Category Archives: Colt

For Missed Opportunity Monday, we have yet another abandoned Colt design: the .40 caliber Law Enforcement Pistol. It also served as the platform for their Smart Gun tech. Here are some of the Smart Gun patents, which show bits of the pistol’s design as well. While the exterior profile looks a bit like the “AllContinue reading “Colt Law Enforcement Pistol”

In 1981, Ross Seyfried was the last man to win the IPSC World Shoot using a non-compensated pistol in open competition. While that feat was accomplished with a Pachmayr Combat Special built on a full-sized Colt Government Model, Seyfried cut his teeth in IPSC shooting with today’s featured pistol. This is the pistol he usedContinue reading “Ross Seyfried’s Swenson Combat Commander”

Or is it more of a “throw it back” Thursday? Today’s Colt prototype is undated, but it has a strong Charter Arms vibe. Perhaps Douglas S. McClenahan designed it while he was at Colt, years before he formed Charter Arms in 1964? However, part of me suspects it was built in the 1970s when ColtContinue reading “Throwback Thursday – Another Colt Prototype for the Glue Factory”

In Part 3 of the ’10 Years with the Colt 901′ series, I’m going to take us on a journey looking at the variations of the Colt SP901, LE901 and we will end with the Modular AR Carbine (M.A.R.C.) 901 variations.

Alas, I don’t have access to the Colt letter on this experimental project. It appears to be Lawman Mark V fitted with a Dan Wesson-style sleeved barrel. The great irony here is the latter system was patented by a former Colt employee, Karl R. Lewis, who also helped design the original Colt Mark III revolverContinue reading “Throwback Thursday – Colt Sleeved Barrel Experiment”

In a previous comment, Shawn mentioned wanting a .41 Magnum Python. All of the known examples are custom aftermarket builds. Today, we are going to look at some side-by-side comparisons of a factory .357 Mag and a .41 Mag conversion. It won’t take much guessing to see why Colt never made the .41 Mag aContinue reading “Custom Colt Python .41 Magnum Comparison”

Object Lesson for the Firearms Industry: If he didn’t start the company, don’t let your president think he can out-design the engineering staff. C. Edward Warner was Colt Industries Firearms Division’s president from August 1975 to June 1981. He had transferred over from his previous position as president of Colt Industries Elox Division, a manufacturerContinue reading “Another Colt Prototype – A Pony Ready for the Glue Factory”

I’ve seen Colt’s patent for this .22LR pistol several times in the past, but only now realized that the actual prototype has been in the wild since October 2008. It also passed through RIAC’s hands in 2011, who I believe was the source of these photos. The anodized blue section is the magazine. https://patents.google.com/patent/US3665631A

Some of the development update articles from that era (1962-1963) written by both Elmer Keith in Guns & Ammo and Duke Roberts in Gun World give the distinct impression that the early development of the .41 Magnum originally centered on a .40 caliber cartridge, and not .41 caliber. Why did they change from .40 toContinue reading “Colt & the .400 Winchester Magnum”

Check out these classic Colt promo videos from the 1980s and early 1990s. Note that the M4 on display mostly have fixed carry handles, with the exception of the “new” M4A1.