on target shooter nz: Left-Handed M1873 Colt?:

Monday 21 August 2017

Left-Handed M1873 Colt?:

A recently found & bought 1987 Gun Digest has a two page story by the late Hal Swiggett "Sam Colt Was Left-Handed" - telling how Bill Grover of Texas Longhorn Arms built his 'right-handed' version of the old Colt Peacemaker or Single Action Army revolvers and set about convincing the shooting world that this gun was originally designed back-to-front by a cack-handed twit.

The story tells how they tried to research and justify their tale .. and their photographic evidence.

My first point would be that even if Samuel Colt (1814-1862) was a "lefty" like me - he would likely have noticed that detail - and would have ensured that his commercial product was built to suite the majority 90% of his prospects ..

Secondly - The Colt Single Action Army is perhaps better known as the M 1873 - the first year of manufacture - and was designed some years after Samuel Colt entered his coffin (aged 47) (without his $15M wealth.)

- Yes folks - the sad truth is that the famous Colt Peacemaker was designed and engineered by little known William Mason - with Charles Brinckerhoff Richards ten years after S. Colt died. - Mason, one of the most significant designers of the nineteenth century was Superintendent of the armory at Colts having some 125 firearms patents in his name.

Perhaps Mason also might be supposed to be left-handed ... but more likely it was that the precise function of loading & unloading this firearm - load one, miss one, load four, cock then lower the hammer onto an empty chamber - was all best performed using the right hand - with the revolver held in the left hand..

Indelicate Note: 'Cack-handed' meaning 'left-handed' originates from those cultures that use their right hands for eating and their left hands for cleaning their rear after defecating .. "cack" meaning dung or excrement.