The Colt 1849 .31 calibre Pocket revolver

The Colt 1849 Pocket .31 Revolver

The Colt Pocket 1849 (top) and the Colt Navy 1851 are very similar in design and function, the main difference being one of size

Samuel Colt produced many guns during his career and the little .31 Pocket Revolver was his most successful model with well over 300,000 sold.  This tells us quite a lot about the period of American westward expansion from the 1840's onward and perhaps also offers some insights into the often complex relationship America enjoys with guns.  After several disappointing attempts involving small revolvers without loading rams, Colt got it right and produced the model of 1849 which featured several improvements including a loading ram.  After the end of the Civil War sales of military firearms dropped suddenly and the civilian market experienced a simultaneous expansion.  People don't generally spend money on guns unless they feel they need them.  The West really was a dangerous place back then and everybody from travelling salesmen to miners wanted a personal protection pistol that could be carried easily in a pocket or belt.  Some models even had a stagecoach holdup scene engraved on the cylinder and others a Ranger and Indian fight  which reflected some of the common personal safety fears of the period.  It is interesting that a rather underpowered five shot percussion revolver was more popular than some of the more powerful single shot weapons available at the time.  A good muff pistol or doule barrelled "Derringer" could fire a .4-.6 calibre ball with more lethal effect.  The attraction must have been the availability of five shots and the psychological effect that might have had on both the possessor and the assailant.  Large Knives feature prominently in the photography of the period and were probably carried both as tools and defensive weapons.  A frightened or desperate individual with five loaded .31 chambers and big Bowie knife was unlikely to be trifled with.

A selection of Civil War revolvers.  The Colt 1849 .31 at the bottom is easily the smallest

On San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, gamblers sometimes referred to such hideout guns as a “fifth ace.”  The large belt model Colt, which sold for around $16-$18 each in the East, was selling for as much as $250-$500 apiece in the West. Even the less expensive .31 calibre model commanded prices around $100 on the West Coast.  It is a debateable point whether a stage coach traveller confronted with a group of desperadoes with huge 6-shot .44 Colt Dragoon revolvers would have been well advised to open fire with a small .31 calibre 5-shot pocket gun.  However, Despite its small calibre and small charge of black powder people obviously felt safer for having it.  There mst have been some very tense moments in taverns when some commotion or other resulted in everybody whipping out a revolver and looking for a target.  During the American Civil War, soldiers on both sides purchased the pistols with their own funds. They carried the 1849 Pocket models for close combat situations. For decades during the mid-19th century, adventurers worldwide praised these little Colts in the highest terms.  This is surprising when one considers the weight of a .31 ball is about 48 grains or the same as some .22 bullets  and at a velocity of 700 feet per second it produced 52 foot pounds of energy which is about the same as a modern high velocity .22 round we would use to hunt rabbits.  By comparison A Colt .45 peacemaker could work up 300+ foot pounds.  It was definitely not powerful but if it prevented an opponent from skewering you with his bayonet then it really was an excellent investment.  It was probably useful too in a touchy situation. A misdealt card, a mining claim dispute, a defence of a lady’s honour or perhaps an expedited bank withdrawal might all be eased along through the use of a Pocket Colt. The simple brandishing of the firearm could even elicit the desired reaction. There are a few accounts of gamblers using the Pocket Colt  - this one from the nineteenth century caught my attention because it seemed so bizarre to be somehow credible:

These gormless looking young western adventurers are ready for trouble with their new Colt revolvers, knives and fashionable clothes.  One can only hope trouble didn't find them before they acquired some life experience.

"An argument broke out between the two about the last hand played, both shouting and then finally standing to confront each other.  In the heat of the exchange, the proprietor reached into his cash cigar box on the board and drew out what looked to be a pocket pistol….taking aim, he fired.  The other man threw both hands to his mouth as he stumbled backwards toward the front door, he fell backwards over the front porch and broke the cross bar of the hitching post as he hit the ground.  The whole crowd from the store went rushing out with the proprietor leading the group yelling about how sorry he was to have shot his friend over a simple hand of cards. As they gathered around the victim, they were amazed to see him stand up coughing and gagging.  With that, he stumbled to one of the still standing posts and heaved something that hit the ground with a thud.  One of the men picked it up, spat on it to wash it off and found it to be a bullet slug.  The story ends with all the boys going back to the poker game, apologies and “sorrys” exchanged….Oh, and more drinking (of course) to clear the boy’s throat…..the two gents involved remained the closest of friends well into their old age".  Apparently, in this case the powder was damp otherwise a .31 calibre ball in the mouth might have been more serious.  

.31 balls from Henry and a .31 Pedersoli ball and bullet Mould from Henry Krank and, for comparison, a .22 lr and a 9mm bullet

There is another wonderful story about a Union Army general who tried to ban his men from carrying non-issue Colt Pocket Revolvers.  Apparently he was sitting in his tent when there was a bang outside and a lead ball came through the tent, hit the ground and bounced harmlessly off his boot.  The culprit was an officer who had fumbled his revolver as a result of drinking a little too much hooch.  The enraged general banned non-issue pistols on the spot; a command that was most likely quickly forgotten about and ignored.


There are considerably more stories about people getting shot with modern small calibre bullets than .31 balls and there have been a number of famous assassinations.  In 1880 George Brown, a former Canadian Premier and owner of the Globe newspaper in Toronto. was shot by George Bennett with a small Colt, probably an Open Top Pocket Model.  Bennet had previously been fired for drunkenness.  A struggle resulted in Brown being shot in the thigh.  The wound was not considered serious but sepsis set in and he died a few days later.  Bobby Kennedy was killed in 1968 by Sirhan Sirhan using a .22 calibre Iver-Johnson Cadet revolver.  John Hinckley  jnr  wounded several people during an attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981 using  a Röhm RG-14 .22 LR revolver and all recovered although White House Press Secretary James Brady who was hit in the head died of his injuries in 2000.  In 1981 when Mehmet Ali Agca wounded Pope John Paul II in an assassination attempt.  A 9mm Browning was the weapon used and despite massively serious abdominal wounds the Pope's life was saved by modern medical science.

I even have my personal .22 story that testifies to the lethality of the .22 lr hollow point high velocity bullet.  As a very young man I often helped my father, who was a master butcher, to slaughter beef.  He used a Cash Captive Bolt Pistol that was extremely lethal on cattle.  On one occasion he had a misfire followed by a jam while trying to slaughter a very frightened and aggressive Hereford heifer.  The captive bolt barely broke the skin and the animal made a determined attempted to crush him.  I was holding my Brno .22 hunting rifle and he shouted to me to put her down quickly. He had trained me well and I knew how to place the bullet in the brain at a distance of about three yards.  The animal fell instantly and there was no need for a second shot.  The animal weighed about 900 pounds.

Charging the cylinder with powder and seating a percussion cap is a very fiddly procedure especially on a cold day with numb fingers.  That cavalrymen could do it while on horseback is quite amazing

A wad between the ball and the charge in a percussion revolver is a good idea as it reduces the likelihood of a chain fire which occurs when hot gases from a fired cylinder ignite an unfired cylinder.  Normally wad punches are expensive but this one is from a set of leather tools and happens to cut a .32 wad

The affinity for weapons and the willingness to resort to violence is more pronounced in some societies than others and is in itself a  complex area of study.  Personal protection weapons were commonly carried in British and Irish society until relatively recent times but the phenomenon has endured into the present in the US.  Middle Eastern societies are also more weaponised than European societies. Guns ownership but not the carrying of guns is common in many societies and there tends to be a lot of guns in post conflict societies.  The American frontier of the 1800's was a society in conflict with itself and with Native Americans and experienced generalised lawlessness.  Every dog has his day and the second half of the nineteenth century was the time of the Colt Pocket Revolver.

There is an anomaly regarding the velocity of the Pocket Colt and also several other black powder firearms.  The published ballistic data often doesn't match that  recorded by modern users.  For instance some sources claim 1,000 feet per second for the Navy and Single Action Army revolvers but modern users find that a full chamber may produce a velocity far less than that.  Perhaps the powders available in the late nineteenth century were so much better or perhaps modern black powder substitutes are less powerful.  Whatever the reason there is the possibility these old firearms were almost as lethal in their day as their modern successors.

The little .31 Colt hits about 3 inches high at 5 yards; 6" at 10 yards and so on.  This is in keeping with western gamblers' lore (aim for the belt buckle!). 

These days there is so much material on You Tube that even serious-minded people take the odd peek to see what our transatlantic friends are up to.  A recent search turned up a young intellectual who demonstrated the effectiveness of his Uberti/Colt Pocket .31 by demolishing a cinderblock with 5 shots.  Assuming he had no interest in fabricating video footage (he even recorded a failure to ignite)  the experiment shows that the .31 ball has considerable energy and possibly more than a .22 lr.  The cinder block didn't explode but each successive shot knocked off a respectable chunk of conglomerate and the fifth shot was not really necessary as it hit a pile of  rubble.  As a value for money firearm for the enthusiast the Uberti is certainly worth consideration. Henry Krank advertises them at £292 or €337 and a .31 mould costs around £23.  Used models in top condition fetch around £175 with accessories.  If one uses scrap lead to cast balls, the cost per round for a cap and powder is around €0.10 or €0.50 to load five chambers.  It takes several minutes to load and fire one 5-shot cylinder so a shooter can get a lot of range time for €5.  This compares very favourably to the cost of feeding a 22 rifle.

Given the ballistic similarity between the .22lr  bullet and the .31 pistol ball it is reasonable to assume the .31 was equally lethal at point blank range. It is interesting that as time passed the firearms used in assassinations became much more powerful; probably because victims of shootings with small calibre weapons were surviving as a result of the use of Penicillin to combat infection.  The Pocket Colt of 1849 continued in production until the 1870's when it was replaced by metallic cartridge revolvers like the Colt Open Top Pocket Model in .22 Short and Long calibres and the Colt New Line in calibres from .22 to .41.  These were in turn replaced after 1880 by small semi-automatic pistols like the Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket pistol in .25 ACP.  Guns were getting smaller and more powerful but the western frontier was becoming more peaceful and fewer people felt the need for personal protection.  Today the pocket pistol is represented by even more powerful small pistols like the Glock 26, a 9×19mm "subcompact" variant designed for concealed carry and introduced in 1995, mainly for the civilian market. (I found it an inaccurate little beast to shoot).  The original Colt Pocket model of 1849 has been replaced by ever more powerful and efficient firearms but none have quite achieved the appeal of the original as evidenced by the fact that 170 years after its introduction it is still in demand by collectors and enthusiasts with original customised models fetching six figure prices.

The (very expensive)  Sinclair arbor press (loaned for the purpose by Mike Ryan RFD) was never intedned for seating round balls in a revolver cylinder but seems to work nicely.  The cylinder ram on the Colt Pocket .31 develops enough leverage for .31 but not .33 balls

My example of a  Uberti/Colt 1849 came from a friend who just decided to sell it and get something more powerful.  It was made by the Italian manufacturer, Uberti, which has a reputation for producing the best Colt replicas.  I already had considerable experience with the .44 Colt Navy - not all of it pleasant as loading and priming a cap-and-ball revolver in Winter is a cold, fiddly job and the reward is a very dirty gun that has to be stripped and scrubbed in soapy water every time it is used.  Single shot percussion duelling pistols are far more accurate and easier to clean but I couldn't resist a Pocket Colt with a Pedersoli mould for £175. My wife and I both applied for and got the little gun added to our FAC's and while Audrey will undoubtedly enjoy shooting it I fear the job of scrubbing it will fall to me. I can't complain as she cooks while I scrub.  It is a small gun and even more fiddly to load and prime than the Navies, Armies, Dragoons and Walkers.  The chambers are quite small and take no more than 10 grains of FFFG Black Powder (I can squeeze 23 into the Navy Colt and 100 into the Holbrook Muzzleloader and 40 grains is a light load in a black powder shotgun cartridge).  However it IS handy and concealable and Probably conferred a degree of confidence and security on the nineteenth century owner while diverting the unwelcome attentions of "ruffainly types" who might think the wearing of a massive Colt Walker was a challenge to a fight.  It fired reliably provided the no. 10 caps were well seated but the degree of penetration of the little 31 balls into the backstop was not impressive.  A valued personal protection weapon it might have been but not a particularly lethal one!  A problem existed with extended storage of cap-and-ball revolvers in that too much oil in the chambers would contaminate the powder leading to under-combustion and no oil would quickly lead to rust.  There is a story about Marshal Bat Masterson firing, cleaning and reloading his Colts every evening before his rounds of the Dodge City trouble spots - presumably to ensure reliable ignition as a misfire could have been fatal.  I have found no mention of Masterson carrying a Colt Pocket although he appears to have carried a shortened Colt Navy - understandably, since it was considerably more lethal. 

By a happy coincidence 00 Buckshot is exactly the right diameter for a tight fit in a .31 Colt and the mold throws 18 balls as opposed to the more common single ball mould and the business of casting balls is thereby expedited

As a shooter The Colt Pocket is supposed to be out of its range at 25 meters, the range at which most target pistol shooting is done.  A single shot duelling pistol or a modern .22 can keep all shots in the region of the 7-10 rings on a pistol target.  The Pocket is desined for shorter ranges and  is probably more suited to 10-15 yards at which range Western Action shooting is done.  A maximum of ten grains of black powder can be loaded per cylinder so it it is not exactly powerful. On its very first day on the range it surprised everyone by shooting a 3/4 inch group at five yards, a 2 inch group at ten yards and a FOUR inch group at twenty five yards.  All shots hit high as one would expect from this type of revolver. Getting it to shoot to point of aim involves mounting a higher foresight which many shooters do.  I was quite amazed by its accuracy because four inches at 25 yards is beyond the capability of many modern centrefire pistols.  To compare like with, well, similar, we test fired a 9mm Glock 26 a few years back for the Irish Shooters Digest and it shot much larger groups at closer range.  In fairness there is little comparison between a 9mm Luger round and ten grains of black powder behind an 84 grain ball.  The little Glock kicked like an Austrian Army mountain mule while the Pocket Colt was very controllable and ten grains of powder produced very little fouling.  A better comparison might be the Colt Navy .44 Cap-and-Ball in the top photo which is capable of similar accuracy but the group size and point of impact go all to pot as the gun gets fouled up with burnt powder.  So good was the accuracy of the .31 that I phoned a friend who owns an identical model and he reported TWO inch groups at 25 yards - John lives, breathes and sleeps pistol accuracy and produces some amazing results.  The top of the black can be seen at the bottom of the photo which means the group is about 10 inches high at 25 yards as all old Colt revolvers tend to do. 

 

The photo I didn't expect to take.  A four-shot, four inch group at 25 yards with a 5-shot Uberti/Colt 1849 Pocket .31.  There should have been five strikes but the first was off paper and the target had to be repositioned

 

Penetration using the .31 Colt was anaemic. A .32 bullet barely embedded itself in pine at 5 yards  It is NOT powerful. The brown deposit on the bullet is Alox lubricant.  Back in 1849 there was better black powder around and performance may have bbeen better - but not by much