Texas Rangers became major proponents of the Colt Revolvers and were successful in advocating military contracts for later models. (See: Walker Colt)

• Colt's Manufacturing Company
• Walker Colt

Guns Magazine Article at Highbeam Research: [1]

Colt An American Legend by R.L. Wilson New York,London, Atabras 1985 ISBN 0-89660-011-4

Percussion Pistols and Revolvers, History, Performance and Practical Use by Johnny Bates and Mike Cumpston, Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, 2005 ISBN 13:978-0-595-35796-3