Experimental Colt Revolver Automatically Ejects Empty Shells

Here we have an experiment doomed to failure from the get-go. It’s a double-action Colt revolver that can eject one empty case each time the gun is fired.

That’s not the “failure” part. It seems that it did indeed kick out an empty case as long as there was one present, but there was no way to eject the case of the last round fired. So the shooter would still have to open the cylinder and manually eject it, which requires no more effort than ejecting all 6 empties. Derp!

There’s also the fact that when you fully load and fire the gun, the gas from the fired round is going to “try” to eject the loaded round from the chamber opposite the gas port. So your six-shot wheel gun actually ain’t.

Colt engineer Robert Roy apparently built the thing, and I find myself more interested in the way it’s put together. A gas port is dovetailed to the barrel and a tube runs from there toward the cylinder. The tube appears to be silver-soldered into a steel bracket screwed to the right side of the frame, and a flanged hex nut on the end serves as a way to more-or-less seal off the face of the chamber from which the empty case is to be blown.

I enjoyed seeing that nut. Using random hardware is the way most of us mad scientists operate, and it’s cool to see others do it.

This revolver sold for $1,840 in September, 2018.

Enjoy the video.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.