Colt Army Model 1860

Colt Army '60 frame with cylinder pin

The Colt 1860 Army uses the same size frame as the .36 caliber 1851 Navy revolver. The frame is relieved to allow the use of a rebated cylinder that enables the Army to be chambered in .44 caliber. The barrel on the 1860 Army has a forcing cone that is visibly shorter than that of the 1851 Navy, allowing the Army revolver to have a longer cylinder. Another distinguishing feature of the Colt 1860 Army, first introduced on the Colt 1855 Sidehammer Revolver, is the "creeping" loading lever.

More than 200,000 were manufactured from 1860 through 1873. Colt's biggest customer was the US Government with no less than 129,730[1] units being purchased and issued to the troops. The firearm was a single-action, six-shot revolver accurate from 75 up to 100 yards, where the fixed sights were typically set when manufactured. The rear sight was a notch in the hammer, only usable when the revolver was fully cocked.

The Colt .44-caliber “Army" Model was the most widely used revolver of the Civil War. It had a six-shot, rotating cylinder, and fired a 0.454-inch-diameter (11.5 mm) round spherical lead ball, or a conical-tipped bullet, typically propelled by a 30-grain charge of black powder, which was ignited by a small copper percussion cap that contained a volatile charge of fulminate of mercury (a substance that explodes upon being subjected to a sharp impact). The percussion cap, when struck by the hammer, ignited the powder charge. When fired, balls had a muzzle velocity of about 900 feet per second (274 meters/second), although this depended on how much powder it was loaded with.

The unfluted cylinder was "rebated", meaning that the rear of the cylinder was turned to a smaller diameter than the front. The barrel was rounded and smoothed into the frame, as was the 1861 Navy Model. The frame, hammer, and rammer lever were case-hardened, the remainder blued; grips were of one-piece walnut; and the trigger guard and front grip strap were of brass while the backstrap was blued."[1]

A distinguishing feature of the Model 1860 was that its frame had no top strap, or no component running above the cylinder. Instead, its strength came from the lower frame and the massive fixed cylinder pin. This made the gun slimmer and lighter than its main competitor, the Remington Model 1858, but the fixed cylinder pin meant that the barrel had to be removed to remove the cylinder, unlike the Model 1858, which only required removal of the cylinder retaining pin.

Army 1860 7.5-inch barrel serial no. 1158

There are very few variations on the 1860 Army Revolver, but there was limited production of a 7.5-inch barrel model below serial number 3500, and a lightened model with cylinder flutes below serial number 8000.[2] According to importer Cimarron Arms Company, this was called the "Texas Model" because a number of them came into Texas shortly after secession. The goal was to make use of silver spring steel of controlled carbon content and greater strength, but the thinned cylinder proved inadequate and sometimes exploded.(ibid Wilson) Patent inscription in cylinder flute: PATENTED SEPT. 10th 1850. Rebated cylinders above serial number 8000 were roller indented with a Texas Navy and Mexican battle scene and stamped with COLT PATENT NO followed by the last four digits of the serial number.[2]

Military 1860s had elongated screw lugs on the side of the frame to mount a detachable shoulder stock. Some shoulder stocks were also hollow on the inside and intended to be used as canteens and were, unsurprisingly, called "canteen stocks". Stocks were typically made of wood, but other materials were also used, such as, in rare examples, pewter.

Pietta makes a Replica of the 1860 Colt Army with a 5 1/2 inch barrel, coined as the "sheriff's model. Although Colt did not produce this model during regular production runs, that is not to say they did not produce some as a special order piece. Moreover, undoubtedly some were modified by cutting the barrel down to this length by gunsmiths during the era in which the revolvers were commonplace.

By April 1861, 2,230 of Colt's earliest production went to dealers south of the Mason–Dixon line. The United States Navy ordered 900 fluted cylinder revolvers in May 1861 later issued to ships enforcing the Atlantic and Gulf blockade. United States Army orders also began in May, and 127,157 had been delivered before a February 4, 1864 fire put Colt's factory out of operation for the remainder of hostilities.

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  Model with cylinder flutes
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  Model stock mounted
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  Shoulder stock mount and lugs

.44 and .36 paper cartridges

Loading is a somewhat lengthy process, with each of the six chambers drilled into the revolving cylinder being loaded from the front, or "muzzle" end. A measured amount of black powder is poured into a chamber. Next a lead ball is placed at the opening of the chamber and seated by firmly pressing it in with the pivoting loading lever which is attached beneath the barrel of the revolver. For sealing each chamber, an oversize 0.454-inch-diameter (11.5 mm) lead ball is trimmed slightly by the rim of the chamber as the rammer forces it inside. Cap and ball shooters also often place a lubricated wad between balls and powder, or, alternatively, pack lard or a commercially-sold bore lubricant at the mouth of each chamber in an attempt to prevent powder in an adjacent chamber from being ignited by when the gun is fired, which is known as a chainfire.

When the Colt Model 1860 was used by 19th century soldiers, they most often loaded the gun using paper cartridges. These cartridges consisted of a pre-measured load of black powder and a ball, wrapped in nitrated paper (paper that had been soaked in potassium nitrate and then dried, to make it more flammable). To load each chamber, one only had to slip the cartridge into the front of the chamber and seat the ball with the loading lever ram. Then a percussion cap was placed onto the raised aperture, called a nipple, at the back end of the chamber.

The Colt 1860 cost approximately $20 per revolver. This was rather expensive during the 1860s, both for the United States Army and private citizens. Colt had been criticized for this high price, and by 1865 the revolver was reduced to $14.50.

The Colt "Army" revolver is to be distinguished from the Colt "Navy" revolver of which there were two models, the octagonal barrel Model 1851 Navy, and the round-barreled Model 1861 Navy, both Navy models being in the smaller .36-caliber. Replica Navy revolvers sold today are often sold in the historically incorrect .44-caliber; originally, all Navy revolvers were manufactured only in .36-caliber.

• Kirst, W. J. (1983). Self Consuming Paper Cartridges for the Percussion Revolver. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Northwest Development Co.
• Wilson, R. L. (1985). Colt: An American Legend. New York, London: Atabras, A Division of Abbeville Publishing Group.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Colt Army Model 1860.

• Colt 1860 Army at the Internet Movie Firearms Database
• The Colt Revolver in the American West—Model 1860 Army