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Colt Woodsman
An early first series Colt Woodsman pistol.
An early first series Colt Woodsman pistol.
Type Semi-automatic pistol
Place of origin United States
Production history
Designer John Browning
Manufacturer Colt's Manufacturing Company
Produced 1915–1977
Specifications
Mass Approx: 1⅞ Lbs
Barrel length 4½, 6, or 6⅝ inches.

Cartridge .22 Long Rifle
Action Semi-automatic

The Colt Woodsman is a semi-automatic sporting pistol manufactured by the American Colt's Manufacturing Company from 1915 to 1977. It was designed by John Moses Browning. The frame design changed over time, in three distinct series: series one being 1915–1947, series two 1947–1955, and series three being 1955–1977.

Novelist Ernest Hemingway on the Colt Woodsman:

The rifle and the pistol are still the equalizer when one man is more of a man than another, and if…he is really smart…he will get a permit to carry one and then drop around to Abercrombie and Fitch and buy himself a .22 caliber Colt automatic pistol, Woodsman model, with a five-inch barrel and a box of shells. I advise him to get lubricated hollow points to avoid jams and to ensure a nice expansion on the bullet. He might even get several boxes and practice a little… (emphasis added)

Now standing in one corner of a boxing ring with a .22 caliber Colt automatic pistol, shooting a bullet weighing only 40 grains and with a striking energy of 51 foot pounds at 25 feet from the muzzle, I will guarantee to kill either [boxer] Gene [Tunney] or Joe Louis before they get to me from the opposite corner. This is the smallest caliber pistol cartridge made; but it is also one of the most accurate and easy to hit with, since the pistol has no recoil. I have killed many horses with it, cripples and bear baits, with a single shot, and what will kill a horse will kill a man. I have hit six dueling silhouettes in the head with it at regulation distance in five seconds. It was this type of pistol that Millen boys’ colleague, Abe Faber, did all his killings with. Yet this same pistol bullet fired at point blank range will not dent a grizzly’s skull, and to shoot a grizzly with a .22 caliber pistol would simply be one way of committing suicide.[1]

Notes[]

  1. Hemingway, 1938, p. 189

References[]

Cited in footnotes[]

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