Colt M1878 Colt M1878 The Colt M1878 is a double-action revolver that was manufactured by Colt's Manufacturing Company from 1878 to 1907. It is often referred to as the "Frontier" or the "Double Action Army" revolver. A total of 51,210 Model 1878 revolvers were manufactured from 1878 to 1907, including 4,600 for the US Ordnance Department. These are known as the "Philippine" or "Alaskan" models. Samuel Colt experimented with double-action revolver systems, but he considered them to be unreliable. After Colt's patent expired in 1857, other manufacturers began producing double-action revolvers, but Colt's Manufacturing did not manufacture its own double-action revolver until
Colt Dragoon Revolver California teamster, James Douglas Byrd, Town Marshal, Watsonville, California, 1868, Tiburcio Vasquez, Union general George B McClellan, and fictional Augustus McCrae, in the novel "Lonesome Dove", Mattie Ross in the novel "True Grit" and in the 2010 film version (the 1969 film of that name had Mattie Ross using a Colt Walker revolver, though John Wayne's character Rooster referred to it as a Colt's Dragoon). Charley Parkhurst, while driving freight, was confronted by two bandits whom he dispatched with the Colt Holster Pistol. According to "Harper's Weekly", James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickok arrived in Springfield, Missouri carrying a Dragoon though