Samuel Colt Samuel Colt Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, businessman, and hunter. He founded Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (today Colt's Manufacturing Company) and made the mass production of the revolver commercially viable. Colt's first two business ventures were producing firearms in Paterson, New Jersey and making underwater mines; both ended in disappointment. But his business expanded rapidly after 1847, when the Texas Rangers ordered 1,000 revolvers during the American war with Mexico. During the American Civil War, his factory in Hartford supplied firearms both to the North and the South. Later,
Tranter (revolver) Works was then sold to Schlund, who renamed the company Aston Arms Co. Ltd. and the brand name to the Schlund Revolver. The factory closed down in 1891. Only 600 Kynock revolvers of all versions and models were ever made. Famous users of Tranter revolvers included Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the Confederate General James Ewell Brown Stuart, and Ben Hall, the Australian bushranger, and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. It is also known that Dr Richard Jordan Gatling, inventor of the Gatling Gun owned an 80-bore (.38-calibre) First Model Tranter Pocket Revolver with a 4.29-inch [109mm]