The Colt Paterson revolver was the first commercial repeating firearm employing a revolving cylinder with multiple chambers aligned with a single, stationary barrel. Its design was

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling disclo ...

ed by

Samuel Colt Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (now Colt's Manufacturing Company) and made the mass production of ...

on February 25, 1836, in the United States, England and France, and it derived its name from being produced in

Paterson, New Jersey Paterson ( ) is the largest city in and the county seat of Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.caliber, with a .36 caliber model following a year later. As originally designed and produced, no loading lever was included with the revolver; a user had to partially disassemble the revolver to re-load it. Starting in 1839, however, a reloading lever and a capping window were incorporated into the design, allowing reloading without disassembly. This loading lever and capping window design change was also incorporated after the fact into most Colt Paterson revolvers that had been produced from 1836 until 1839. Unlike later revolvers, a folding trigger was incorporated into the Colt Paterson. The trigger became visible only upon cocking the hammer. A subsequent patent renewal in 1849, and aggressive litigation against infringements, gave Colt a domestic

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

on revolver development until the middle 1850s.

History

Early

Colt Colt(s) or COLT may refer to: * Colt (horse), an intact (uncastrated) male horse under four years of age People *Colt (given name) *Colt (surname) Places * Colt, Arkansas, United States *Colt, Louisiana, an unincorporated community, United State ...

literature and later publications insist that Colt was inspired to design the revolver in 1830 by viewing the windlass mechanisms aboard the brig ''Corvo'' while bound from

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

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. However, some believe he saw examples of the Collier

Flintlock Flintlock is a general term for any firearm that uses a flint-striking ignition mechanism, the first of which appeared in Western Europe in the early 16th century. The term may also apply to a particular form of the mechanism itself, also known ...

Revolver while touring the

Tower A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specifi ...

after the ''Corvo'' docked on the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the ...

. In any event, sometime while aboard the ''Corvo'' he produced a wooden model (the model is exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut) and further developed the concept during the early 1830s. Samuel Colt's first factory, the Patent Arms Company (Plant ruins site at: 40° 55' 01.04" N, 74° 10' 44.48" W) of Paterson, New Jersey, manufactured 1,450 revolving rifles and

carbine A carbine ( or ) is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges. The smaller size and light ...

s, 462 revolving shotguns and 2,350 revolving pistols between 1836 and 1842, when the business failed. A creditor and business associate,

John Ehlers John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

, continued manufacture and sale of (approximately 500 of the total 2,850) pistols through 1847. 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 through .36 inches. The model most identified with the "Paterson Colt" designation is the Number 5 Holster or Texas Paterson (1,000 units), which was manufactured in .36 caliber.

Operation

The early Colt revolvers were of ''single-action'' design, meaning that the trigger functioned when hammer was cocked back. It was necessary to manually cock the hammer prior to firing. The close clearances, 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 (1836–1838) 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: # Draw the hammer to half-cock to free the cylinder for removal and rotation, # Push the barrel wedge from right to left until it stops against a retaining screw, # Pull the barrel and then the cylinder off the central arbor, # Fill the individual chambers with powder leaving enough room to seat a lead ball, # Using a special lever tool or the arbor, seat balls beneath the chamber mouths. # Replace the barrel, cylinder 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 chambers of the cylinder 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 Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

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 and the action rotated a chamber in line with the barrel and locked the cylinder in place. This also caused the folding trigger to drop down from the frame into firing position. The sight picture consists 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 (although 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 ergonomically flawed, but, even with the odd 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 In firearms, rifling is machining helical grooves into the internal (bore) surface of a gun's barrel for the purpose of exerting torque and thus imparting a spin to a projectile around its longitudinal axis during shooting to stabilize the proj ...

and the extra long accessory barrels present in some cased sets. Using modern-day

Uberti Uberti is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernard degli Uberti (1060–1133), Italian Roman Catholic prelate * Claudio Uberti (born 1957), Argentinian government official * Daniel Uberti (born 1963), Uruguayan footballer * ...

replicas, the usual expectation is that careful, one-handed shooting will produce groups of at . The Number 5 Belt Revolver would be an effective weapon to with ideal shooting conditions; however, 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 and the velocity is also essentially the same. The cylinder is somewhat shorter than that found on the later Colt Navy .36 revolvers but will hold of FFFg

black powder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate ( saltpeter) ...

while allowing full seating of the ball.

Military acceptance

Colt sold the Paterson revolver and carbine to the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

and they saw limited use in the Second Seminole War in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

. The firepower advantage that they offered was initially praised by the troops, but the

United States government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

considered the arms to be excessively fragile and prone to malfunction. The

Republic of Texas The Republic of Texas ( es, República de Tejas) was a sovereign state in North America that existed from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846, that bordered Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande in 1840 (another breakaway republic from M ...

purchased 180 of the revolving shotguns and rifles and a like number of handguns for the Texas Navy in 1839.Grant, R. G. (2005). ''Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5,000 Years of Combat''. New York: D.K. Publishing. . p. 223. When Samuel Houston disbanded the Texas Navy in 1843, Captain Jack Hays armed his company of Texas Rangers with surplus stocks of the pistols. The repeating handguns became very popular with the Rangers, providing them with sustained firepower against their Comanche adversaries. The Paterson revolver was especially decisive in the

Battle of Bandera Pass The Battle of Bandera Pass in 1841 marked the turning point of the Texas-Indian wars. Though they would continue another 34 years, the tide began to turn at Bandera Pass. Some sources show 1843 as the year of this event.J. Marvin Hunter. ''Pio ...

, where each Ranger had 10 shots at his disposal when armed with two pistols as opposed to one. Captains

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and Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers became major proponents of the Colt revolvers and were successful in advocating military contracts for later models such as the

Walker Colt The Colt Walker, sometimes known as the Walker Colt, is a single-action revolver with a revolving cylinder holding six charges of black powder behind six bullets (typically .44 caliber lead balls). It was designed in 1846 by American firearms in ...

. Zachary Taylor, as a general in command of the border with Mexico, sent Captain Walker to New York in 1846 to meet with Colt and discuss improvements to the Paterson to make it more appropriate for use in battle. Walker at the time was serving in the U.S. Mounted Rifles and not the Rangers.

Gallery

File:Paterson60ft.jpg, Slow-fire off-hand group from File:Patersontoolsml.jpg, Combination tool including seating stem/lever, nipple pick, nipple wrench, screwdriver File:Colt Paterson Belt 2nd Model.jpg, Colt Paterson 2nd Belt Model File:Patersonbdsml.jpg, Exploded diagram of the Paterson Colt revolver showing internal mechanisms with cylinder reversed File:Colt Paterson.jpg, Patent illustrations of the Colt Paterson "Holster Model" File:Colt Paterson Gewehr.jpg, Colt Paterson 1838 rifle File:Model 1839 Carbine Patent.jpg, Patent drawing Paterson Model 1839 carbine

References

External links

* , Colt's patent from 1836 for the design of the Paterson.
The Colt Revolver in the American West—The Patent Arms Manufacturing Company

Colt Paterson Reference
, Web site for past Colt Paterson guns sold at auction. Photos, descriptions and price estimates.
Texas Paterson Reference
Web site for past Texas Paterson guns sold at auction. Photos, descriptions and price estimates. {{USCWWeapons Black-powder pistols Colt revolvers Early revolvers Guns of the American West Single-action revolvers Weapons of the Confederate States of America