Colt Paterson Colt Paterson The Colt Paterson is a revolver. It was the first commercial repeating firearm employing a revolving cylinder with multiple chambers aligned with a single, stationary barrel. Its design was patented by Samuel Colt on February 25, 1836, in the United States, France, and England, and it derived its name from being produced in Paterson, New Jersey. Initially this 5-shot revolver was produced in .28 caliber, with a .36 caliber model following a year later. As originally designed and produced, no loading lever was included with the revolver; a user had to disassemble the revolver partially to re-load it.
William Mason (Colt) known as the .45 Colt. The revolver was chosen by the Army in 1872, with the first order shipping in the summer of 1873 for 8000 revolvers. After the success of the Colt Single Action Army and Colt's conversion of existing percussion revolvers to Richards-Mason conversions, Mason went on to design Colt's smallest revolver, "The New Line" in 1874. There were 5 variants, each differing in size and caliber, but all using a breechblock designed by Mason. While Colt had first developed the concept of a "double-action" revolver as early as 1857 and a patent was filed, it was never