Samuel Colt and the Remarkable Invention of Today's Colt Revolver

Samuel Colt

By Allan B. Colombo
Samuel Colt was an American inventor, industrialist, businessman, and hunter. He founded Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (today Colt's Manufacturing Company) and made the mass production of the revolver commercially viable. 

Born on July 19, 1814 and deceased on January 10, 1862, Sam led a difficult life in his early years. Because of his curiosity and incessant questioning, his father, Christopher Colt, indentured Sam to an agricultural family. Here he worked on the family farm and went to school. It was during these early years that Sam was introduced to a science book entitled the "Compendium of Knowledge" which provided answers to his many questions.

Samuel was inspired by discussions he had overheard among military men regarding remarkable weapons that provided military personnel with the kinds of weapons that enabled them to win wars. Samuel decided to invent a remarkable weapon of his own, which he did in due time. Let's allow Sam to tell us what he did and how he did it:

This next short video demonstrates the power of the Colt revolver. Can you even begin to imagine how difficult it would have been to face off in a gun fight with three hombres with only a single handgun if it were not for Colt's revolving cylinder which makes it possible to fire multiple shots without loading the weapon each time?

Colt was exceptionally gifted in working with explosives. At the age of 15, in 1829, he advertised an event during the July 4th celebration where he intended to blow up a raft using underwater explosives. Although the raft and the explosion did not perfectly coincide, he did manage to impress many local citizens who were there for the event. After this, Sam's father sent him to bordering school, but during a similar event, there was an accident that caused a fire, thus ending Colt's bordering school opportunity.

Colt's father, Christopher Colt, then sent Sam out to sea where he actually got the idea on how to create a weapon that would allow the holder to fire multiple times without loading. He whittled a replica of such a repeat fire weapon while on a voyage to Calcutta, India.

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For so many years the same “Colt”--associated inextricably with the Peacemaker, the .45, the “gun that won the west”--has spelled gun to the public that one is hard put to realize that there were indeed other excellent weapons in the field. But why have these others failed to strike our imagination in the same way as Colt? Why has Colt become so indissoluble a part of our heritage, our folklore? There is no doubt that the Colt product itself has always been top caliber. But it's brisk legend must be attributed to that singular founder of the company--Samuel Colt. To learn more about the Colt firearm that revolutionized the gun industry in the United States, Lucian Cary authored a book entitled The Colt Gun Book (c)1961. If you'd like to know more, there's a copy available for purchase in our products section: click here.