Competition with an SAA: The Colt Bisley and Bisley Target
Forgotten Weapons
•
11m
Named for the famous British shooting competition range, the Colt Bisley was the target version of the 1873 Single Action Army revolver. Colt first offered a flat-top model of the SAA from 1890 until 1895, and dropped it to introduce a specialized Bisley model in 1894. The Bisley had a redesigned trigger, hammer, and grip frame. The regular SAA grip was designed to let the gun roll in the hand under recoil, to bring the hammer under the thumb for recocking. This was not ideal for target shooting, where one would prefer to maintain the exact same grip throughout a course of fire. The Bisley grip design eliminated the rolling of the gun, and the hammer was widened and lowered to allow easy recocking from that firing grip.
In addition to the basic Bisley model, a Bisley Target model was also offered, with a windage adjustable rear sight and an elevation adjustable front blade (the regular Bisley had the same fixed sights as the standard SAA). In total, 44,350 Bisley were sold, and 976 Bisley Targets. They could be ordered in any barrel length, but mostly were made with 7.5 inch barrels to get the longest sight radius for competition shooting. Almost any caliber could be ordered, and the Bisleys tended to skew more toward light cartridges than the standard SAA, with the most common being .32-20, aka .32 WCF. Production ended in 1912, and the last Bisley was shipped from Colt’s inventory in 1919.
Up Next in Forgotten Weapons
-
The Original CETME Mars Importation
The CETME Model C would be the basis for the wildly successful H&K 91 / G3 rifle, and a small batch of CETME rifles was brought into the United States as early as 1966. They were imported by the Mars Equipment Corporation of Chicago, and are completely Spanish-made examples of the original CETME....
-
The Original Pasadena Auto Mag 180
The Auto Mag 180 was basically the result of two guys noticing that nobody made a semiauto .44 Magnum pistol…and that they could probably do it. The men were Max Gera, a young Italian immigrant gunsmith, and his employer, gun shop owner Harry Sanford. Gera put together the core of the gun’s desig...
-
Alsop Navy Revolver, Compared to its ...
Joseph Alsop and his sons Charles R and Charles H were investors in the Savage Revolving Firearms Company, but also made an attempt to produce revolvers of their own (similar) design. In 1862 and 1863 they made a total of 800, the first 500 being .36 caliber Navy pattern guns, and the final 300 b...
