Colt`s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company

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British Industrial History

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Colts Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Co

From Graces Guide

of Connecticut, USA. London Office: 15A Pall Mall, London, SW.

Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company (now known as Colt’s Manufacturing Company) is a United States firearms manufacturer. It is best known for the engineering, production, and marketing of dozens of different firearms over the later half of the 19th and the 20th century. It has made many civilian and military designs used in the United States, as well was many other countries.

Among the most famous products from Colt are the “Walker Colt” used by the Texas Rangers and the “Colt .45” revolver, the proper name of which was the “Single Action Army”. Later well-known CMC revolvers include the “Colt Python” and “Colt Anaconda”. John Browning also worked for Colt for a time, and came up with now ubiquitous parallel slide type of design for a pistol, which debuted on the “Colt M1900” pistol, leading to numerous pistol designs including the famous “Colt M1911” pistol. Though they did not develop it, Colt was responsible for “M16” production for a long time, as well as many derivative firearms related to it.

Colt also developed many important less known firearms that were often ahead of their time. His designs played a major role in the popularization of the revolver and the shift away from earlier single pistols and pepperbox type weapons. While Colt did not invent the revolver concept, his designs resulted in the first very successful ones with patents on many of the features that lead to them being so popular.

Colt is perhaps best known for the famous “Colt .45”, a name which actually refers to two separate historically significant firearms. The first of these is the aforementioned 1873 “Single Action Army”, of which Colt was the original producer, and which was one of the most prevalent firearms in the American West during the end of the 19th century.

1834 The company’s early history largely revolved around the production of revolvers, developed out of Samuel Colt’s original invention of the revolver.

1836 Samuel Colt took out the patent for the famous “Colt .45”, playing a key role in developing the concept.

1842 Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Co was declared bankrupt and no longer produced firearms.

1844 Company established.

1847 Colt’s Manufacturing Company founded in Hartford, Connecticut by Samuel Colt in order to produce revolvers, of which Colt held the patent, during the Mexican-American War.

1851 Samuel Colt exhibited his pistols at the Great Exhibition, then beginning to import firearms from America.

Though the US was not directly involved in the Crimean War (1854 – 1856), Colt weapons were used in supplying and aiding the Russians fighting in the Crimea.

1854 Samuel Colt opened a factory in London, and production of his pistols began there.

1855 Incorporated as a limited company.

1873 The company manufactured Baxter’s steam engine. [1]

1895 The Colt Model 1895 “Potato Digger” was one of the first gas-operated machine guns, developed with John Browning. It became the first automatic machine gun adopted by the United States and saw limited use in the Spanish-American War.

1911 The second famous “Colt 45” is the John Browning-designed M1911, which was the standard U.S. military sidearm from 1911 to 1985. The M1911 is still frequently used by civilians, law enforcement, and military agencies today. Variants in other barrel lengths and other calibers (notably 38 Super and 38 Special) have been used extensively in combat shooting and pistol marksmanship, and the guns often are “accurized” into amazingly precise competition tools or custom combat weapons.

1914 Manufacturers of revolvers, automatic pistols and automatic guns. [2]

The 1960s were boom years for Colt with the escalation of the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara shutting down the Springfield Armory, and the U.S. Army’s subsequent adoption of the M16 (to which Colt held the production rights.)

1970s There was a programme run by the Air Force, to replace the M1911A1. The Beretta 92S won, but this was contested by the Army. The Army ran their own trials, leading eventually to the Beretta 92F being selected as the M9.

1980s Marked fairly good years for Colt, but the coming end of the Cold War would change all that. Colt had long left innovation in civilian firearms to their competitors, feeling that the handgun business could survive on their traditional double-action revolver and M1911 designs. Instead, Colt focused on the military market, where they held the primary contracts for production of rifles for the US military. Meanwhile, the military rifle business was growing because the U.S. Military had a major demand for more upgraded M16s —- the M16A2 model had just been adopted and the Military needed hundreds of thousands of them.

1986 Colt’s workers, members of the United Auto Workers went on strike for higher wages. This strike would ultimately last for four years, and was one of the longest running labour strikes in American history. With replacement workers running production, the quality of Colt’s firearms began to slip.

1988 Dissatisfied with Colt’s production, the U.S. military awarded the contract for future M16 production to Fabrique Nationale.

Realising that the future of the company was at stake, labour and management agreed to end the strike in an arrangement that resulted in Colt being sold to a group of private investors, the State of Connecticut, and the UAW itself.

1990 The new Colt first attempted to address some of the demands of the market with the production of the Double Eagle, a double action pistol based heavily on the M1911 design which was seen as an attempt to “modernise” the classic Browning design.

1992 Colt followed this up with the Colt All American 2000, which was unlike any other handgun Colt had produced before.

1994 The Colt All American 2000 was a polymer framed, rotary bolt, 9 mm handgun with a magazine capacity of 15 rounds. It was everything that Colt thought the civilian market wanted in a handgun. However, the execution was disastrous. Early models were plagued with inaccuracy and unreliability, and suffered from the poor publicity of having to be recalled. The product launch failed and production of the All American 2000 ended.

1992 The company annouced its chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The 1990s brought the end of Cold War, which resulted in a large downturn for the entire defence industry. Colt was hit by this downturn, though it would be made worse later in the 1990s by a boycott.

In 1994, the assets of Colt were purchased by Zilkha and Co, a financial group owned by Donald Zilkha. It was speculated that Zilkha’s financial backing of the company enabled Colt to begin winning back military contracts. In fact during the time period it won only one contract, the M4 Carbine.

1998 During a Washington Post interview, CEO Ron Stewart stated that he would favour a federal permit system with training and testing for gun ownership. This led to a massive grass-roots boycott of Colt’s products by gun stores and ordinary gun owners, some of whom sold their Colt firearms to cut into Colt’s market share even more. This ultimately led to the resignation of Ron Stewart.

Zilkha replaced Stewart with Steven Sliwa and focused the remainder of Colt’s handgun design efforts into “smart guns”, a concept which was favored politically but had little interest or support among handgun owners or Police Departments. This research never produced any meaningful results due to the limited technology at the time.

The boycott of Colt faded out with the new CEO William M. Keys, a retired U.S. Marine Lt. General, working hard to bring Colt back from its tarnished reputation. Due to the efforts of William Keys, Colt’s quality has improved as much as its favor with diehard Colt fans.

1999 Colt Manufacturing Co. announced the termination of its production of double action revolvers in October.

2002 Colt Defense was split off from Colt’s Manufacturing Company. Colt Manufacturing Company now serves the civilian market, while Colt Defense serves the law enforcement, military, and private security markets worldwide. Diemaco of Canada was also purchased, and renamed Colt Canada, though most of its products remain the same. Diemaco and Colt had earlier worked together on designs and shared many similar products.

Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company

Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company firearms are guns produced by American firearms manufacturer Colt, founded by Samuel Colt in 1836.

Background & history of production

Samuel Colt received a British patent for his improvements on the standard revolver design in 1835, and the U.S. patent followed a year later. He is best known for playing a major role in the popularisation of the revolver, and the move away from earlier single-shot pistols. Colt founded the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey, Colt’s Patent in 1836. The company saw several problems in quality of production, as the manufacture of firearms with interchangeable parts was a new idea and hard to replicate across factories. The United States Marine Corps and Army had measures of both success and failure with Colt revolvers, and production ceased in New Jersey by 1842.

A new prototype revolver designed by Colt was taken up by the US Government in 1846, and having no factory, Colt collaborated with the Whitney armoury of Whitneyville, Connecticut, and the family of Eli Whitney.

The Texan volunteers placed an order for 1,000 revolvers that became known as the Walker Colt. This meant that by 1848, Colt could start to manufacture revolvers independently once again. He founded Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company in Connecticut that year, building large factories in 1848 and 1855, and a manor and employee tenement housing in 1856.

The 1850s saw huge success for the Colt corporation, and Colt successfully commercialised the total use of interchangeable parts for a firearm, spearheading assembly line practice and becoming the world’s leading proponent of mass production techniques. At this time Colt also established a factory in London. At first British arms makers were dubious about Colt’s patent, and about the benefits of his system of manufacturing. However, they came to view his advanced steam-powered machinery and cheap standardised interchangeable parts as proof of America’s increasing dominance in industrial production.

Colt’s factories were also pioneering in their treatment of employees. Providing housing, limited hours a day, washing stations, lunch breaks, club where employees could play games, newspapers and discussion rooms, setting up libraries and educational programs for toolmakers and machinists, but also maintaining a military-like discipline, firing employees for tardiness etc. His methods influenced manufacturers for the rest of the century.

In 1854, the British Admiralty ordered 4,000 Navy Model Colt revolvers, and in 1855 the British Army placed an order for 5,000 Army Model guns. Another order for 9,000 revolvers came the year later, however, Colt did not convince British troops to adopt his revolvers as standard issue sidearms. He was forced to close his London factory in 1856.

In 1860, Colt produced a new revolver for the United States Army, The Colt Army Model 1860. This was just in time for the American Civil War. Colt’s company thrived during this conflict, selling hundreds of thousands of firearms to the Union. It made Colt’s fortune, and he became America’s first manufacturing tycoon, but died in 1862.

After Colt’s death, a fire destroyed most of the factory, including arms, machinery, plans and records. By 1865, the company were in a precarious situation. The revolver patents had expired, meaning rival companies could produce copies of the design. Metallic cartridges had gained in popularity, but due to Samuel Colt rejected an idea of employee Rollin White to bore revolver cylinders to accept the cartridges, rivals Smith & Wesson held the patent. Colt had to wait until this patent expired before they could produce metal cartridge revolvers. Between 1865 and 1868 therefore, Colt manufactured goods such as watches, sewing machines, typewriters and bicycles as they bided their time.

Colt produced the first metallic cartridge revolvers by converting existing percussion revolvers, models going through several conversions before the most successful method was discovered. In 1871, William Mason, a Colt engineer, began work on their first metallic cartridge gun, the Colt Open Top revolver. After some revisions, this became the .45 Colt, taken up by the army in 1872. This Colt Single Action Army revolver was known as the Peacemaker, and was among the most widely used firearms in the american West at the end of the 19th century. These are iconic weapons, and extremely collectible.

Mason went on to design the first double-action Colt revolver, the Colt M1877, and the larger frame M1878 a year later. The 1870s and 1880s saw a huge rise in demand for firearms as American settlers spread further across the continent, and Indian Territory battles and skirmishes were common. It was perfectly normal for most people to own guns at this time, and even in towns where Native American conflicts were no longer common, guns were used by criminals, police, and civilians.

The Colt company thrived once again during World War I. Orders rushed in from Canada and the United Kingdom even before America entered the war. 245,500 of the John Browning-designed M1911 were sold, and Colt New Service revolvers, M1917, were kept as substitute weapons.

The 1929 stock market crash and Great Depression slowed this success, and Colt went back to manufacturing non-firearms, such as business machines, calculators, dishwashers, motorcycles and automobiles.

During World War II, Colt ceased production of Single Action Army revolvers, but manufactured over 629,000 M1911 A1 pistols, and many M1917 water-cooled machineguns. Production ceased after the Second World War, but boomed again with the onset of the Vietnam War in the 1960s. This was intensified due to the Springfield Armoury shutting down, and the U.S. Army’s adoption of the M16 rifle under Colt’s production rights.

The Colt Manufacturing Company continue to serve law enforcement, military and private security markets worldwide.

Collecting Guide

Colt firearms are often the most valuable weapons to come to auction. They are seen as iconic images of American history.

Colt has seen many models developed throughout its long and prolific history, some of which are rarer than others. The mass produced nature of Colt firearms, especially when manufactured for an army, mean that the more successful and popular models are not particularly rare, while others made at certain times or with certain flaws are more uncommon.

Colt guns are more valuable with an interesting provenance. If they are connected to a significant historical figure or event, their worth rises, as the prices realised below demonstrate.

Samuel Colt

Samuel Colt, (born July 19, 1814, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.—died January 10, 1862, Hartford), American firearms inventor, manufacturer, and entrepreneur who popularized the revolver.

As a teenaged seaman, Colt carved a wooden model of a revolving cylinder mechanism, and he later perfected a working version that was patented in England and France in 1835 and in the United States the following year. Featuring a multichambered cylinder that rotated and locked by cocking the hammer, Colt’s repeating single-barreled pistols, rifles, and shotguns were slow to gain acceptance, and a company that formed to manufacture them in Paterson, New Jersey, failed in 1842. The following year he devised an electrically discharged naval mine, the first device using a remotely controlled explosive, and he conducted a telegraph business that utilized the first underwater cable.

Word that Colt’s multishot Paterson weapons had been effective against Indians in Texas prompted a government order for 1,000 pistols during the Mexican-American War, and Colt resumed firearms manufacture in 1847. In 1855 he built the world’s largest private armoury in the South Meadows area of Hartford. Assisted by engineer-superintendent Elisha King Root, he developed beyond any private industrialist before him the mass manufacture of firearms by using interchangeable parts and machine production, and he applied progressive ideas concerning employee welfare. His invention made him a wealthy man. At the time of his death in 1862, his firm already had produced some 450,000 guns in 16 different models. Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company produced the pistols most widely used during the American Civil War, and its six-shot single-action .45-calibre Peacemaker model, introduced in 1873, became the most-famous sidearm of the American West.

The company also became famed for its production of the Gatling gun, a hand-cranked machine gun invented by Richard J. Gatling, and for a series of John M. Browning-designed semiautomatic pistols, most notably the Model 1911. Having been sold by Colt Industries in 1989, the Colt Firearms Division was reconstituted as Colt’s Manufacturing Company. Today the enterprise is best known for government-contract production of the M16 assault rifle in all its many iterations and for the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.

Детище «великого уравнителя» полковника Кольта признало свое бессилие перед золотом

Colt Defense LLC, ведущая свою историю от созданной полковником Сэмуэлем Кольтом Colt`s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company, в воскресенье объявила о том, что обратилась за защитой от кредиторов в соответствии со статьей 11 Кодекса США о банкротстве. Формально это означает, что компания объявила себя банкротом. Впрочем, Colt объяснила, что намерена продолжить деятельность, а защита в соответствии с 11-й статьей ей необходима на время реорганизации своих непростых отношений с кредиторами.

Вечером в воскресенье стало известно, что всемирно известная Colt Defense LLC ответила на вопрос, что сильнее — злато или булат. Компания, как сообщает The Wall Street Journal, в соответствии со статьей 11 Кодекса США о банкротстве потребовала защиты от кредиторов, то есть объявила себя банкротом. Как сообщается, Colt Defense LLC получила финансирование в размере $20 млн на продолжение своей деятельности в период банкротства от нынешних кредиторов, а передышку надеется использовать для реструктуризации. В рамках реструктуризации компания намерена сократить свою долговую нагрузку (в настоящее время она составляет $335 млн) через аукционы по продаже части активов.

Как Colt отстрелялся от кредиторов

Легендарная компания, подарившая миру пословицу «Господь Бог создал людей, президент Линкольн дал им свободу, а полковник Кольт сделал их равными», в последние годы столкнулась с серьезными финансовыми проблемами, в первую очередь из-за потери крупного контракта на поставку оружия армии США. Руководство компании пыталось договориться с кредиторами об обмене своих долговых обязательств на новые, и до конца мая казалось, что ей это удастся. Тем не менее кредиторы не захотели получать новые облигации, а потребовали наличных. После чего компания и объявила себя банкротом.

Это не первый такой случай в истории Colt Defense LLC, открывшей, как сказано на ее сайте, свой первый завод в 1836 году. В 1992 году она, называвшаяся тогда Colt Manufacturing Company, уже объявляла о банкротстве и просила защиты от кредиторов. Тогда процесс реорганизации длился два года.

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