The Colt 1873 Single Action Army (SAA) revolver is one of the most iconic firearms in American history, first introduced in 1873 by the Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company, and adopted by the US Army in 1873 as a standard sidearm for mounted troops, that since 1872 had already started receiving Smith & Wesson Model 3 cartridge revolvers, to replace the many existing Colt 1851 and 1860 conversion models still in service.

While arriving on the metallic cartridge revolver market late in 1873, due to Smith & Wesson ownership of the Rollin White patent for a bored-through cylinder, the Colt 1873 Single Action Army revolver (also known as “Peacemaker”) quickly became one of the most appreciated and popular firearms in the world, taking the revolver market by storm along with Smith & Wesson.

Since the year of its issue the 1873 SAA has been produced by Colt up to current day, with runs in 1873-1941 (First generation), 1956-1974 (Second generation), 1976-1982 (Third generation), 1994-Present (Fourth generation). And still today, many other manufacturers have clones or SAA derived revolvers in their lineup.

There are many reasons why the SAA has been such a successful firearm, even if its fixed cylinder inside the frame, loading gate and ejection rod reloading system and the single action only trigger would make one think of it as a hopelessly obsolete gun. Actually, the reasons of its longevity were and are exactly the simplicity of these characteristics.

The Colt 1873 SAA closed frame of the cylinder and single action only trigger make it an extremely sturdy and strong gun for its size and weight, so much that it was used by renowned gun writer, hunter, shooter, and ballistics genius Elmer Keith to develop the .44 magnum.

The Colt 1873 Single Action Army was and still is a very accurate firearm, thanks also to its single action trigger system, very simple, reliable and easy to turn into a crisp and light target trigger.

The Colt 1873 SAA was also the gun of choice of historic names of the Wild West history like Wyatt Earp, “Bat” Masterson, Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and “Buffalo” Bill Cody, not to talk about General George Patton, who during WWII used to go to the battlefield with a leather belt and holsters with an engraved Colt 1873 Single Action revolver.

Famous people who prominently featured in dime novels that made the Colt 1873 SAA even more popular, not so differently from how movies and TV shows have boosted the Colt Single Action popularity during the last 90 years.

A popularity revamped especially by many years of beautiful Hollywood Western movies, so much to push Colt to bring it back to production in 1956, soon followed by other modern replica manufacturers as well, the most prominent of which is the well-known Italian firm Uberti, which in the past also provided parts to Colt Firearms, for their revolvers.

The Colt 1873 SAA revolver was originally chambered in .45 Colt, a new black powder cartridge also introduced in 1873 and adopted by the US Army: a powerful and accurate cartridge with mild recoil, the .45 Colt is still very popular today.

In that same year, Winchester had introduced its model Winchester 1873 lever action rifle - “the gun that won the West” - chambered in new black powder cartridge, the .44-40 Winchester. By 1877 also Colt started to offer the .44-40 Winchester as a standard caliber for its revolvers, making the Colt 1873 Single Action even more successful, since cowboys and lawmen, as well as outlaws, could finally have rifles and pistols chambered in the same caliber (an absolute marketing revolution, for the time).

Other original calibers included the .45 Smith & Wesson (the other official caliber of the US Army), .38-40 Winchester, .32-20 Winchester (all these originally chambered by the Winchester mode 1873), .38 Long Colt, and .22 LR.

Along with traditional calibers like the immortal .45 Colt or the historic .44-40 Winchester - less popular today but still commercially available - modern replicas are chambered also for modern calibers such as .38 Special, .357 Magnum, 9 Luger, 10mm Auto, .44 Magnum and .45 ACP.

Colt 1873 Single Action revolvers feature a six-round cylinder that rotates clockwise and is typically loaded one round at a time through a loading gate on the right side of the frame. The hammer is manually cocked back for each shot (single action), and the trigger has a direct, clean break.

The single action system, with the hammer manually cocked back at each shot, made the revolver slower to fire than double action revolvers, but also made it more accurate, robust and reliable.

The revolver was constructed with a closed steel frame, differently from previous Colt black powder revolvers models and subsequent cartridge conversions, that had open frames (missing the top part). 

The loading method was particularly appreciated by cavalry units, as it secured the loaded cartridges as soon as the cylinder was rotated to bring an empty chamber in front of the loading port. This way the movement of the horse couldn’t cause fresh cartridges to be bumped out of the cylinder as it sometimes happened with Smith & Wesson top-break revolvers if the shooter didn’t take precautions to avoid it.

The Colt Single Action “Army” adopted by cavalry troopers had a 7 ½ inch barrel, though barrel lengths of 4.75” and 5 ½” were also available, especially in the civilian market.

The sights were fixed and consisted of a front blade and, for the first time in Colt revolvers, a rear notch milled into the frame itself (differently from previous Colt open frame models, that had a small V notch cut in the nose of the hammer).

Barrel, cylinder and grip frame were blued, with the grip usually made out of a single piece of wood, or optional 2-piece hard rubber side plates with a through screw.