The Story of My Old Colt....long

[Whiskey Delta]

Most guns that are more than a couple years old have a story to tell; add a couple of generations and the stories take on aspects of a novel; sometimes as wide and varied as the lives of their owners. Often a person’s personal history intertwines or is influenced by
the possessions they held.

I own a Single Action Army Colt with a story. It is a pistol from my youth, my father’s adulthood and long before, down the corridors of time. It was made a generation before us both, and likely it will last generations to come.

My father served in the United States Marine Corp toward the end of World War II and as he prepared to end his time in officer candidate’s school and ship off to the Far East, his thoughts turned towards the preparation of his journey. First Lieutenants were not issued side arms by the Marine Corps at that stage of the war. Wartime shortages dictated that only Captain and above rated a sidearm. Lieutenants were issues the .30 carbine, which at that time had a checkered reputation and my dad was not happy about it. Junior officers were, however, permitted to obtain their own and one day my father left Camp LeJune and ventured into a gun store in town.


He went looking for a double action .45 revolver. There were precious few if any automatics available for public purchase at that time, but Colt and Smith and Wesson both made large frame revolvers in .45 before the war. He particularly wanted one in .45 Long Colt. One of my father’s friends (whose name is lost to time) had just returned from island fighting and told impressive tales of his Colt New Service pistol in .45 LC. Twice it had saved his life in close encounters with the enemy. My father’s friend had nearly ‘shot the rifling out of it” according to him. He told my father that it had shot a Japanese soldier who was at a dead run and the bullet flipped him onto his back as though a sledge hammer had hit him. Stopping power like that could save one’s life in combat and my dad listened to the man’s experience closely. One other night, his friend had been asleep in his slit trench with his pistol across his chest. He awoke to see the form of an enemy soldier standing over him, and he shot the man before the soldier could kill him. My father did not need a lot of convincing. He would find a similar pistol as this man, and hopefully it would protect him as his friends pistol had.

Unfortunately for my dad, Wartime deprivation had extended into the civilian gun market as well. The store was practically empty. Sporting arms had been shipped to England in mass droves to enforce the home guard after Dunkirk to help ward off invasion of the UK under the “Lend Lease” program. The US is often derided nowadays as a producer of small arms by the European community, but in the dark days of WW2, the UK benefited greatly by the USA’s sporting heritage.

My father was very disappointed to see that the few pistols left to be displayed were old Colt black powder cap and ball revolvers (I can’t help but imagine what they would be worth today had necessity not driven his purchase).

The only pistol chambered in the favored .45 long colt was an old Single Action Army. It was mechanically tight, but nothing special in those days: 5 ½ barrel, cracked rubber grips and it had apparently been re-blued at some point. But it was a .45 caliber and my dad could not afford to be too choosy, so he asked to see it.

My dad told me many years later “As soon as I put that pistol in my hand, it was as though it had been made for me.” My dad always fancied himself a reincarnated cowboy, and I was never sure if he came to that idea before or after handling that Colt, but regardless, that pistol made an indelible impression and it left the store with him that day.

My father had prepared for an invasion of Japan that was never to be. Truman destroyed Japanese resolve with two hydrogen bombs and VJ day came shortly after my father graduated from OCS. After a year in the Marine Corps Reserve, he was released and resumed his studies at college.

(As a side note: The Marine Corps Reserve asked my dad to stay another couple of years, but he refused. He told them he had put off his schooling long enough and was going to finish college. When the Korean War started shortly thereafter, his old unit was on the front lines in the first two weeks of our country’s involvement. Twice had the Old Colt and my father narrowly missed touring Asia.)

The Colt pistol, no longer destined for foreign shores, assumed a role of home defense weapon and deer hunting sidearm. My father injured his knee at some point in the 1950’s and as he recuperated he took up leather-craft. He made a nice field grade holster for his Colt, and a scabbard for his hunting knife. His hunting knife was a memento from the service as well-a shortened WW1 US military bayonet with a razor keen edge. Another friend from the service had made it for him, and it joined the Colt on a broad leather belt for the next 30 years. The cracked rubber grip was thrown out, replaced by a home-made grip my dad fashioned out of wood from a black walnut handrail he salvaged from a childhood home- just before it was razed. The grip was whittled, not sanded. The crudeness of its appearance belied its comfort and it reinforced the rugged nature that the Old Colt’s history implied.

As I grew into child hood, I developed a boy’s natural affinity for guns. For a child of the 1970’s being able to handle a ‘real’ cowboy gun was a thrill. My dad never failed to allow me to look and handle, but I had to ask first. The rule was iron clad, and I never broke it. The wisdom of his philosophy carries on to this day with my own children.

Of all the guns in my dad’s small collection, the Old Colt .45 was my favorite. Like many of my contemporaries of the day, The Lone Ranger and John Wayne were real influences on me. I spent most of my teen years turning beet-red as nurses my dad worked with reminisced to me about the variety of cowboy costumes (complete with my teddy bear side-kick) I would wear as 4 year old, visiting the hospital with my dad as he made rounds seeing his patients (A doctor bringing his child to work at the hospital...how times have changed! That would never happen today.) I used to see that gun hanging on my dad’s closet door handle daily. The smooth old blue finish, with brownish hues suggesting a turn of the century re-blue, was the neatest thing I had ever seen. We knew it was old, and it was not hard to imagine this very gun riding high in a brown leather rig under the Wyoming sky. As a teenager, I found a Colt Blue Book and my dad and I were stunned to see that the colt truly *was* old. It had been manufactured as a late black powder model in 1880. At about the time we discovered this, the old Colt had been on the planet for almost a century.

With my burgeoning interest in firearms, I saved my money and my dad bought me a duplicate Colt SAA. We marveled at the minimal mechanical differences, I am sure that almost every part would interchange, even though they were 100 years apart in age.

The Old Colt narrowly missed being stolen in a home burglary. Thieves broke in while my dad and I were in Fort Worth, Texas one week. They took my Colt, and a couple of other guns. My dad had moved the Old Colt by accident, and laid it on the bed. He was moving things around, and it survived the break-in under a stack of folded shirts. (My SAA was stolen, and later recovered by the police, but that is another story.)

My dad passed away in the early 1990’s, a victim of cancer and probably the strenuous work schedule that hampered his desire to seek medical intervention.

The Old Colt, the bayonet and the holster passed into my hands.

It resides in a safe now, protected well from thieves and time. My children know of it, and they ask me to see it, much as I did way back when. We take it out and slowly turn the cylinder. It clicks in a very satisfying way. I can still fancy that a cowboy heard that same sound a century ago, as he reloaded behind a horse trough with the scattered bad guys in the dusty street beyond.

It lies in my hand today and I can see how my dad felt an affinity for it. It points naturally and the hammer snicks solidly when cocked. It is a timeless design, and this gun is an object that seems to exist without time. It has survived at least two owners, it will likely survive me. There is an old saying which my father liked: “When a man dies, do not say that he is no more. Say instead that he is forever”.

Now, this gun has remained and my father is forever. I feel his hand when the Old Colt lays in mine. His touch has changed this gun, as his touch changed me. The Old Colt has served its owners well; both as a tool and as a time piece. Its history has interwoven with ours, a common thread in the tapestry of our lives, and the weaving shall continue with mine. The gun is permanent, and we are seemingly so impermanent. But I think to my self: “Surely, there is more to this story than what it seems......”. So I hope for a time when objects are impermanent, people are permanent and guns are outlived by their owners. I hope for a time when we are truly forever.

I hope.

[Whiskey Delta]

Just found out my nephew is stationed at LeJune too, 64 odd years later.

Life is interesting.

[Wasz]

good story I enjoyed it.

[PisnNapalm]

Thanks for sharing this bit of history.