Presentation Colt 1851 w/ Canteen Stock

hi guys thanks for tuning in to another video on Forgotten weapons comm I'm Ian I'm here today at the James Giulia auction house up in Maine and I'm taking a look at some of the guns that they're going to be selling in their March of 2016 auction there's one up there that isn't really technologically different it's a actually a fairly common model of gun this isn't a Colt 1851 Navy percussion revolver often considered to be one of the most elegant handguns ever made there are an awful lot of them made very much copied there are a couple interesting things about this one most notably first off as you can obviously see it has a shoulder stock on it original stocked Colt percussion revolvers are not particularly common they're the stocks are quite valuable it's kind of cool you can actually get reproductions of them today and you know it's it's worth taking a minute to mention to talk about the fact that with a stock like this a pistol actually becomes a significantly improved firearm with a revolver of course you have to keep both hands back behind the cylinder but you can actually get a substantial improvement in accuracy by adding a shoulder stock like this even if you still have a short pistol barrel what's happening specifically is you're getting a third point of contact in your shoulder in addition to the two hands or sometimes one hand on the gun and that that really does help having shot some guns like this it's pretty cool now it wasn't a hugely popular idea it's a little bit awkward you have to if you're going to use it like this you have to carry around the stock with you a lot of more modern pistols what they did is they actually turned the stock into a holster so it could strap the stock on your belt and actually carry the gun in the stock that makes things a lot more convenient to tote around Colt didn't do that it bolts on so the stocks themselves aren't that common well this particular stock is even less common because it's this goofy colt idea you know you can't fault the guy for having creative ideas but this one certainly didn't become commercially viable and that is the stock is also a canteen it's made from two pieces of wood split lengthwise and there is a pewter canteen inside with a little cap right here on the comb of the stock so you could fill that with water perhaps whiskey or some other adult beverage and have that with you like I said this obviously this didn't take off commercially or you see a lot more of them around today but they did sell some there's in fact there's one record of an order going out to a whole batch of pistols that were being taken out to the Arizona Territory at the time and hey you know having a little extra water with you when you're out in Arizona I live there I know that's not a bad idea at any rate that's not where the interesting element to this particular pistol ends because right here on the top of the stock is an inscription fwh Sheffield with compliments of Colonel Colt so it's not every day that you get a personally presented gun from Colonel Sam Colt himself to somebody this pistol was made based on the serial number in 1857 and if you do a little bit of looking on the name fwh Sheffield you'll find that he was a banker in Dubuque Iowa which okay not a particularly notable name doesn't have any obvious connection however it appears that he actually was originally native of Connecticut and moved out of Connecticut in approximately 1857 so the suspicion and there isn't any documentation of this although someone might be able to find some but the suspicion is that he probably knew Colt through some financial connection or arrangement and had some interaction with Colts company and was given this presentation revolver when he set out from Connecticut for the Midwest so a cool piece of history in addition to the inscription on the stock if you take the stock off which we'll do in just a moment there's a matching not a full inscription but the the man's initials are on the back strap of the revolver so let's take a closer look at this you know canteen stock and a presentation pistol art things that you see every day so let's get a closer look so you know some modern or well more modern than this holster stocks on pistols can be kind of uncomfortable to use they often have a length of pole that's a little bit too short but in this case because they weren't trying to do anything extra with the stock will except for the canteen we'll get to they were able to design this with a proper full-length of Poland this is actually a fairly comfortable pistol to shoulder and I suspect would be quite pleasant to shoot now you'll notice there are a couple of sling swivels here and there has been one actually also added to the pistol itself so clearly this was intended to be carried as a stocked item so the attachment mechanism is such that there are a couple of cutouts on the recoil shields of the pistol right here and then there's a bolt that hooks into a lug on the bottom of the grip and has this tensioning screw on top so to take the stock off we unscrew this you can see that the bolt down here is opening up take it to about there and then that slides right off the pistol so here's our inscription on the back a little bit hard to read it's kind of small engraving but fwh Sheffield with compliments of Colonel colt pretty slick and then this of course is our tensioning screw and then up here we have the cap for the canteen see that's hollow inside this would have been there's a pewter canteen shell inside there if you look very closely you can see it's right there you can see the seam in the wood and it's a little more evident on the bottom because the wood is shrunk a little bit and opened up behind the sling swivel but in front you can just make out the seam there as well so so this originally was two pieces of wood split down here that they would clamp together over the canteen body and then stick on a butt plate and some hardware up here now the revolver itself is really an extremely nice condition for its age it's got these two little cutouts under the recoil shield so that it will fit the stock and then extend it bolts here to provide some contact points for the stock and if we look up close at the back strap you can see Sheffield's initials right there engraved in quite nice and here's a closer view of that sling swivel added just in front of the trigger guard of the revolver so handy thing to add makes the gun easier to carry you wouldn't want a sling swivel up here because of course the loading lever gets in the way and you do also have powder blasts coming out the cylinder gap which could damage a sling so better to have it mounted just behind thank you for watching guys I hope you enjoyed the video I certainly find this a really cool combination of a bunch of interesting factors it's a a rare style of pistol with a shoulder stock on it as well as being a presentation gun and hey you know it's an 1851 Navy those are gorgeous guns to begin with so it is of course coming up for sale so if you're interested in owning it yourself take a look at the description text below you'll find a link to the Julia catalog page on this piece can read their description there see their high-res pictures and if you're interested place a bit online right through the website thanks for watching you

Channel: Forgotten Weapons

Views: 188,329

Keywords: canteen, stock, colt, sam colt, sheffield, inscribed, presented, presentation, factory, original, history, development, navy, 1851, percussion, revolver, shoulder stock, handgun, water, fancy, crazy, unique, interesting

Id: RZzIgy4DsKQ

Length: 8min 8sec (488 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2016