The text engraved on the barrel is minimal and traditional, without the convoluted “essays” about safety etc. Not only that but with the advent of Cowboy Action shooting it has become a “must have” item for most people involved in that sport. Times have changed, and the Colt Single Action Army revolver of 1873 was officially retired from US Army service between 1892-1902 but has remained in production since then for the civilian market, and it has proved to be a revolver that has etched itself into American culture and has become a sought after collector’s item. Colt’s emphasis was thus on providing guns that were excellent value for money, and that were revolvers you could trust your life to. So it would be reasonable to say that when Colt made Single Action Army revolvers they needed to strike a balance between the manufacturing quality invested into each gun, and the price that they could reasonably expect to charge for each gun. (Picture courtesy ).īack in that period the Colt Single Action Army revolver faced significant competition from revolvers made by other manufacturers such as Smith & Wesson in the United States, and the likes of Webley & Scott and Tranter of Britain, and from various other makers especially those of the gun making centers of Belgium. Thus the revolver was known as the Colt Single Action Army Model 1873 and it earned for itself a reputation for reliability and dependability: not only among the soldiers of the US Army who carried them and used them in active service, but also among British Army officers who chose to purchase a Colt Single Action Army revolver as their personal side-arm, and of course with the often larger than life people of the American “Wild West” where the Single Action Army earned itself the name “Peacemaker” – a reference to its ability to ensure that a “difficult” person was made to “Rest in peace”.īritish officer armed with Colt Single Action Army revolver during the Zulu Wars of 1879-1896. The Single Action thus became known as the “Single Action Army” (SAA) revolver and was manufactured by Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company for whom Mason and Richards both worked at that time.

Standard Manufacturing make an ambitious claim for their Single Action Revolver: they state “Never before in history has an effort been put forth to produce the finest single action revolver.” The original Single Action Army revolver of 1873 was designed by William Mason and Charles Brinckerhoff Richards for the United States government service revolver trials of 1872, a decade after the death of Samuel Colt, and it was successful in being the revolver chosen as the standard US Army revolver. To Produce the Finest Single Action Revolver

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