Yes they did. I saw it at the last gunshow. The only one ever made.

A fellow came by our table, he and I engaged in friendly conversation. He was nicely dressed and appeared "normal".

Then he told me how Colt had made a stainless gun well before anybody knew stainless guns were actually made.

Then he pulled out the gun only and showed it to me.

It looked just like this one.



Then he told me it was made as an experimental in 1898 by Colt to test the ability to make a gun in stainless.

I asked him if it was a Colt 2nd Generation. He said no. Unfortunately for me he was not wanting to sell it, he was only showing it off. I'm sure his "1898 Colt stainless 1860".................IS WORTH A LOT!!

He WAS serious.

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Have guns...will shoot'em.

Well, did you buy it?

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James L. "Jim" Rhiner

Sometime a guy showed me his Centaure. This is a Belgian made copy of the Colt 1860. He asked me if I did know how old it was.
I told him that it was from about 1960. He said that I was completly wrong about that. According to him it was made in 1907. And he says. Do you see some thing different on the revolver. I examend the replica and told him that the barrel was a bit off line with the frame.
No he said. This is a real left handed revolver.

I could hold no longer my laughter. I don't know if he like's me anymore.

Also awfully thoughtful to stamp "Black Powder Only" on the barrel.... would hate to think of it being charged up with Bullseye or the like back in the day.

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A closed mouth gathers no foot

As a matter of fact Bullseye powder was introduced in 1898, the same year he claims his gun was made.

You've gotta wounder where these folks get their information, and do they really believe the stories they are telling?

If I remember my history, stainless steel was not invented or used untill the WW I era.

Now from memory of 50 some years:

A metalurgist in Europe was fired for alloying a large quantity of steel without a test batch & tensil strength test first. His batch failed to meet the required spec.s by a few % so they fired him.

Some years later during the push for war time production, the company (I don't remember who) was redoing some of their scrap pile. On the bottom they found a lot of pigs that were as shiny new as the day they were dumped there. The lot # was checked & the person who wrote the formula for that alloy was (you guessed it) fired some time ago.

The company tried to re-hire the man & during the re-negotiations he found out the secret for his new found popularity. He pattened his formula & went with it to work for Sheffield.

Jim