Smaug
Member
Taffin’s new book on DA Sixguns is going to have to wait. I only had four books going; Time to start another.
Starting a new book!
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J-Bar
Member
With that dust jacket artwork it looks promising!! I’m eager to read your review.
Mizar
Member
There is a special place in Hell for people who put price tag stickers on the covers.
OP
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Smaug
Member
I’m already learning a lot. For example, I didn’t realize he only lived to be 47. people were dying left and right from consumption. (tuberculosis) He had quite a colorful family history too.
OP
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Smaug
Member
You can tell I started to peel it off, but it wasn't going well and I jumped ship.
On the other hand, this book was originally $30, and I paid $2 + $5 shipping. (used from an Amazon seller)
We are in a golden age for inexpensive, easy-to-find "dead tree books".
Dave DeLaurant
Member
Try using a little naptha-based lighter fluid as an adhesive solvent -- we used it at the gift wrapping station in the bookstore I once worked at to loosen price tags without damaging the print underneath. Doesn't always work, but it's still my go-to for this chore.
J-Bar
Member
The one reserved for child molesters and people who talk in the theater?
OP
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Smaug
Member
Today I learned that:
- At 14, Colt had read of how to make under water explosives and tried to blow up a raft.
- All the more rowdy people (who weren’t in church at the time) heard of it and went down to the stream to watch
- He failed to blow up the raft, but soaked all the spectators with dirty brown creek water
- A local 21 year old tradesman rescued him from a beating from the crowd that day
- At 15, Sam Colt was sent to a prep school which Emily Dickenson (and much of her family) attended a few years later.
- He didn’t like it, especially all the rules,
- When he decided to leave, he decided he would go out with a bang, and
- Managed to get a cannon, which he and some (probably drunk) friends pushed up a hill in the early morning hours of July 4, 1830
- They fired it repeatedly and woke everyone for miles around. He probably thought this was clever, as there was a rule against the discharging of firearms, but nothing against cannons.
- A professor John Fiske climbed the hill and ordered them to stop, to which Colt “swung his match, & cried out: ‘a gun for prof. Fiske!’ and touched it off”
- At 16 his dad helped him get a sailing job on a ship to Calcutta, on which Colt
- Was accused (probably rightly) of stealing raisins and jam from missionaries aboard and was flogged. Flogging was being whipped with rawhide after being stripped and tied, spread-eagle, face-down to the rigging. The worst parts of that were the embarrassment, not being able to sleep from the pain, and having to work with the wounds on the back.
OP
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Smaug
Member
I failed at sleeping, so here’s a bit more:
- At Colt’s time, Calcutta was huge, with a population of 500,00 to 900,000. Boston’s was 60,000 and NYC was 180,000. Calcutta was bigger than the five biggest American cities combined!
- When he returned to the USA, it was July 4, 1831. That day marked the first singing of “America” (my country ‘tis of thee …) and the simultaneous deaths of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. What a coincidence!
OP
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Smaug
Member
Driftwood Johnson
Member
I would be interested to see if the book claims Colt invented the revolver, which he did not, or mentions that Colt probably saw one of the Flintlock revolvers produced by Elisha Haydon Collier while in London or Calcutta.
The popular legend is that Colt dreamed up the ratchet mechanism for his revolver by watching the ratchet arrangement used to tie down the ship's capstan while he was on the brig Corvo. That is probably true, and Colt obtained a patent on his mechanism.
Don't forget Colt's efforts to raise money with laughing gas demonstrations calling himself "the Celebrated Dr. Coult of New-York, London and Calcutta"
The popular legend is that Colt dreamed up the ratchet mechanism for his revolver by watching the ratchet arrangement used to tie down the ship's capstan while he was on the brig Corvo. That is probably true, and Colt obtained a patent on his mechanism.
Don't forget Colt's efforts to raise money with laughing gas demonstrations calling himself "the Celebrated Dr. Coult of New-York, London and Calcutta"
Mizar
Member
If I remember correctly, as I have never seen a Collier pistol personally, the cylinder must be rotated manually, so it's not a "true revolver" in the modern sense of the word. Colt is recognized as the inventor of the simultaneous rotating of the cylinder and cocking of hammer with one motion (a "true" revolver), not with the invention of the revolving pistol/rifle/pepperbox itself.
BobWright
Member
From the foregoing, I get the impression that Ol' Sam was a shyster?
Bob Wright
Bob Wright
Vern Humphrey
Member
Do you have a tea kettle? Steam it off!
Vern Humphrey
Member
Actually, what Colt invented was the bolt stop (which locks the cylinder with the firing chamber in alignment with the barrel.) He was inspired, according to his own story, by the clutch mechanism on the steering wheel of a sailing ship (he was a cabin boy,)
Mizar
Member
I wouldn't use that word, Bob - Colt is given a credit for his idea, which he rightfully deserves, but at the same time the gunsmiths who materialized it to a finished product are almost unknown to the general public, but that is not his fault. Sometimes we just have to read more and not just rely on Wikipedia or some random gunwriter's article for information on the subject.
Mizar
Member
Nope - read the patent. He claims, in his own words: "The principle of locking and turning the cylinder".
Vern Humphrey
Member
"The principle of locking and turning the cylinder."
Mizar
Member
Vern, I'm trying to say that Colt invented both, not only the bolt stop.
Vern Humphrey
Member
And I'm saying the key invention was the bolt stop -- earlier revolvers, such as "pepper box revolvers" had rotating barrels.
Mizar
Member
Vern, contrary to the popular belief, there are no ground braking & shaking inventions in the firearms world, no huge steps were ever made - someone came up with some little improvement, someone else designed a different improvement, a third one came up with the idea to combine the two... Small steps, nothing extraordinary. If a guy thinks that a given firearm is something really innovative and never seen before, he simply did not "study his homework" enough.
P.S. I stand corrected about the Collier revolving pistols and rifles - as per the patent and at least some of the models, there is a clockwork mechanism to rotate the cylinder. Not a positive mechanical rotation like in a "real revolver", but still a mechanical rotation.
Vern Humphrey
Member
And my point stands -- previous revolvers lacked a mechanism to reliably align chamber and barrel. It was the invention of the bolt stop that made revolvers practical.
Mizar
Member
The Collier, mentioned by Driftwood, had such a (rudimentary, but working) mechanism - cylinder to barrel mating via a recess on the chamber. Nothing better than that, think about it - there is no way to misalign a chamber, which can happen with a separate cylinder locking mechanism, because the gun simply will not function.
Vern Humphrey
Member
Yet the device was not practical enough to make the Collier a success. Colts were wildly successful -- after the Mexican War.
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