hi guys thanks for tuning in to another
video on Forgotten weapons comm I mean
I'm here today the Rock Island auction
house taking a look at some of the guns
they're going to be selling in their
upcoming December 2016 Premier auction
and the one we have here today to look
at is really cool it's a prototype or
experimental Colt revolver and it is a
pretty much perfect combination of the
1855 side hammer commonly called the
root revolver after Elijah rout who was
one of Colts Chief Engineers and the
1848 Dragoon revolver kind of moving
towards the 1860 army revolver now one
of the problems with the side hammer
which I should step back a bit the side
hammer Cole actually had a solid frame
to it there's a top strap across the top
of the cylinder which helped improve its
strength no the as it was marketed the
1855 side hammer was a small caliber gun
there were 31 caliber little pocket
pistols only held five rounds and the
other advantage to them was by mounting
the hammer on the side of the gun you
were able to have better access to the
cylinder axis and the the rotate the
lock up system the indexing system on
these guns is actually completely
different than a regular typical Colt
revolver that we're used to seeing so
what it actually did was lock not on the
cylinder itself but it would lock on the
cylinder axis interesting idea however
as applied to these pocket model guns
they're pretty delicate and fragile in
fact a lot of people recommend don't
even take it apart unless you absolutely
have to because it's really obnoxious
Lee small and delicate and fragile
however the system did work better when
it was scaled up and the parts were able
to be made a bit bigger and for that
reason and having access to the rear of
the cylinder without a hammer being in
the way this is the system that Colt
used for their revolving rifles the 1855
rifles and shotguns one might wonder
well why didn't they can see why didn't
they just do that for the 44 caliber and
36 caliber guns
well the 44 caliber ones in particular
the answer is they clearly did
experiment with it because we have that
experimental version right here it is a
gun the size of a Dragoon
using the side hammer style of mechanism
now let's take a closer look at this and
we'll compare it in size to a dragoon
and an actual commercial 1855 pocket
side hammer so here we have the
experimental version the we will call
this a side hammer Dragoon compared to a
regular 1855 and a regular Dragoon so
you can see the size here basically
identical much bigger than the 31
caliber version I do also want to point
out one of the other advantages one of
the patents that was added by in fact
this was patented by Elijah root was
what he called this creeping loading
lever and it's a little tricky to see in
these but this one's big enough we can
get a good view of it the early versions
of Colt loading levers had a little bit
of mechanical advantage here with the
the to offset links however what root
patented was a lever that actually had
gear teeth in it you can see that right
in there what this did was really add a
lot of strength to the loading lever and
give it a lot more leverage so that as
you pulled this lever down it would
creep backwards and you'd get it was a
lot easier to load the gun with one of
these because of that added leverage
then with the early style of loading
lever found on the walkers and the
dragoons
so this experimental model was probably
made in 1859 or 1860 after the regular
side hammers were well in production and
well understood the system wouldn't have
been all that difficult for Colt to
manufacture as an experiment because
they were already making a lot of these
large-scale side hammer parts for the
revolving rifles and shotguns and so it
only makes sense really that they would
try this as a large revolver experiment
it's also interesting to note the
different style of sighting arrangement
here instead of just having a sight
trough on the top strap or a hammer cut
a rear notch cut into the hammer this
actually has a series of three kind of
Express style rear sight notches
dovetailed into the top of
barrel so it occurred to me I don't
think I actually mentioned what the
calibre was this is 44 caliber just like
the 1860 Army's would be and it looks
fantastic you know this is the kind of
original deep bluing that by the way is
just reflecting the bejesus out of the
lights in this room but that's the kind
of finish you would have originally
gotten on a new production Colt revolver
in the 1850s or 1860s really fantastic
looking and this one functions extremely
well clearly hasn't been abused ever
hardly fired ever the percussion-cap
nipples are all in great shape and it's
just a very pleasurable gun to operate
now it is heavy and it handles like your
dragoon a dragoon maybe even more front
heavy than after goon because it's got
some extra material up in here it does
have a six shot cylinder to it fluted so
you reduce the weight a little bit
although maybe not all that much you'll
notice the chamber walls on this are
really quite thick
I suspect they used the raw cylinder
forging from one of the larger revolving
rifle guns and then just board it to 44
instead of anything bigger and the
result is a pretty heavy cylinder thanks
for watching guys I hope you enjoyed the
video this is truly a one-of-a-kind
pistol just a really interesting one-off
that came out of the Colt factory
clearly this one was never used has a
bit of finish where but this was just an
experiment piece and apparently Colt
decided that this wasn't the way he
wanted to go for his 1860 pattern army
revolver and went with a scaled up
version of the 1851 Navy so something a
widow could have I don't know should
have maybe not the 1860 army was a
fantastic gun that clearly its success
speaks for itself so maybe there was
good reason to choose that rather than
the side hammer model at any rate if you
would like to own this one certainly be
the first on your block to have this
kind of cool experimental piece in your
collection take a look at the
description text below you'll find a
link there to rock Islands
log page on the piece and take a look at
their pictures and their description and
place a bid online over the phone or
here in person thanks for watching