Patterson Colt

[Zonie]

Good point! :grin:

It could be added that the pockets on a Paterson are so deep that once the cap is in place there is almost no way it could be fired by dropping the cylinder on a concrete slab.

As some of you may know, the first prototype Paterson had the nipples standing proud of the cylinder. To add insult to injury, it had a metal shroud around the area to minimize the rearward blast when the gun was fired.

These two things worked together to make it the Champion Chain Fire Marvel of the World.

The shroud was quickly discarded but chain firing was still common (as it was on the Pepperboxes of that era).
Colt (or someone) redesigned the area to put the nipples down into the deep pockets seen on the production Patersons.
Colt also Patented this feature but not as a pocket. He Patented the idea of machining a barrier between the nipples, the barrier in this case being the metal that was not removed when the pockets were milled.

There was a notable lawsuit by Colt against another revolver maker where the contender seemed to prove his revolver was slightly older than Colts revolver Patent date. Colt won anyway because the guy had added a flame barrier between the nipples to his design before trying to sell it to the public.

Anyway, as I said several posts back, the cylinder could be safely loaded with the caps installed after which it could be carried to the shooting bench to be assembled with the rest of the revolver.

 

[Eljay]

Thanks for encouraging me to shoot my Paterson. I watched duelist1954's Paterson video (thanks, Mike, if you should see this) and picked up a couple of little assembly/disassembly tips that helped increase my comfort level with pulling a wedge gun apart quite so many times in one day, packed a rubber mallet, and got a slightly smaller .36 jag for my loading device that actually fit inside the cylinder and found that I was out of excuses.

Took it out today and found that in a sense it's just like shooting a more conventional cap and ball revolver. I can load and shoot three cylinders in a 15 minute firing period. It's just that I'm loading 4 instead of 6 rounds (definitely wanted an empty cylinder while reassembling around a capped cylinder!).

Very fun to shoot - I'm not sure of my total round count but probably in the 30s.

No drama from the RO, and in fact when I was wrapping up he asked me if I had some time to go rescue some guys with a 1858 who had almost no idea what they were doing and I got them up and running. Saw deer and turkey on the drive home. A very pleasant range day indeed.

 

[Zonie]

Glad you had fun.

The next time your out shooting your Paterson just think of how surprised the band of 80 Comanches at the battle of Walker Creek were when they first got to view it in action.

Up until then, the Indians would fake a charge to draw fire. Once the enemy fired their guns the Indians knew it would take time to reload so they would then make the real attack.

Lo and behold! The guns weren't empty and learning that cost them dearly.

 

[Luke MacGillie]

Paterson's are a guilty pleasure of mine. I own one, that I do not know who made, it was defarbed and cut down, so there is nothing left on it to identify who made it.

Now as for the Dixie cappers, that is a poor copy of a Paterson rifle capper, not for the pistol.

There were a few, very few pistol cappers made by one of the Italian companies, but they are no longer being made. The only source for a capper currently is from the Paterson Accessory Company in England, and they are very, very pricy.

There is no way to securely cap one of these pistols with the gun assembled, so I would say that you should just shoot this pistol among friends who do not threaten you with a pistol whipping for loading the gun the way Sam Colt intended....

This is also one of the few pistols that came with spare cylinders on a regular basis. An image search on the net should show you multiple original cased pistols with spare cylinders.