I have an impression that the Colt Woodsman looms large in American popular culture.
Chandler, in one of his stories (“Trouble Is My Business“), had two gunmen come through the door, one armed with “a Colt Woodsman with a long barrel and the front sight filed off. That meant he thought he was good.”
(Sorry. Just wanted to break the wall of text up a bit.)
Ernest Hemingway famously claimed “…standing in one corner of a boxing ring with a [Woodsman], I will guarantee to kill either Gene Tunney or Joe Louis before they get to me from the opposite corner.” While I have serious doubts about Papa’s idea of the .22’s stopping power, Hemingway is known to have owned three (possibly four) Woodsman pistols, and almost certainly took one (maybe two) to Africa. Accounts say he used the Woodsman to shoot scorpions and jackals, and perhaps to give the coup de grâce to wounded animals.
Robert Ruark’s professional hunter, Harry Selby, also owned and used one. “During the next 40 years of conducting safaris in Botswana, among the many firearms he owned, the two guns that Selby never left home without were his .416 Rigby and the Colt Woodsman.”
Reading American popular fiction of the 20th Century, it sometimes seems to me that every decently equipped household had a .22 handgun of some sort around the the house. Many of them were Colt Woodsman pistols. Colt made nearly 700,000 of them between 1915 and 1977. (I have a particular memory of a character in a non-Travis-McGee MacDonald novel using one to unpleasant effect.)
And I’m not sure there were a lot of other .22 semi-auto pistols around. Ruger didn’t produce their first gun (the .22 Standard) until 1949, and Smith and Wesson didn’t make a .22 semi-auto until 1957 (though they did crank out plenty of .22 revolvers). High Standard started producing .22 semi-autos in 1926, but I can’t find any other manufacturers before about 1950. If any of my readers know of someone who was producing .22 semi-autos before 1950 other than Colt and High Standard, please drop a comment here. It is entirely possible I’m overlooking someone, but in general it seems to be Woodsman pistols…and that’s it.
(Colt also produced the Colt Ace and .22 conversion kits for the 1911, but those were somewhat more specialized items, and I don’t think were as common as the Woodsman.)
The Woodsman is, believe it or not (I know: quel fromage!) a John Browning design. Colt bought the patent rights and introduced it in 1915, originally as the “Colt Caliber .22 Target Model”. It became the Woodsman in 1927.
There are three “series” (or major variations) of the Woodsman. The “First Series” extends roughly from the introduction in 1915 up to 1942. The “Second Series” runs from 1947 to 1955, and the “Third Series” runs from 1955 to 1977. They were available in several barrel lengths, and there were also “budget” versions called “Challenger”, “Huntsman”, and “Targetman”. I am oversimplifying here, so you might want to check the references below if you want more details on the differences between the three series, or how to tell if you can shoot “high-velocity” .22 ammo, or if you’re just wondering who I stole from in putting this together.
There’s a website I rather like: “Bob Rayburn’s Colt Woodsman Home Page”. Mr. Rayburn bought his first Woodman in 1975, and assembled pretty much the definitive collection of Woodman pistols in private hands, including engraved and experimental guns. (Mr. Rayburn sold off his collection a while back.) I think this is the best source of information on the Internet for everything you’d want to know about the Woodsman, including field-stripping, where to get replacement parts, how to repair the guns…he even did a book, the Colt Woodsman Pocket Guide (now out of print, but I see a reasonably priced copy on GunBroker).
As you know, Bob, I am an unabashed Smith and Wesson fanboy. But I’ve always liked the lines of the Woodsman, especially the Second Series Match Target variant (which I’d describe as kind of slab-sided). I like them all, though. To me, much like the Kit Gun, it seems to be an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.
The combination of a used Woodsman showing up, and me having enough money to buy one when it did, never seemed to come together. Until earlier this year, when both things happened at once.
This is a Second Series Target Model with a 6″ barrel. It shipped May 27, 1948, and there were six of the “same type” guns in the shipment (per the Colt historical letter).
Interestingly to me, it shipped to the Zork Hardware Company in El Paso, Texas. Also interestingly to me, I did a little bit of searching on the Internet to see what I could find out about the Zork Hardware Company of El Paso, Texas…
…turns out, the University of Texas at El Paso has the Zork Hardware Company records, including their logs of guns sold…
…some, but not all, of which they have digitized and which you can download. The 1948 records are not among those digitized yet. It looks like 1939 is the most recent year available online. And:
I’m assuming UTEP plans to bring more of the records online as time and money permit. In the meantime…RoadRich, you up for a road trip? I’m also also assuming that the 1948 records didn’t get caught up in the Mexican Revolution inquiry. And Zork didn’t just sell Colts. There is at least one rare Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum that was shipped to Zork, so it might be kind of fun to browse through all the old record books.
Some sources I found useful in preparing this:
Calabi, Silvio, et al. Hemingway’s Guns Shooting Sportsman, 2010, 109-120.
Coogan, Joe. “A Very Special Colt Woodsman” American Rifleman, 17 Feb. 2018, www.americanrifleman.org/content/a-very-special-colt-woodsman/. Accessed 27 Aug. 2024.
Lee, Jerry. “The Quintessential 22 Pistol: The Colt Woodsman” Gun Digest, 14 Aug. 2018, gundigest.com/gun-collecting/the-quintessential-22-pistol-the-colt-woodsman. Accessed 27 Aug. 2024.
I also drew on my personal historical letter from Colt for details about the gun, and the Wikipedia entry on the Woodsman for some background. As stated above, Bob Rayburn’s site is also an extremely valuable source of information.
Oh yes, I’m up for a road trip. I hope we are not eaten by a grue.
I never had a Colt Woodsman. My first .22 handgun was an old H & R 929, a revolver that was old, but not old as in valuable. Old as in it had been shot a lot. I bought it from my Dad when he was in need of funds, and so I gave him more than it was worth. It was actually my very first concealed carry gun. Sometimes you have to go with what you have.
Now I have a Ruger Mark IV, 22/45. This is the series with the one button takedown. I put a red dot sight on it, a VERY inexpensive one. And it does work nicely, but I never could get very happy with it. I am just too old school, I guess. I like iron sights, even if I probably could shoot more accurately with the red dot.
The accuracy issue for handguns doesn’t seem as important to me as my ability to be comfortable with the gun. Since most of my handgun use is for concealed carry, I am more satisfied with my ability to make accurate hits at reasonable distances instead of pinpoint accuracy at shorter distances.
I would rather hit a 3×5 card at 15 yards consistently than keep all shots in under an inch at 3 yards. As far as speed goes, I try to keep my speed up while making certain that I am smooth.
I guess the biggest thing that I have learned is that every gun that I now own is able of much more accuracy than I am capable of shooting.
I have heard that those older H&R revolvers are actually pretty good guns: they don’t have the name recognition of Colt or S&W, but they were made at a time when people turned out good products at a fair price.
The standard joke around here is that I need another .22 (pistol or rifle) like I need another hole in my head. I have a Ruger .22/45 as well, but not one of the newer models with the push-button take down. There’s someone who advertises a simplified take down system for the older Rugers in “American Handgunner” and I keep thinking about sending off for that kit. I’ve shot that Ruger quite a bit and am very happy with it. (We also have a Ruger Mark II in the safe, but that’s not mine.)
“I guess the biggest thing that I have learned is that every gun that I now own is able of much more accuracy than I am capable of shooting.”
Amen to that.