The Colt Single Action Army did not spring into being all at once, it was an evolutionary process.
As a young man, Samuel Colt was a bit of a trouble maker. He had worked in his father's textile mill in Ware Massachusetts, and there he gained knowledge of tools, manufacturing techniques, and explosives. He developed an underwater mine, then he was sent to boarding school, where he got in trouble with explosives and his father sent him off to sea to learn to be a seaman. While on a voyage to India he saw one of the flintlock revolvers being manufactured by Elisha Collier.
The Collier revolvers had a device that automatically deposited powder into the pan. The cylinder had to be rotated manually. But they were a true revolver.
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The legend is that Colt dreamed up his mechanism for rotating the cylinder and locking it in place by watching the ratchet mechanism of a capstan on a ship. In 1836 Colt obtained a patent on his first revolver, the Paterson Colt. (Paterson is spelled incorrectly in this version of the patent drawing, there is only one T.) Colt's improvement, besides being a more reliable percussion revolver, incorporated the ratchet system that rotates the cylinder and locks it in place when the hammer is cocked. This patent expired in 1857, so other manufactures, such as Smith and Wesson, could begin building revolvers.
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The Paterson Colt was a financial failure, and Colt spent the next ten years or so traveling the country and demonstrating laughing gas to amused audiences. Ever the showman, he billed himself as the Celebrated Dr. Coult of New-York, London and Calcutta.
In 1847 Colt met Captain Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers. Walker had been impressed with the Paterson Colts during the Mexican American War and wanted to order more. But Colt was broke and had no money to produce revolvers. Together, Colt and Walker designed the massive Walker Colt and Walker placed an order for 1000 revolvers. An extra 100 Walkers were made and sold on the civilian market, and Colt was able to have the revolvers made by Eli Whitney Blake. The success of this model enabled Colt to buy property on the Connecticut River in Hartford Connecticut and build his factory.
This Walker recently sold at auction for over $1,800,000.
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Samuel Colt died in 1862. Over the years there were many engineering changes to Colt's percussion revolvers, and later cartridge conversion revolvers.
The Single Action Army was first produced in 1873. It had many of the features of the earlier percussion revolvers, but the design was the work of Colt employee William Mason.