Posted on 02/25/2012 12:34:47 PM PST by mdittmar
A Mass Market
He invented a gun that fired multiple times without reloading, advanced manufacturing, and created a mass market. The Colt revolver was a godsend to Western settlers -- and the ultimate threat to Plains Indians.
Interest in Guns
In the nineteenth century, Sam Colt's name was synonymous with his revolving-breech pistol, a weapon that was said to have "won the West." The second youngest of seven children, Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut on July 19, 1814. A confident, even reckless boy, he showed an early interest in explosions and weapons. While on a voyage to India as an apprentice sailor, young Colt designed an innovative gun with an automatic, revolving chamber.
Multiple Shots
In 1835, Colt took out his first patent and founded the Patent Arms Company in Paterson, New Jersey. His pistol was different from others; its design allowed several shots to be fired in succession without reloading. A single-shot weapon took 20 seconds to reload -- a dangerous interval, especially for frontiersmen and soldiers fighting Indians who could fire six arrows in that time. Army officers used Colt's weapon in the 1830s, but production defects prevented widespread approval of the firearm. Colt would resolve to improve manufacturing, and by 1848 his guns would be safer.
War-Tested
Colt received a boost in sales during the Texas Revolution and the Mexican American War. His weapons contributed to the U.S. Army's success, and to the resulting westward of American territory. A Texas Ranger, Captain Samuel Walker, wrote Colt a testimonial that read, in part:"Your pistols...[are] the most perfect weapon in the World... to keep the various warlike tribes of Indians and marauding Mexicans in subjection."
Building a Legend
Throughout the 1850s, Colt continued to make improvements on his now famous Colt revolvers. His operation became a model of precision manufacturing, automation, and process integration. He saw the value of myth-making; he marketed his gun as an essential part of the American frontier, working to promote his brand and build his market. In addition to the military, his customers included Forty-Niners heading to the Gold Rush;migrating settlers; Texas cowboys; and lawmen on the nation's western frontier. His slogans included,"God created men equal, Col. Colt made them equal..." Colt died a year after the Civil War broke out, at the young age of forty-six, having never fired a gun at another person.
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In the time it took to ram a charge and a lead ball down the barrel of a single shot rifle, Comanche Indians could shoot six arrows or run 150 yards with spear and tomahawk.
God made man, and Sam Colt made him equal. God bless Sam Colt.
Kill one Comanche and the others would rush in thinking he had to reload and he would kill another. He had only eleven shots (lost powder horn) and lasted 3 hours until his partners came to back him up.
I have been up on Enchanted Rock a few times where Ranger Hayes performed that amazing shootout.
Admiral Nimitz was from Fredricksburg, TX and there is a nice museum there about a half hour drive away from Enchanted Rock.
Samuel Colt was one of the great innovators of the American nineteenth century - a time when the government and its employees knew enough to refrain from hogtying its most creative citizens.
Were he alive today, Colt would find the bureaucratic resistance to his creativity very - and perhaps prohibitively - daunting, and America would be without yet another series of advances.
If he was alive today we’d hear:
1. What average citizen needs such a dangerous weapon that fires multiple shots quickly?
2. Only the military should have such a weapon, civillians should only be allowed single shot weapons.
3. We need to know who has these kinds of assault weapons, they need to be registered and need special licenses to carry multiple-shot firearms.
4. What kind of sick mind comes up with such an instrument of death? What’s the purpose other than to slaughter a whole array of people at once?
That’s what he’d be up against today.
Colt would have never made it that far today. He would be in prison for possession of nitrous oxide with intent to distribute.
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