2-Gun Western, November 1955 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

T’S A LITTLE weapon, but since [:: birth over 120 years ago, it has grown to be the greatest kil- ler of them all. It’s been called the “great equalizer’ little men big, and big men afraid, and today its voice thunders throughout the world. It’s as American as Buffalo Bill, or Teddy Roosevelt, or Ike Eisen- hower, It’s an international as the United Nations. The perseverance of one man—his indomitable faith in his invention—brought it into being, and to the last century it was as im- portant a discovery as the A-bomb is to ours. The man and his brainchild altered the course of world history. They caused wars, and prevented them. The man was Samuel Colt, and Repeating his weapon—the Colt Pistol. Contrary to most opinions, the Colt is not held only in the hand of © ‘the law. Although it is standard issue in almost all law enforcement agen- cies and commis- sioned officer ranks of the armed forces, of over 200,000 manufac- tured annually by the plant in Hart- ford, Conn, at least 50 per cent are used by sports- men not only in competition on the targ¢t range but for actual hunting and as an auxiliary arm where beasts because it makes It was Built for the Army, taken over by the gunslingers, the ‘great equcalizer" is still knocking over every- thing from gangsters to grizzlies. as well as deadly ones, there was no peace in either the history of the weapon itself or in the life of the man who created it. Samuel Colt was only 22 years old, in 1836, when he was presented with a legal document by Andrew Jackson giving him the. basic patent for a re- volving pistol. The idea wasn’t new, but he was the first to have the skill to put the various pieces together and make them work. The first single-shot pistol was made in Pistola, Italy, in 1540. It was a hand-held pipe with a large hole at one end and a smaller one at the other. The measured gunpowder was poured through the large hole and then the lead bullet was seated cn top of it. A flame applied to the small hole ignited the powder. The flame could be supplied by a piece of rope soaked in saltpeter which was ignited, or by a wheel lock which was wound up and released to Y COLT’s KILLER by GIL PAUST spin against a piece of iron, thus causing a_ spark, or by the flintlock where a piece of flint struck a piece come large and the Colf's | of steel when the- dangerous. How- new five-shot y hammer was fe- ever, although the one-piece pistol, leased. These Colt today has’ peaceful missions that turned the tide for Texas. methods had been used on muskets 24 CO DOO (a) eS CO nal