Colt’s new technology helped win the West

As the pioneering settlers of the early 1800s began pushing farther and farther west, they took along firearms as protection against one another as well as to fend off the crude weapons of indigenous residents who were less than happy about these incursions onto their land.

The firearms weren’t much -- single-shot pistols and rifles that had to be reloaded while the indigenous folks were getting off up to 10 arrows per minute. But that began to change in 1836, when Samuel Colt, building from an idea that came to him while watching a ship’s captain steer the vessel by using a wheel that could be locked into various positions, devised a pistol with a rotating multi-shot cylinder.

This was the killer app. of its day, one of several chronicled tonight at 9 in the first of the History Channel’s fine two-part documentary “Wild West Tech: Gunslingers,” hosted by Keith Carradine.

Once the settlers got hold of Colt’s revolver, the Native Americans quickly discovered that their strategy of waiting for a settler’s shot to ring out and then rushing him was badly in need of revision. Period photographs and filmed re-creations bring such key transitions to life, and interviews with historians help flesh out the back stories.

From 1847 to 1869, about two dozen firearm manufacturers jumped on Colt’s breakthrough, taking the multi-shot concept from pistols to rifles. And although the pace of such innovations in weaponry may seem positively glacial to us now, the sea changes they brought about make for a fascinating chapter of American history.

Carradine, sporting a broad, bushy mustache that’s in the spirit of the era, helps dispel some of the myths of the period as well, such as the idea that everyone walked around town wearing guns on their hips, ready for action. In reality, says Carradine, pistols, if carried at all, were usually hidden from view, and high-noon showdowns weren’t nearly as popular a way to settle a dispute as a surreptitious bullet in the back.

Part 2 of this colorful series, a look at the storied gunfighters of the Old West, will be shown Monday at 9.