Free Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun by Paul M. Barrett Page B

seen early flintlock revolvers in India, where they were used by British troops. “By the time he returned to the US, he had carved a working model out of wood.”
    Colt hired two experienced gunsmiths to advise him on the details and fabricate experimental models. Like Glock, he required the assistance of specialists. Revolvers had been in use for decades. Colt’s advance was to link the cylinder to the firing mechanism, eliminating the need to manually rotate the cylinder. The user pulled back the hammer, which caused the cylinder to turn and lined up the chamber containing the ammunition with the barrel. To fire, the shooter then simply pulled the trigger.
    Colt’s guns became known as powerful, reliable, and durable, a reputation much like the Glock’s later on. After several years of difficulty getting his business off the ground, Colt had a series of breakthroughs winning endorsements from prominent lawmen and military officers, foreshadowing the path Karl Walter followed with the Glock. One of Colt’s earliest champions was Captain Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers. In 1844, newspapers reported that Walker and fifteen of his mounted men, armed with Colts, fought off some eighty Comanche Indians. “People throughout Texas are anxious to procure your pistols,” Walker wrote to the gun maker in the sort of testimonial that Colt reproduced in illustrated pamphlets. (In the 1800s, “pistol” and “revolver” were used interchangeably.) Two years later, Walker, by then an officer in the Army, collaborated with Colt to develop a .41-caliber model. The US government ordered one thousand of the “Walker Colts” for use in the Mexican-American War, allowing Sam Colt to get his company aloft. Colt built one of the most advanced factories of the era, a facility in Hartford that was the first in the firearm field to take full advantage of mass-production techniques, such as the manufacture of interchangeable parts.
    It was only in the 1850s that urban police departments inthe United States began to allow officers to carry handguns, especially following the riots that accompanied the economic panic of 1857. Eager to serve this new market, Colt came out with the New Model Police Revolver, one of the last new products his factory made before its founder’s death in 1862. The Police Revolver was an inexpensive, lightweight six-shooter with a three-and-a-half-inch barrel, making it easy to conceal. “What speaks most of Colt’s character is his hyperactive brand of opportunism,” biographer William Hosley observed.
    A pioneer of mass advertising, Colt used high-quality brochure art to promote his products as symbols of frontier adventure and technological advancement. Seeking credibility, he wrangled celebrity endorsements from the likes of General Sam Houston, the former president of the Republic of Texas. Colt relentlessly pursued public contracts, regardless of the profit margin. “Government patronage,” he once said, “is an advertisement, if nothing else.” Colt spent lavishly to entertain celebrated military officers and politicians, buying cigars by the thousands and running up enormous bills for liquor and entertainment.
    While rivals invoked tradition, Colt made his easy-to-remember single-syllable name (not unlike “Glock”) a synonym for “new.” In 1854, he said: “A musket is an old established thing; it is a thing that has been the rule for ages, but this pistol is newly created.” He stirred consumer interest by continually introducing slightly altered models with patriotic-sounding names. One of his most successful revolvers was the six-shot .36-caliber Navy, so called not because it was made for the US Navy, but because it had naval scenery engraved on its barrel. And, of course, the name “Navy” sounded valiant. As with several other designs, Colt also produced a smaller, more easily concealed Pocket Navy Revolver. Eleven years after hedied, the factory in Hartford introduced the .44 Colt