The FitzGerald Special Revolver

Here's wishing the readers of this blog a very happy and successful 2016. In today's post, we will study a particular type of snub-nosed revolver in history, with some very interesting and unusual features. We will study the FitzGerald Special, otherwise known as "Fitz Special", "Fitz Colt", "Fitz" etc.

A Fitz Special Revolver. Public domain image.

The first thing that the reader will no doubt notice, is that part of the trigger guard is missing. This was actually deemed "a feature" by its creator, who we will study about first.

John Henry Fitzgerald. Click on the image to enlarge. Public domain image.

John Henry Fitzgerald was born in 1870 in Manchester, New Hampshire. As a teenager, he developed a passion for firearms and became very good with revolvers and pistols. He grew up to become a large man with big hands (which we will see the importance of, soon enough) and joined the New York Police Department (NYPD) as a street cop. During this time, he also participated in several shooting competitions and became well known as a champion shooter.

In 1918, he retired from the NYPD and was promptly hired by Colt, because of his fame as a shooter. During his first few years at Colt, Fitzgerald worked to test new handgun models that were being developed by Colt. Because of his reputation, Colt also used him for marketing their handguns. They regularly sent him around the country to give shooting exhibitions using Colt products. As part of his job, he also gave training lessons and demonstrations to various police departments around the US.

Fitzgerald's work with police departments made him start thinking about concealed snubnose revolvers, which were much needed by plainclothes policemen and detectives. At that time, most of Colt's revolvers were models with longer barrels, frames and grips. While these models were good for accuracy in competitions, their large weights and sizes made them less suitable for defensive situations. In the 1920s, he began working with existing Colt revolvers such as the New Service, Police Positive and Police Positive Special models, modifying them to be more easily concealed. In 1926, he revealed his first prototypes.

Among his modifications, he shortened the barrels down to 2 inches or less, shortened the ejector, changed the front sight to be smaller and more rounded, shortened the revolver's butt and made it more rounded, completely filed down the hammer spur and serrated the top of the hammer instead, improved the double-action trigger and finally, cut away the front half of the revolver's trigger guard. All sharp edges of the revolver were filed down and rounded off.

There were some good reasons for all these modifications. First, he reasoned that a shorter barrel would make the revolver easier to conceal and also pull out more quickly out of a pocket or holster. Also, since most police shootouts happened at relatively short ranges, he determined that a 2-inch barrel gave sufficient accuracy for most of these situations.Also, a short barrel could be used more easily in confined spaces, such as from the inside of an automobile. Finally, he thought the short barrel would actually increase the reliability of the weapon. His idea was that while the ammunition quality at that time was quite unreliable, it would be impossible for a bullet to get stuck in such a short barrel!

The front sight was also reduced in height, because he determined that short-range gunfights didn't need taller sights. Also, rounding off the corners of the front sight, filing down the hammer spur and rounding the grip made the revolver less likely to snag on clothing, when drawing out the revolver. Removing the hammer spur also made the revolver's primary use as a double action model, which is faster than firing in single action mode, a benefit for defensive shooting. However, for people that wished to use the revolver in single-action mode, he serrated the top of the hammer instead, so they could still use it as a single action revolver if needed.

Finally, the most controversial feature: the removing of the front part of the trigger guard. It must be remembered that Fitzgerald was a street cop earlier in his career and he had walked several winters in New York in the snow. He knew from experience, that it was hard for a man with big hands and wearing gloves, to be able to pull a trigger easily under these conditions. Therefore, he removed the front half of the trigger guard, so that the trigger would be much more accessible. Some accounts say that this modification also made it possible to fire the revolver from the inside of a pocket if needed. As it happened, Colt used to stamp their proof mark on the left side of the trigger guard, so sawing off the guard removed this marking. Therefore, genuine Fitz specials generally had the proof mark restamped elsewhere: usually on the frame behind the serial number under the cylinder crane, or on the rear of the trigger guard.

In 1927, Colt introduced their Colt Detective Special model, which was a snub-nosed version of the Colt Police Positive Special revolver. It rapidly became popular with police departments and became easier for Fitzgerald to modify, as it already came with a short barrel by default.

Several Fitzgerald Special revolvers.

The Fitzgerald Special models were very custom guns modified by Fitzgerald himself and carried by some very famous people. For instance, Colonel Rex Applegate, who worked for the OSS (a precusor to the CIA during World War II) carried one, as did Charles Lindbergh. Notorious bank robber Clyde Barrow (of Bonnie and Clyde fame) also carried one, which was believed to have been stolen from a police officer, and was recovered when he was killed by the police. Fitzgerald allegedly also modified a few M1911 pistols as well, two of which were gold-engraved models carried by legendary Texas Ranger, Manuel T. "Lone Wolf" Gonzaullas, which are now on display at the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco.

Fitzgerald himself only modified about 100 revolvers or so, and since every one of them was customized, they are very rare these days and worth quite a bit of money. Part of the reason for the high prices have to do with the fame of their creator, as Fitzgerald was a well recognized authority on firearms and was an in-demand instructor for defensive shooting tactics. In 1930, Fitzgerald even wrote a book called Shooting, where he discussed various handgun shooting techniques and tactics. A genuine Fitzgerald modified revolver can easily be worth about $10,000 at auctions today and double that, if its previous owner was also a famous personality.

However, other people made the same modifications themselves and there are many fakes out there. In fact, the practice of sawing off the front part of the trigger guard is called "Fitzing" and a weapon thus modified is referred to as being "Fitz'd". For many decades now, amateur gunsmiths have been making this particular modification in their home workshops. Not only have Colt revolvers been "Fitz'd", so have models from other companies such as Smith & Wesson, and other weapon types such as pistols and rifles.

It must be remembered that while Fitzgerald himself was an expert shooter, removing the front part of the trigger guard makes it easier to accidentally pull the trigger, therefore extra special care must be taken while handling one. Also, a genuine Fitz Special often had the trigger pull lightened as well, so a much smaller force is required to discharge it.

For safety reasons, large firearm manufacturers don't offer handguns with part of the trigger guard removed. However, the rest of Fitzgerald's innovative modifications (short barrel, shorter grip, bobbed hammer etc.) are still being offered as standard on production revolvers made by different companies.

Early Cartridge Technologies: Tinfoil Cartridges

In our last post, we studied linen cartridges. In today's post, we will study cartridges made of a more exotic material: tinfoil. Yes, there really were tinfoil cartridges made at one point.

Tinfoil cartridges were originally made by Samuel Colt for his revolvers. During this period, paper cartridges were common, but if the paper got wet, it would ruin the black powder. The idea behind using tinfoil was to make a cartridge that was not affected by water as much.

At the time that Colt first started working on tinfoil cartridges, his first company that he had set up to manufacture Colt Paterson revolvers was not doing so well (it soon went bankrupt in 1842, due to lack of sales.) He initially experimented using rubber as the material, before switching to tinfoil. Soon after, the US Government got interested in his developments. In April 1840, the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy asked a mixed board of officers from the Army, Navy and Marine Corps to make experiments and evaluate Colt's tinfoil cartridges. The officers were: Colonel G. Croghan of the Army, Captain C.S. McCauley of the Navy and Lieutenant J.G. Reynolds of the Marines. They met at Washington Arsenal and performed several experiments and wrote a report of the results, an abridgement of which is below:

The board relying upon the correctness of the experiments as above recited, are unanimously of the opinion that in reference to the usual incidents of our service, naval as well as military, the cartridge now in use is greatly to be preferred to the tin-foil cartridge submitted by Mr. Colt. It appears evident from the facts set forth by the foregoing experiments that the tin-foil is entirely unsuited for cannon service; yet from its imperviousness to water, the tin-foil cartridges for small arms might be found useful in certain cases. The board would, therefore, recommend the partial adoption of the tin-foil cartridge for small arms.

The tests that they performed for these cartridges may be of interest to readers:

"Experiment 1, April 10, 1840: Twenty six cartridges of tin-foil and as many of paper, were fired from well cleaned muskets, no difference was perceptible."

"Experiment 3, April 20, 1840: Four 6-pounder and thirty musket cartridges, all of tin-foil, which had been immersed in water from the 10th instant, were taken therefrom; two of the 6-pounder cartridges appeared to have been injured by accident, the other two were fired and appeared not to have been injured by the water; a dry sponge was used in these firings, and it was burned each time by the contents left in the gun. The musket cartridges were then examined; sixteen of them were selected for firing, seven of which only could be discharged"

"April 21: In order to test the relative strength of the tin-foil and cartridge paper, strips of each were tested; the foil could not support a weight of forty pounds, whilst the paper did not break with the weight of eighty pounds"

Most of the remaining tests correspond to use in cannon and the tin-foil cartridges left more residue globules in cannon, which is why the board recommended to only use the cartridges for small arms and only partially.

The US Army purchased a few thousand more tinfoil cartridges for further evaluation and in 1843, they placed a large order for 250,000 tinfoil musket cartridges, for the purpose of trying them in field service. This large order was an unexpected gift for Colt, since his revolver manufacturing factory in Paterson had gone bankrupt shortly before in 1842. The funds from the US Army were used by Colt to fund research for his "New and improved revolver" and he attempted to start a new Colt's Patent Manufacturing Company with this money. He also used some of the money to produce a waterproof telegraph cable for his friend, Samuel Morse (the inventor of Morse code and inventor of the single-wire telegraph). Then came the order from Samuel Walker for the Walker Colt revolver and the profits were large enough for Colt to go back into the firearms manufacturing business in 1847. A few years later, Colt also established a factory in London in 1853.

While Samuel Colt was in London, he met a gentleman named William T. Eley, who was in the business of making cartridges in England. William T. Eley was the son of William Eley and nephew of Charles Eley, who had founded the Eley Brothers cartridge manufacturing company in London in 1828 (Eley Brothers later became the largest ammunition manufacturer in the world and the brand name is still used for cartridges today). Together, they developed a new tinfoil cartridge that was granted British patent #1324 in 1855.

The powder container was made of tinfoil and the lap joint sealed with waterproof cement. The case was then filled with powder and the bullet was inserted to the top and then the end of the tinfoil case was crimped into the base groove of the bullet and then greased, to produce a waterproof cartridge. The cartridge was then enclosed in a paper wrapper, from which it could be easily removed before loading. Due to the shape of the bore of the nipple in Colt's revolvers, the flame from a percussion cap would pierce the foil and ignite the powder, without the need to tear open the foil.

In the above image, the cartridge on the right is of .31 caliber. The one on the left is also a .31 caliber cartridge, but it is enclosed in an additional protective paper case. The one in the middle, is a .28 caliber cartridge in a sectioned case. The case has a tape to pull the cartridge out, which was later copied by other ammunition makers. The side of the case visible to us says "COLT'S" and has a picture of a colt in the bottom, the other side has the word "PATENT".

Another image of a Colt tinfoil cartridge is shown below:

To manufacture these cartridges in the US, Colt set up a separate building, situated about a half mile away from his other factory in Hartford. In this cartridge manufacturing factory, no fire was allowed anywhere near it and the factory was heated by piping in steam, which was generated in a different building outside.

Women doing the dangerous work of assembling Colt's gunpowder cartridges at the Cartridge Works. From United States Magazine, 1857

Click on the image to enlarge. Public domain image.

Most of the labor in this factory was performed by women, with the only men around being a foreman, an engineer and a charger.

In our next post, we will study more cartridges made of other materials.

Snubnose Revolvers a.k.a. Belly Guns

In today's post, we will look at a class of weapon called snubnose revolvers, also sometimes called "belly guns" or "snubbies".

A snubnose revolver is a handgun that is designed for self-defense at short distances. In general, the term is used to refer to any revolver with a barrel that is 3 inches long or shorter. They were designed to fulfill the requirement of a small repeating handgun that could be concealed easily and drawn out quickly. The term "belly gun" might have come about because many people carried these weapons concealed in the trouser waist band, close to the belly. Other think that they're called belly guns because of the method of use: placing the barrel into the belly of the opponent and pulling the trigger.

One of the early revolvers of the snubnose type was the Colt Shopkeeper Special model, which was based off the Colt M1877 Lightning model. This was a double action revolver designed for .38 Long Colt cartridge and the Shopkeeper Special model had a smaller barrel and no ejector rod, to keep the size compact.

A Colt Shopkeeper Special revolver. Click on the image to enlarge. Public domain image.

In those days, Colt revolvers were side-loaders. In 1894, Smith & Wesson invented a revolver where the cylinder is mounted on a crane which can swing outward for unloading or loading the revolver, with an attached push rod and star ejector to easily extract the cases. This design, along with the double action mechanism is what we see today in many modern revolvers.

In 1927, Colt introduced their Colt Detective Special revolver model. It was based on their Colt Police Positive Special model, which was a six-shot revolver designed to fire the .38 Special cartridge. The Colt Detective Special used the same frame and six-round cylinder as the Positive Special model, but had a small 2 inch barrel (or in some models, the barrel was 3 inches long).

A Colt Detective Special, courtesy of http://www.adamsguns.com/. Click on the image to enlarge.

The new weapon immediately found popularity among police detectives who were tasked with missions that required them to dress like civilians. Soon after this, Colt discovered that there were a number of people that wanted a small concealed weapon. Therefore, they started making other models as well. For instance, the Colt Banker's model was based on the earlier Colt Police Positive revolver. The Colt Police Positive was designed for smaller cartridges (.32 Colt and .38 S&W) than the Colt Police Positive Special (which took .38 Special) and the Colt Banker's model was designed for the smaller cartridge, with the reasoning that weaker bankers wouldn't be able to handle the recoil of a .38 special cartridge.

The nice thing about such small revolvers is that they are easy to carry around in a pocket or a purse and have repeating capability. Another reason that many people preferred these to the larger models was because of the speed that these could be pulled out. Anyone who has used a full sized revolver from a holster knows that the gun is relatively heavy and the long barrel has to be pulled clear of the holster before shooting. The snubnose equivalent is much easier to pull out from the same holster.

After cheap semi-automatic pistols started becoming widely available in the early 1980s, the popularity of these revolvers declined in the US, mainly because pistols hold much more ammunition that revolvers do. Then, in 1994, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban passed for 10 years, which limited the availability of pistol magazines holding more than 10 rounds and suddenly, the popularity of these snubnose revolvers increased again, until the ban expired in 2004.

There are some advantages to snubnose revolvers:

1. Ability to conceal: These revolvers can easily be stored in a pocket or a purse. The curved grip is much easier to conceal than the straight grip of a semi-auto pistol and it doesn't look like a gun when placed inside a pocket.
2. Easy to pull out: Due to its smaller weight and size, it is easier to pull one of these out of a holster than the equivalent full sized revolver model.
3. Simplicity of use: It is much easier to teach someone to use a revolver than to use a semi-automatic pistol. Limp wristing is not a problem with revolvers, so even someone with a weak grip can use one. Revolvers are also less likely to malfunction than semi-automatics. If a revolver doesn't fire due to a bad cartridge, the procedure to clear it is to simply pull the trigger again. 
4. Heavy Double Action trigger: We saw a few posts ago that double-action triggers are harder to pull when placed in double-action mode. Therefore, it is not likely to go off, if it gets snagged in clothing, which provides extra safety.
5. Better at close quarters: Not only is it faster to pull a snubnose revolver out, the shorter barrel means that an attacker can't grab on to it and try to wrestle it away. Also, unlike a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver can't be easily knocked out of battery.
6. Can fire different types of ammunition.

On the other hand, there are some disadvantages as well:

1. Capacity: Most modern snubnose revolvers have a 5-round capacity, whereas even a pocket sized semi-automatic pistol carries 6+1 rounds. Of course, there are those that argue that 5 rounds is more than enough in most cases.
2. Higher recoil: Because of the smaller size and weight, the felt recoil force is much more on a snubnose revolver.
3. Sights: Due to shorter barrels, the distance between the front and rear sights is smaller and therefore the sight radius is short. The longer the sight radius, the more accurately a weapon can be aimed. 
4. More time taken to reload a revolver.

Due to their shorter barrel lengths, snubnose revolvers are perceived to have less accuracy than weapons with longer barrels. This is not entirely true, as they can be used pretty effectively to about 20 meters (22 yards) by most people and some people can even hit torso-sized targets up to 50 meters (55 yards) away.

These days, Colt no longer manufactures snubnose models (such as Detective, Cobra or Python), but Smith & Wesson still makes snubnose models (e.g. Bodyguard, Model 19 etc.), as does Ruger (SP101 and LCR).

Revolver: Modern Revolvers

When we last left off on revolver developments, we'd studied single and double action revolvers and the beginning of metallic cartridges replacing percussion caps.

Because of the rapid fire capability of the double-action mechanism, it became the mechanism of choice for new revolvers. Today, most modern revolvers are still double-action. Even Colt, the proponents of single-action pistols, switched to double-action models by the end of the 1800s with their Colt New Service Revolver. Models by Smith & Wesson, Remington, Webley etc. were very popular as well.

By the 1850s or so, metallic cartridges began to replace percussion cap technology. Some revolvers, such as the French-made Lefaucheux, were built to use pinfire cartridges. In 1857, Smith & Wesson introduced their first revolver which used a .22 short rimfire cartridge, also developed by Smith & Wesson. This model was a huge success in the market-place and was responsible for establishing the fame of Smith & Wesson. By the mid 1860s, centerfire cartridges became popular and revolvers began to use them as well (such as the Colt Peacemaker). Most of the early metallic cartridges still used black powder as their propellant, but more powerful smokeless powders started to become popular after 1886 or so and revolver manufacturers began to certify their weapons as safe to be used by smokeless powders as well. This meant using new metallurgical techniques of manufacturing weapons to withstand the higher pressures generated by smokeless powders.

As more powerful cartridges were developed, revolvers were built to fire them as well. In the 1950s, the .44 magnum cartridge, introduced by Elmer Keith and built by Remington, was used by the Sturm-Ruger Blackhawk and the Smith & Wesson Model 29 revolvers. Unusually, the Sturm-Ruger Blackhawk was a single-action revolver, rather than a double-action model. Ruger discovered that after Colt had pulled out its popular Colt Peacemaker (another single-action model) out of the market, there was still some demand for single-action weapons and went on to fill that demand. Company legend at Sturm-Ruger has it that Smith & Wesson were experimenting with the new .44 magnum cartridge in secret, but a Sturm-Ruger employee found the empty cartridge cases in a garbage pile and took one to Bill Ruger and the Blackhawk revolver beat Smith & Wesson's model 29 revolver to the market by several months. The S&W Model 29 didn't sell well initially, but in 1971, the movie "Dirty Harry" came out, with Clint Eastwood's character, "Dirty" Harry Callahan, describing the S&W Model 29 as the "most powerful handgun in the world". While this was not strictly true at this point (the .454 magnum was already developed), this line of movie dialog made the demand for the Model 29 to skyrocket, to the point that dealers were having trouble keeping the Model 29 in stock, even after selling them at triple-price! These days, there are revolvers built to fire even more powerful cartridges, such as the .454 and the .5oo magnum, but the Model 29 sales still remain high, 35 years after the movie came out.

Revolvers used to be the weapon of choice in military and police departments around the world, until modern semi-automatic pistols such as the Colt M1911 became more popular due to shorter reload time and higher capacity of cartridges. Police departments in the United States continued to use revolvers well into the early 1990s, when they began to be replaced by semi-automatic pistols. They are still popular in the civilian market as sporting or hunting weapons. In fact, many trainers recommend new shooters to start off with a revolver.

Revolvers: Colt Paterson

After our discussions about early proto-revolvers such as pepper-boxes, it is time to start talking about true revolvers. In fact, we will start off with a discussion on the weapon that was the first to be described with the term "revolver". This honor belongs to the Colt Paterson revolver invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. The name "Paterson" comes from the fact that the factory that produced this weapon was located in Paterson, New Jersey.

Company lore has it that Samuel Colt originally got the idea for its mechanism during a sailing trip between Boston and Calcutta aboard the brig Corvo in 1830. He observed the ratchet-and-pawl mechanism used by the ship's steering wheel and noted how each spoke in the steering wheel came in contact with a clutch that could hold it in place if needed. He was inspired enough to carve a wooden model of a revolver on this voyage. A few years later, he applied for patents in the US, England and France and received his patents in 1836. He then built the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company in Paterson, New Jersey, to manufacture this weapon.

The Paterson revolver was the first repeating firearm that consisted of a revolving cylinder with multiple chambers that aligned to a stationary barrel. Until then, repeating firearms had multiple barrels. This revolver was a 5-shot model with a single action mechanism using percussion cap technology. A single-action mechanism means the user has to manually pull back the hammer to cock it. The act of pulling the hammer back also rotates the cylinder to bring the next chamber in line with the barrel and also locks it in place. When the user pulls the trigger, the hammer is released and strikes the percussion cap of the chamber that happens to be on top of the weapon, thereby discharging it.

Public domain image from wikipedia.com (click to enlarge)

The above picture contains two models of Paterson Colts. The smaller model is an original model from 1836 and the two crossed revolvers are the 1839 models. The astute reader might note that the triggers appear to be missing on the two crossed revolvers and that none of the revolvers have a trigger guard. This is in fact a feature of the Paterson Colt models. The trigger is actually a folding one. When the user pulls the hammer back, not only does the cylinder rotate, but the trigger also drops out of the frame in firing position. This is why there is no trigger guard.

The astute reader may also have noted that the 1839 models have a lever under the barrel that the 1836 model doesn't have. We will study what that lever does in a little bit. First, let us understand how to reload the 1836 model revolver which will go into explaining the strange lever. The 1836 model revolver had a somewhat cumbersome reloading procedure that required the user to disassemble the gun. The procedure went as follows:

1. Put the hammer at half-cock. This frees up the cylinder and allows it to be removed.
2. Push the barrel wedge which is under the barrel and holding it in place.
3. Now pull the barrel and cylinder from the revolver's frame.
4. Load each of the chambers of the cylinder with enough gunpowder, leaving enough room to seat a lead ball into each chamber
5. Push a lead ball into each chamber with a special ramrod tool. This took a bit of effort in the early models.
6. Push the cylinder and barrel back into the revolver's frame and push the barrel wedge back into place.
7. Place percussion caps on each of the nipples around the cylinder using the special Colt capping tool that comes with the revolver.

Since Colt often supplied spare cylinders with the revolver, many people would walk around carrying loaded and capped spare cylinders in their pockets for faster reloading. That way they could quickly pull out the barrel and cylinder, pull a fully loaded new cylinder from their pocket and put the revolver back together and ready to go. This practice was not very safe in case the loaded cylinders were accidentally dropped.

With a view to improving the loading time, Colt improved the model and the 1839 models featured an integrated loading lever and capping window. As the reader may have noted in the picture above, the 1839 models have a feature that the 1836 model doesn't have. Under the barrel is a hinged ramrod lever that is missing in the 1836 model. This way, the user could not lose the ramrod and ramming the lead balls into the chamber also became easier. Therefore, the 1839 model did not require the user to disassemble the weapon for reloading. This hinged loading rod feature was an innovation that was widely copied in future revolvers as well.

The Paterson revolver was sold with different barrel lengths from 2.5 inches to 12 inches long, with 7.5 and 9 inch barrels being the most common. The barrels were all rifled, so as to improve accuracy. Calibers varied from the original .28 caliber to the .31, .34 and the very popular .36 caliber. The barrels have a small projecting blade sight in front and the rear sight is a notch cut into the hammer lever, which aligns with the front sight when the hammer is cocked.

Despite being an innovative weapon, the Paterson revolver was not a success. It was expensive for its time, costing around $40-50 per piece. Colt managed to sell a few to the United States Army and they saw limited use, but the US Army considered them too fragile and prone to malfunctioning. However, the Republic of Texas (which was still not a part of the United States then) bought a number of them for their army and navy. The Texas Rangers found these weapons especially useful against the Comanche tribes and some of their key commanders such as Colonel Jack Hayes and Captain Samuel Walker began to push for military contracts to acquire more of them, especially in .36 caliber. This associated the name "Texas Paterson" to the .36 caliber model of these revolvers.

Due to the commercial failure of the Paterson revolver, the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company was forced to stop manufacturing in 1842. A creditor named John Ehler then acquired the factory and continued manufacture until 1847, when he was forced to close it down as well. However, the design was influential and innovative enough that its ideas were used in future models as well. Captain Walker, in particular, thought that the Paterson could be improved and therefore submitted several design improvement ideas to Colt. Therefore, when Colt opened a new factory in 1846, the new model was called the Walker Colt revolver. We will study the Walker Colt in the next post.