Colt Wells Fargo Model

About the Colt Wells Fargo Model

The Colt Wells Fargo Model is a compact .31-caliber single-action percussion revolver, a lightweight variant of the Colt Model 1849 Pocket built without the hinged loading lever to reduce weight and bulk for discreet carry. The five-shot revolver typically wore a short octagonal barrel of 3 or 4 inches, and because it lacked a rammer the cylinder had to be removed for loading using the arbor pin. Its diminutive open-top frame, brass grip strap, and one-piece walnut grip made it an easily concealed personal-defense arm of the mid-19th-century American frontier.

The 'Wells Fargo' moniker evokes the stagecoach express era of the Old West, reinforced by the stagecoach-holdup scene roll-engraved on the cylinder, yet the express company itself never bought these little .31s. The name stuck anyway, romanticizing the smallest and handiest of Colt's cap-and-ball pocket pistols.

Colt Wells Fargo Model specifications

Despite the popular 'Wells Fargo' name, company records show Wells Fargo & Co. never purchased .31-caliber Colts; the nickname was applied by later collectors and reproduction makers to the lever-less 1849 Pocket variant. Modern black-powder reproductions are widely produced by Uberti and imported by Cimarron and Taylor's & Co.