Author Topic: Colt Woodsman (Read 2609 times)

Greasemonkey · « **on:** September 20, 2017, 11:49:24 PM »

I found one recently to go along with my Colt Targetsman, and it has the original issue wood grips.. The Targetsman is one of my favorite small caliber pistols..

In the world of semiauto rimfire pistols, this and the Reising .22 Semi-Auto Pistol are probably closely tied for being some of the earliest semiauto .22lr pistols. Some look at the grip, and say, Oh, they just copied Ruger...or Browning...

but, the Colt pre dates the Ruger design or Buckmark, or even Ruger as a company it's self by about 35 years.
These were designed by John Browning, he sold the design to Colt in 1911, Colt engineers then modified it and fluffed the design to suit, they also credited Browning for the design. Production started in 1915, smack in the throws of WWI.... spanned 4 variants and 3 series with slight design changes till Colt quit making them in 1977. The 4 variants are the Woodsman, Huntsman, Targetsman and the Colt Challanger. There were also a few variants made for the USMC, USAF, and the Coast Guard, the USMC and USCG ones were reportedly scrapped and destroyed after they were replaced, and some rare examples can be found stamped "Property US Government". And what fun would it be if super secret spy stuff wasn't involved, it's reported quite a few Woodsman pistols were bought up by the OSS, forerunner of the CIA, for experiments with sound suppressors.....so they say..

The serial dates this Woodsman to 1931...