Category: Well I thought it was neat!
Eras Gone Dragoon bullet mold – currently available
Eras Gone Johnson & Dow mold – currently available
44 Walker Paper Cartridge Forming Kit – currently available at Star & Bullock Hardware
America has always had an affinity for big guns in large calibers, and biggest and most famous of the all is probably the Colt Walker. When horses were a thing, the Colt Walker was a “horse pistol.” Weighing in at about four and a half pounds, and fifteen and a half inches long, you will be hard pressed to find a larger pistol throughout the history of repeating firearms.
Designed in 1840s as a collaboration between Texas Ranger Captain Samuel Hamilton Walker and Sam Colt, the gun eventually hit the shelves in 1847, the same year that Colonel Walker actually died in the Mexican-American War. He was carrying two Colt Walkers at the time, in saddle holsters as they were designed to be carried. Movie characters such as Clint Eastwood in “The Outlaw Josey Wales” have carried the guns in belt holsters, but that was uncommon back in the day. Surprisingly, the Wikipedia is pretty sparse on the gun. I have said for many years that the Walker really was not a significant firearm in history. But in firearms development it was pivotal.
At that time, America was not obsessed with large calibers. A hundred years prior, American gunmakers had scaled down the Jeager rifle, which had come over with German and Dutch immigrants into what we now call the American Longrifle. The Jeagers had been as large as 75 caliber, and the Longrifles were more often in 40 or 45. And in pistols it was no different.
The Walker emerged as “too much gun” for most shooters. Horse soldiers didn’t take longer shots with a pistol than infantry did, so they didn’t need such a big heavy pistol. All the way up through the Civil War, 36 caliber revolver dominated sales of the Colts, both military and civilian. All of the Colt copies made in the south, as well as the Whitney were all in 36 caliber, which is really a .375.
The Walker is called a “44 caliber” like most big bore cap and ball pistols, but like the rest it actually takes a .454 ball. The bore diameter is more like .451 or so. I personally use .457 balls, because I feel like if you shave more lead from the ball it increases the bearing surface on the rifling.
My focus in this Black Powder Project has been to examine these guns in the light of a practical and useful firearm. A lot of people are stuck in cities where there is nary a gun dealer, and to get a handgun takes a crazy amount of paperwork. For some people, even owning a pistol is impossible, even though in a red state they would be able to legally walk into any gunshop and buy one. In most of those states you can still buy a black powder pistol and have it shipped to your door. In the others you may have to ship it to an FFL dealer, but from what I have seen, no permit or 4473 is every required. There are no federal laws governing these guns at all.
The Walker is a formidable handgun. You will see in the video that it fired a standard 141 grain lead roundball at over 1,200 feet per second. That is 500 or so foot pounds of muzzle energy. Compare that to a heavy 9mm round the 147 grain, that even in a 12″ barrel, does not reach 1,100 fps. Even a 44 Magnum fires a 240 grain bullet at only about 1,300 fps. in a 6″ “Dirty Harry” sized barrel, so we are approaching magnum velocities, even without loading the gun up to snot.
I don’t load the Walker as heavy as it will go, because I know that with pure lead, once you get supersonic, over about 1,100 fps, you start to really get barrel leading. If we were making bullets for a cartridge gun we could just add some antimony and the bullet will get harder and more resistant to leading, but in a cap & ball revolver you can’t do that. Ideally the ball or bullet will “shave” as you compress it into the cylinder with the loading lever, so you are left with a lead ring. This insures a consistent jump to the forcing cone, and usually prevents the bullets in subsequent cylinders from moving forward with recoil from that which is currently being fired.
I also tried the Eras Gone Dragoon bullet. Some molds are currently available as I write this, but they are more often than not sold out. That page at Eras Gone says that they do not fit the Walker without modification, but the bullets scoot past the loading cutout on all three of my guns just fine. I don’t think the information on that website has been updated in some time. He is still linking to a really bad paper cartridge making system that most people have moved on from as well.
Paper cartridges are great for the Walker. I use the system that everyone uses now, from Star & Bullock Hardware at cartridgekits.com. The powder dipper that comes with the kit, with the dipper edges showing, loads to about where you see here with the conicals, and loaded to overflowing, where you see with the balls. More powder than this will most likely lead your bore, but if you want more, all you have to do is cut the paper longer. i will include a video on how to make paper cartridges here as well.
For a 260 grain bullet, the Walker screamed that sucker at over 1,000 fps. And again, not loaded all the way up. Consider what I said before that the 6″ 44 Mag is clocking only about 1,300 fps on a 240 grainer, this is a not a gun and a load to be trifled with, or that you need to increase at all. Lesser loads have killed many a buffalo and grizzly.
I use Hodgdon Triple Se7en in the FFFG granulation for all of my black powder handguns now. It isn’t that I don’t have or can’t readily get FFFG black powder. I have a ton of it. It’s that I don’t necessarily get to cleaning my guns the same day, and it is safe to leave them for a few days because it is a modern powder that does not contain sulfur, and does not not readily rust your guns. It also increases performance quite a bit, and does not crap up your cylinder gap. With real black powder you have to clean your cylinder face regularly with a wet cloth or it will begin to bind. And if you force it, you can bend your internal parts.
In the video you will see that I also tried the roughly 220 grain Johnson & Dow bullet from the same Civil War ordnance era, and I also saw in excess of 1,000 fps. That mold has not been available for a while, but it just so happened when I went to collect up links for this article that it is. They also do sell the finished bullets, however, at cartridgekits.com.
The Walker is a fairly accurate pistol, even with these fairly heavy loads. A roundball will generally be the most accurate bullet for cap & ball guns. I have 1911s that don’t shoot as well as the Walker with .457 roundballs. The conicals hit harder, but they would take some tuning to see where they like to be loaded, and the most accurate loads are never going to be full power, with any gun really. At normal gunfight distances the Walker is plenty accurate, and it’s long sight radius lends itself to taking longer shots. Just remember that when you rest a revolver, and especially a BP revolver, on a bag or something, it will burn it if too close. A lot of heat and pressure escape that cylinder gap.
When I was shooting the Walker, I did not intend to fire my at that time unfired Colt 3rd Generation. But it is identical to the current Uberti Walker, and I picked it up by mistake, loaded it and shot it. So my groups went from roughly point of aim on the Uberti to about 8″ high on the Colt. Until about five years ago, the Italian gunmakers couldn’t have cared less if your guns shot to point of aim or a foot high, so most of them shot a foot high, and that was the case on my real Colt. This also confirms my suspicion that the 3rd Gen guns were all made completely in Italy and perhaps screwed together in New York. Don’t waste your money on a “real” Colt. The modern Uberti is better for actual shooting.
I should mention that a standard cap & ball holster will not fit the 9″ barreled Walker. i do have a holster from a seller on Ebay that is nice, and reasonably priced. If you are one of those Americans who just want the biggest, the Walker is probably for you. RINO and perennial POS career politician Texas Governor Greg Abbot (who you jackasses in Texas just blew your chance to get rid of) named the historically irrelevant Colt Walker the official handgun of Texas last year. It was designed by a Texas Ranger, but the Colt Paterson was also made famous by Texas Ranger Jack Hayes, so BFD.
As a self defense gun, the Walker is probably overpowered and cumbersome to be practical. There are better choices for sure in a cap & ball pistol. But if you have tiny feet, and you just want the biggest, it might just be the gun for you.
Some folks are simply charmed. Their trajectory through life just flies a bit higher than that of the rest of us. Winston Churchill was just such a man. An accomplished writer, painter, soldier, and politician, Old Winston was the archetypal Renaissance Man. Over on our side of the pond, “Wild Bill” Donovan was a similar archetype.
Joseph Donovan was born in 1883, the son of Irish-American immigrants. The family name was originally O’Donovan but got anglicized when Joe’s dad settled in Buffalo, New York. Early on Donovan aspired to the Catholic priesthood before deciding “he wasn’t good enough to be a priest.” Instead, he attended Columbia University where he was voted both “Most Modest” and “Handsomest” out of his graduating class of 1905.
Donovan later attended Columbia Law School. He was a classmate of a young Franklin D. Roosevelt. His friendship with FDR would shape the rest of his professional career.
Joseph Donovan joined a respected Buffalo law firm and was commissioned into the New York National Guard as a Cavalry officer. In 1914 he married a New York heiress whose family connections immediately transformed him into American aristocracy. Donovan took acting classes under the esteemed stage star Eleanor Robson and went to war against Pancho Villa in 1916. Upon his return from the Punitive Expedition, Donovan was posted to the 42d Rainbow Division alongside Douglas MacArthur.
While fighting the Germans in France during World War 1, Joseph Donovan caught a load of shrapnel in one leg and was nearly blinded by mustard gas. He subsequently led an assault during the Aisne-Marne Campaign that ultimately cost hundreds of his comrades. Among the fallen was his acting adjutant, the esteemed poet Joyce Kilmer.
In combat, Donovan developed a reputation for being unstoppable, a man of limitless endurance. This led the troops under his command to refer to him as “Wild Bill.” While he publicly professed annoyance at the nickname, his wife later said that she “knew deep down that he loved it.”
As commander of the 165th Infantry Regiment Joseph Donovan led from the front, his rank insignia and medals plainly displayed. In encouraging his troops prior to a critical assault he said, “They can’t hit me and they won’t hit you.” He was nonetheless subsequently shot through the knee yet refused evacuation until all American forces including friendly tanks had been forced back by concentrated German fire.
For his remarkable combat performance, Donovan ultimately earned the Medal of Honor. He initially refused the award, stating that it belonged “to the boys who are not here, the boys who are resting under the white crosses in France or in the cemeteries of New York, also to the boys who were lucky enough to come through.” Before his military service was complete Donovan also took home the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, the Purple Heart with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the National Security Medal, and some two dozen other combat awards.
Donovan spent the interwar years in private law practice as well as working for the US Justice Department. Along the way, he traveled the world gathering critical intelligence on world powers in Europe and Asia. He met Mussolini, Winston Churchill, and King George VI. Hitler despised him. During the speech in which Hitler declared war on the United States the German dictator castigated Donovan by name, declaring him “utterly unworthy.” That was high praise considering the source.
With the outbreak of WW2 President Roosevelt appointed “Wild Bill” Donovan the Coordinator of Information. While the United States had no formal spy agency back then, Donovan began laying the groundwork for a centralized intelligence apparatus based upon the British MI6. In 1942 Donovan’s organization was rechristened the Office of Strategic Services. The United States was in the spy business.
Nowadays intelligence officers and special operators are the product of an extensive selection process and grueling training program. Back then unconventional thinkers just came together and got the job done. Over in the UK the future James Bond novelist Ian Fleming was a good example of a neophyte who took to the world of espionage as a natural outlet of his peculiar personal proclivities.
Donovan sought out unconventional warriors for his burgeoning team of misfits. He recruited the film director John Ford and the Hollywood actor Sterling Hayden. The poet Archibald MacLeish, the influential banker Paul Mellon, and the author Stephen Vincent Benet joined the team. The famed psychologist Carl Jung, the chef Julia Child, the industrialist Alfred DuPont, and the author Walter Lord as well as several influential members of the Vanderbilt family hung their hats at OSS headquarters. The extensive density of upper-crust aristocrats drove many in government to claim that OSS actually stood for “Oh So Social.”
Building an intelligence and covert action organization from scratch is an overwhelming task. Donovan had access to money and resources, but this was uncharted territory. There were no manuals he could read or deep well of institutional insight he could mine. Wild Bill Donovan just figured it out as he went along. Among myriad other things, that meant brand new specialized covert guns and gear. Principle among them was the High Standard sound-suppressed H-DM/S pistol.
Raw lead bullets were prohibited by the Hague Convention, so Donovan had to contract for special lots of jacketed .22 rimfire rounds. Once the gun was perfected Donovan wanted to show it off. He once slipped into the Oval Office while his friend FDR was dictating a note to his secretary. Dropping a sandbag onto the floor he proceeded to fire ten rounds as fast as he could squeeze the trigger. Donovan then dropped the smoking pistol onto the desk before President Roosevelt. FDR was so smitten with the quiet little gun that he refused to give it back.
The Weapon
The H-DM/S was an integrally-suppressed version of the High Standard H-DM target pistol. H-DM/S stood for H-D Military/Silenced. As the program was classified the original examples were spuriously described as “Impact Testing Machines.”
Chambered for .22LR, the H-DM/S was a straight blowback design that fed on a ten-round single-stack box magazine. The gun sported fixed iron sights, a five-inch ported barrel, and a heel-mounted magazine release. The H-DM/S came equipped with a slide lock that prevented the action from cycling. In this configuration, the weapon was indeed exceptionally quiet. Development began in 1942 with the first operational fielding in 1944.
The first variants featured a blued finish on the pistol and a Parkerized suppressor. Later versions were completely Parkerized. The H-DM/S saw a fairly widespread issue among early special operations forces. Gary Powers had a suppressed H-DM/S on his person when his U2 was shot down in Soviet airspace in 1960.
The H-D/MS suppressor was developed during the war by Bell Labs and featured an initial chamber filled with a cylinder of zinc-plated bronze mesh that acted as a heat sink. The barrel was ported with four rows of eight holes that dropped standard velocity rounds into the subsonic range. Later guns featured four rows of eleven holes. A second distal chamber was filled with bronze mesh screens. This repackable design was typically good for 200 to 250 rounds.
For applications requiring extreme stealth the distal chamber could be charged with water, oil, or shaving cream. The muzzle was then sealed with a piece of tape. Thusly configured with the action locked the gun made no more noise than a human whisper.
The Rest of the Story
Much to Donovan’s consternation, FDR displayed his top-secret pistol at his home in Hyde Park, occasionally showing it to visiting guests during the war. Donovan also gave a copy to Admiral Chester Nimitz. He was known to shoot the classified weapon with neighborhood children. A photograph of such an outing actually made it into a local newspaper in 1944.
Wild Bill Donovan was, by all accounts, a genuinely good guy in possession of some remarkable insights. He opposed the internment of Japanese Americans during the war, rightfully predicting that this was an unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem. In his roles as America’s espionage chief, he also took part in many of the major combat actions of the war.
Donovan and his commander for covert ops in Europe, Colonel David Bruce, went ashore early during the Normandy invasion. Pinned down by German machinegun fire, Donovan said, “David, we mustn’t be captured. We know too much…I must shoot first,” Donovan said.
Bruce replied, “Yes, sir, but can we do much against machine guns with our pistols?” Donovan explained: “Oh, you don’t understand. I mean, if we are about to be captured, I’ll shoot you first. After all, I am your commanding officer.”
Donovan ended WW2 as a Major General but fell afoul of post-war politics. President Truman sidelined him with a task to produce a study of the nation’s fire departments. Under Eisenhower, he was made ambassador to Thailand. Throughout the early bits of the Cold War, Donovan helped influence the formation of the CIA from the shadows.
Wild Bill Donovan died in 1959 from complications arising from vascular dementia. His statue graces the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, today. In 2011 Vanity Fair writer Evan Douglas described Donovan’s exploits as “a brave, noble, headlong, gleeful, sometimes outrageous pursuit of action and skullduggery.” Wild Bill Donovan was the real freaking deal.
