Guns Too

Chic was not only a student of leather he also had ideas about concealment revolvers, and especially liked 3″ small frame revolvers. It was not unusual for him to customize the revolver to fit his needs.

Starting with the Colt Police Positive Special Gaylord came up with the Metropolitan Special. The .38 Special Colt had the barrel cut back to 3″, a ramp front sight installed, the butt bird’s-headed, a Tyler T-grip adapter and Ace Trigger shoe installed. Just as with his holsters, there are still those following his design of the Metropolitan Special today. Gaylord was a big fan of the High Standard .22 Sentinel sixgun with the 4″ barrel. For combat practice with this revolver, the action was honed and a grip adapter and trigger shoe installed.

In the time period between the two world wars, Fitz — John Henry FitzGerald of Colt — made pocket pistols out of Colt’s large New Service revolver. Gaylord appreciated one carried by one of his customers, a detective in New York. This .45 had a grip frame shortened, the barrel cut back to 21/2″, a ramp front sight installed, and the rear sight built up to match. The load was especially hot, with a 280 grain bullet loaded over 10.0 grains of Unique. It would certainly have been extremely effective.