BTT.

Now there's a revolver that's seen the elephant. The shortened barrel and frame- most likely to address a split forcing cone- is not going to be an arsenal repair. As with the dovetail for the (missing) rear sight, this will be a repair made after the pistol was "lost" in military service and fell into civilian hands.

More intriguing to me, though, is that this revolver, D Company 190, wears a backstrap marked 191. It's possible that a swap occurred when the revolver was in the field, though I find this unlikely. Unlike barrels and cylinders, which had the unfortunate propensity for bursting, the backstrap- though a part which might get bent and need replacement, is unlikey to be replaced in the field with the backstrap from the adjacent serialized pistol, number 191. It might have happened, but the odds are that it would be from a random pistol in the D Company series. Of course this would also mean that any revolver which surrenders its backstrap was in a non-repairable condition, at least for the field, and many a Walker did suffer catastrophic failure in the field (see my original post) and the backstrap is a part which would likely survive a Walker blowing up, and be available for use as a replacement part.

All that being said, it's much more likely, I think, that this mismatch occurred at the time of manufacture, in the Whitneyville factory in Connecticut, and D Company 191 left the factory with the backstrap serialized '190' and vice-versa; just a parts swap on the assembly line- a minor mistake that might even get noticed by the inspectors but deemed so insignificant as to not warrant rejection.

Details and photos here: D Company No. 190 U.S. Colt Model 1847 Walker Percussion Revolver

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