POTD: Pre Jo Lo Ar or Post? – Experimental Colt M1903 Hammerless
Sam.S 09.20.23
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have a very cool experimental Colt M1903 Hammerless. This is particularly interesting to me as an older firearms lover since it resembles another gun. I unfortunately cannot decide if this came before or after. It probably came before but the other pistol, the Jo Lo Ar popped up in the 1930s and was a fairly successful pistol that used a side-mounted cocking lever. These levers, most likely including this one were implemented and intended for calvary units to be able to cock an auto-loading pistol one-handed.
“This is one of only two factory experimental Colt Model 1903 pistols featuring a cocking lever John Brunner identifies in the included book “The Colt Pocket Hammerless Automatic Pistols II” on pages 91-92. A Colt factory external experimental cocking lever, for one hand cocking, is mounted on the right side of the slide and frame. The design is very different than the device found on the second experimental one hand cocking Model 1903 identified by Brunner. The experimental cocking lever operates more smoothly when the hammer is cocked. The cocking lever spur is checkered. The original Colt serial number was largely removed at the Colt factory, replaced with a Colt’s engineering department’s experimental “GX” prefix number, but on close examination the original Colt number is still visible. It appears to be original number 40. Brunner described it as in the 4000s. Either way this is an extremely early Colt effort to see if the Colt Model 1903 could be offered in a one hand cocking model. Three drilled holes (two are tapped) appear on the right side of the frame, eight additional drilled holes (three are tapped) are found on left side of the slide and frame, and a screw on the right side of the frame replaces the standard pin, all remnants of the experimental testing as to where the cocking lever should best be located performed by Colt engineers. The pistol is fitted with a set of standard period production hard rubber grips. The slide and grip safety are also standard production features. The magazine is absent.”
Lot 3790: Experimental Colt M1903 Hammerless Pistol with Cocking Lever – Rare and Documented Experimental Colt Model 1903 Hammerless Semi-Automatic Pistol with Cocking Lever. (n.d.-v). Rock Island Auction Company. photograph. Retrieved September 19, 2023, from https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/77/3790/experimental-colt-m1903-hammerless-pistol-with-cocking-lever.
