[ Prototype Gas-Eject Revolver ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at the
Rock Island Auction Company where we're taking a look
at what appears to be sort of a
weirdly mismatched revolver.
However, this is actually a mechanical experiment
of a revolver that was apparently put together
by none other than Robert Roy.
Mr. Roy was a career engineer for the Colt Company.
He joined Colt in 1963, and he would end up retiring from Colt
30 years later in 1993 as the Director of International Sales.
So, he really did quite well for himself at the company.
And during his tenure he was heavily involved in a lot of Colt's development projects,
including guns like the SSP/Model of 1971 pistol, the Colt CMG-1 machine gun.
We actually have a video on ... the CMG-2 and a video on the CMG-3.
This was Colt's attempt to design a light machine gun companion to the M16
... so that they could sell both guns simultaneously to military forces.
And it didn't end up working out, but it was still a really interesting gun.
Now, what we have here is an experiment by Roy to create an auto-ejecting revolver.
So let's take a closer look at that.
There are a couple of different ways that you can conceivably do an auto-ejecting revolver.
One of them is mechanically having some automated cam
that the hammer, or trigger, or cylinder activates.
And in fact the Swiss von Steiger revolvers are a great example of that.
There's a video on those that I have, if you're interested check out the link at the end of this video.
The other option, which is what Roy did, was gas operated.
So this looks like the setup for an ejector rod, or an underlug cover shroud on the barrel.
This is actually a gas port and a gas tube leading to ...
a little vent hole right there. So, this is really simple.
Gas gets tapped out of the barrel, comes through this tube, kind of like an AR-15.
Remember, Roy was working at Colt while they were making AR-15s.
This is a direct gas impingement auto-ejecting revolver
because gas comes venting out of that hole at rather high pressure.
That lines up exactly with the chamber that has been rotated out of position from the barrel.
And then ... that gas pressure is going to blow the cartridge right out the back.
And there is this lightweight spring-loaded gate on the back here.
So there's a cutout in the frame to give you some space
for the cartridge to come back, space for the rim to come through.
That's going to kick this open, and presumably this will act as a deflector
so that that high-velocity ejecting case doesn't come right back and hit you smack in the face.
And then it also serves as a guard there to make sure that dirt doesn't get in,
and ... just to cover up the opening.
You wouldn't want that whole side of the gun to be open to the elements.
So that's the system. The gun is obviously an experimental piece.
You can see he used a .357 Magnum Colt barrel here.
But not in its original orientation, this has been threaded into a new receiver.
And of course fitted with this gas port and a hole drilled in the barrel.
This aluminium deflector and cover has been added.
This has been machined in there and added onto the side of the frame.
And we have a frame that's in the white and a cylinder that's blued.
This is a mishmash of parts put together just as an experimental test bed apparently.
And it is missing a few bits, the ejector latch isn't there
and it doesn't quite want to stay shut here.
But again, that's kind of what you would expect,
kind of par for the course for a toolroom experimental prototype.
I think the question that's going to come to a lot of people is,
"Well, even if this one didn't work, why haven't we seen something like this?
It seems like such a cool idea, and it'd be great,
and awesome, and why would no one do this?"
And there are a couple of problems. And the main one is, I think,
there's no way to auto-eject the cartridge case that you have just fired.
So with a system like this,
you are able to automatically eject five of the six rounds in the cylinder.
But being left with one is basically the same as being left with all six
because to get one out you have to open the cylinder and hit the ejector rod.
And if you're doing that, well, there's no difference to you if you're punching out one round or six.
And of course, even if you could eject all six,
well, you still have to open this to reload the thing.
So while it seems like a cool mechanical development,
I don't know that you actually really gain any practical benefit from an auto-ejecting revolver.
And it definitely adds a bunch of complexity
to a design that ... one of its strengths is its simplicity.
So to me, it's no surprise at all that a system like this
hasn't ever become popular or widespread.
That said, it's a really cool experimental model.
I'd be really curious to see how well it would work.
This gun still needs a few parts, obviously.
But I know there's at least one guy out there who has designed an auto-ejecting revolver of his own.
And hopefully at some point I'll get a chance to take a look at that gun.
But it's a cool feature, and having a gun that was designed by one of Colt's engineers
as a kind of a tinkering experiment would be a pretty cool thing.
If you'd like to see more about this, if you'd like to see Rock Island's catalogue description,
their high-res pictures, their value estimate, that sort of thing,
you can get to Rock Island's website by going through the link in the description text below.
That'll take you to Forgotten Weapons, and from Forgotten Weapons you can link over to Rock Island.
Thanks for watching.