Walker

[ffrooster]

Does the Walker/Colt Dragoons shoot 50 or 60 grains like the regular walker or does it drop back down to the 30 grain or so of powder?

[Hawg]

60 like the originals.

[ffrooster]

well I had heard that the dragoons(1848) would handle 50 grains since he barrel is 7-1/2 " and the cylinder is shorter...

[Hawg]

Yep, 60 for the Walker, 50 for the Dragoons. I guess I missed the Dragoon part.

[mykeal]

ffrooster - your initial post is a bit confusing. There is no such thing as a 'Walker/Dragoon'. They are two similar but distinctly different guns.

As Hawg said:

The 1847 Colt Walker revolver has a 9 inch barrel and can handle 60 gr (by volume) black powder under a round ball.

The 1848 Colt Dragoons (there are several minor variations) have a 7 1/2 in barrel and a smaller (shorter) cylinder than the Walker. The Dragoons can handle 50 gr (by volume) black powder under a round ball.

[ffrooster]

The origins of the Whitneyville Hartford Dragoon go back to1846, when gunmaker Samuel Colt received a letter from Captain Samuel Hamilton Walker of the Texas Rangers. Writing in praise of Colt's Paterson revolvers, Walker said, "the Texans...have learned their value by practical experience...their confidence in them is unbounded, so much so that they are willing to engage four times their number."

This letter of praise was good news to Samuel Colt. Now, with the promise of sales to defenders of the frontier, Colt joined with Walker to design a newer, larger pistol that they felt would become "the most perfect weapon in the world for light mounted troops."

Colt named the product of this collaboration the "Walker Model." It would be America's first "six-shooter," a terrifically powerful .44-caliber pistol ideally suited for frontier combat. Collectors and historians later termed it a "Dragoon," after the men who would carry them; "Dragoons" were mounted riflemen that today we would call Cavalry.

To produce the initial run of Walkers, Colt turned to Eli Whitney, Jr., son of the inventor of the cotton gin. Using Whitney's factory in Connecticut, Colt produced the Walker Model to widespread acclaim, selling the bulk of the run to the government and the remainder to civilian buyers. With this success under his belt, Colt was back in the gunmaking business for good, establishing a new factory of his own in Hartford, and beginning work on what would become known as the Whitneyville Hartford Dragoon.

This new Dragoon would feature design improvements over the Walker Model, which to this day remains the largest and heaviest handgun ever produced by Colt. The Whitneyville Hartford Dragoon included many parts identical to Walker parts, making it a unique hybrid of old and new. This led to its later designation as the "Transition Walker."

Only 240 were produced before Colt moved on to his next design, the First Model Dragoon. As an important link between the Colt Walker and later revolvers, and the first model to come from Colt’s own factory in Hartford, the Whitneyville Hartford Dragoon would go on to become one of the most revered and treasured firearms of all time, continuing to be a favorite of collectors to this day.

[Peter M. Eick]

The Walkers will do 60 grns as shown here but you need to remember to put up the mono-pod after each shot. It is a lot of fun to shoot though.

My understanding is the dragoons will only do 50 because the cylinder is shorter but I have never shot one so I don't know.

Keep in mind the Walkers are big, darn big.



Here is my Walker next to my 357 Maximum SBH. The SBH is already a huge one for the Rugers with the extra long cylinder. Compare that to the Walker.

[mykeal]