Civilian Vs. Military

Mostly true. Let’s start in 1847 when the US Army first adopted a revolver for issuance to their horse-mounted troops, then called Dragoons. The first was a Colt’s cap and ball sixgun commonly known as the Walker. That’s because Samuel Colt and Samuel Walker, a captain in the US Dragoons and former Texas Ranger, put their heads together for this .44 caliber behemoth. It had a 9″ barrel, weighed 41/2 pounds and chambers could hold a full 60-grain charge of black powder. Even today, the load can chase a .44 Magnum.

Sam Colt was financially busted when the US Government placed an order for 1,000 of the Colt/Walker revolvers. Although failing in his first revolver-making venture (named by collectors as “Paterson” for the New Jersey city in which it was manufactured), Mr. Colt did not lack intelligence. He had no factory or machines when the order came in, so when he contracted with someone who did, the order was for 1,100 revolvers. The Dragoons got theirs in pairs and Colt sold the remainder, raising enough cash in the process to begin a new factory. His luck changed, and by his death in 1862 Colt was likely the wealthiest man in the United States.

The Cartridge Guns

The 1870’s is the decade when cartridge-firing revolvers became the norm. The ultra-famous, Single Action Army .45 was developed expressly for and with specifications supplied by the US Army and it was adopted for the US Cavalry. By this time horse-mounted soldiers were called cavalrymen. They needed a sixgun and cartridge which would do well against horses as well as humans, hence the big .45 round. Barrel length was still 71/2″ and weight was down to about 40 ounces.

Misters Smith and Wesson also wanted a piece of the federal pie and as early as 1870 were submitting cartridge-firing revolvers called “No. 3’s” to the government for testing. Their first samples were chambered for the then popular — in Winchester rifles and carbines — .44 Henry Rimfire. Testers liked the handgun but not the rimfire caliber, so the company returned to the drawing board. The result was S&W’s .44 American cartridge and the US Army bought 1,000 No. 3’s.

The original No. 3 and a couple of follow-up versions were made in a caliber specified by the Russian government, appropriately called .44 Russian, and sold in immense numbers to that country. That’s another story.

An officer named Major George Schofield liked the S&W No. 3 but felt it could be designed better for horsemen. He patented his ideas and then got the company to adopt them for a special, shorter .45 cartridge with wider rim to extract more positively in the revolver’s star extractor. Naturally this version of No. 3 became known as the “Schofield.” The army cooperated, buying about 8,000 of them. These top break revolvers did offer the advantage of simultaneous extraction of cartridge cases but were judged a bit fragile for hard cavalry service and sold as surplus circa 1880.

Colt’s SAA

Conversely, the Colt Single Action Army as it became known eventually soldiered on until 1892. The US Government bought no less than 37,000 of them. In the “Gay ’90’s” some-bodies in the US Army must have gotten weary of the .45 Colt’s heavy recoil. They adopted Colt’s side-swing cylinder .38, designated Model 1892, and kept it in service with several upgrades until 1909. It’s perhaps the only American standard issue handgun which did not find favor with the gun-packing public.

It fired the puny .38 Long Colt round with a 150-grain bullet at about 700 fps, compared to the .45 Colt’s 250-grain bullet at nearly 900 fps. Colt military .38’s are not something General George Patton or outlaw Jesse James would have ever packed! They preferred Colt SAA and S&W Schofield revolvers respectively.

The 1917’s

There is one last genre of US military handgun to come along even after the Model 1911 became standard. At the beginning of both world wars handguns were in short supply for the U.S. military. For World War I the problem was solved in 1917 when both Colt and Smith & Wesson were contracted to alter their large frame revolvers to fire .45 ACP. Extraction of empties would be impossible due to the rimless case design of .45 ACP so small, three-round, stamped-steel clips were developed to solve the problem.

They did the job so well, after World War I ended both companies kept .45 ACP revolvers as catalog options. Colt did with the New Service until 1944 and Smith & Wesson dropped theirs (called the Model 22) in 1966. Thousands of these Model 1917’s were reissued for World War II.

Of course there is the US M9, in 9mm NATO made by Beretta and issued to American fighting men for nearly 30 years. It’s simply the Beretta Model 92FS in military dress. The design was available for commercial sales prior to military adoption, so in this case it went the “other” direction, from civilian to military. No matter, it was our military’s first autoloader with a double-action trigger and double-stack magazine. History changing, at least for the US serviceman. Now it seems the slot is up for grabs again. I’m sure we’ll be covering what happens as time passes.

Here is one last handgun worth mentioning. Colt brought out the J.M. Browning designed .32 Auto pistol in 1903 and the .380 Auto version in 1908. Their cataloged names were simply Colt Pocket Pistols. For decades the US Army had a tradition of allowing officers gaining General rank to choose one or the other. So this pistol started among civilians, but later became military.

That’s my take on American military handguns since 1847. Most were invented with the idea of gaining lucrative government contracts and then also sold on the civilian side. Some the other way around. Some gained worldwide fame and respect. Some did not.

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