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Description

(Tombow ABT Marker, Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer)

For about 100 years this 1847 Walker single-action black powder 6 shot front loading revolver was the most powerful handgun in the world.

It was not the first revolver, but the existing models were not reliable and not powerful enough, so Captain Samuel Walker approached the gunsmith Samuel Colt to create a weapon to his specifications to replace the single shot percussion pistols.

One of the requirements was that the new revolver should be able to kill a horse with a single shot.

Colt was at that time in a difficult financial situation so this military contract helped to save his business.

For the military he manufactured 1000 of these guns plus 100 for the civilian market.

Walker was a Captain of the US Mounted Rifles, several companies were equiped with the new Walker Colt.

Each man got 2 revolvers issued which dramatically increased the firepower to 12 shots before reloading.

The gun then became later famous for it's use at the Texas rangers.

One sign of authenticity was that Colt engraved the cylinder with a battle scene.

He did this to distinguish his weapons from others as not many companies were able to engrave the round cylinder.

So when somebody saw the engraved cylinder he could be sure to have an authentic Colt weapon at that time.

As said it was about a century the most powerful handgun in the world.

It was loaded with almost the same amount of powder as was used commonly in rifles.

Loading the conical bullets straight into the chambers was a bit finicky so people started to load the bullets backwards into the chamber.

As this left more room for the powder (conical end backwards) and people used this additional space, quite a lot of the guns exploded and about 300 of the 1000 guns were returned to Colt for repair as the cylinders ruptured.

Clearly a users error, at that time these guns were high tech and had to be used properly which was obviously not the case all the time.

Description

(Tombow ABT Marker, Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer)

For about 100 years this 1847 Walker single-action black powder 6 shot front loading revolver was the most powerful handgun in the world.

It was not the first revolver, but the existing models were not reliable and not powerful enough, so Captain Samuel Walker approached the gunsmith Samuel Colt to create a weapon to his specifications to replace the single shot percussion pistols.

One of the requirements was that the new revolver should be able to kill a horse with a single shot.

Colt was at that time in a difficult financial situation so this military contract helped to save his business.

For the military he manufactured 1000 of these guns plus 100 for the civilian market.

Walker was a Captain of the US Mounted Rifles, several companies were equiped with the new Walker Colt.

Each man got 2 revolvers issued which dramatically increased the firepower to 12 shots before reloading.

The gun then became later famous for it's use at the Texas rangers.

One sign of authenticity was that Colt engraved the cylinder with a battle scene.

He did this to distinguish his weapons from others as not many companies were able to engrave the round cylinder.

So when somebody saw the engraved cylinder he could be sure to have an authentic Colt weapon at that time.

As said it was about a century the most powerful handgun in the world.

It was loaded with almost the same amount of powder as was used commonly in rifles.

Loading the conical bullets straight into the chambers was a bit finicky so people started to load the bullets backwards into the chamber.

As this left more room for the powder (conical end backwards) and people used this additional space, quite a lot of the guns exploded and about 300 of the 1000 guns were returned to Colt for repair as the cylinders ruptured.

Clearly a users error, at that time these guns were high tech and had to be used properly which was obviously not the case all the time.