Offered here is a very rare, Martially Marked US Military Colt Walker Revolver Gang Mold. These molds are identified, pictured and described in Robin J. Rapley’s books Colt Percussion Accoutrements 1834-1875 and The History and Identification of Colt Accoutrements 1834-1911. The mold appears to be a transitional example between the first pattern Walker Armorer’s gang mold, depicted as M#12 on page 75 of the second book and the first and second pattern molds depicted as M#45 and M#46 on pages 120-123 of the first book. First pattern molds appear to be from the original deliveries of Walker Revolvers, while the second pattern molds are later production and were delivered with later Walkers, and early Whitneyville-Hartford Dragoons, also call “Transitional Walkers”. Both patterns of molds cast six smooth sided .44 caliber conical bullets without heels or grease grooves, iron mold blocks and turned walnut grips with brass ferules and handle caps. The molds used a large domed screw to form the hinge pin and hold the two halves together, with the screw secured by a large hexagonal nut on the bottoms. Examples are known in both left over right and right over left assembly configurations. As is so typical of early Colt products, some minor variations are noted in the way the cavities are cut, the way the sprue cutter’s lead channel is cut and the exact shape of the wood handles.

This example is most like a cross between Rapley’s M#45 and M#46. It has wide mouth cavities with no restrictions at the base, like M#45, handles more like M#46 and a lead flow channel in the sprue cutter most like M#12. The domed screw has a tiny central punch hole, like that found on M#45 as well. The six cavities measure nominally .44 at their bases and are nominally .65” deep. The mold measures 11 ¾” in overall length with a 5 ¾” mold block, a 6” handle length and nominally 5” long turned walnut grips with ¾” brass ferrules and brass grip caps. The interior of the mold blocks are both numbered 10 near the hinge screw. A 1/5” (.20”) alignment pin in the left side of the mold block, between the grips and the cavities and enters an alignment hole on the opposing side of the mold block. The sprue cutter has a full-length flow flute that passes through all of the fill holes and is 4” in length. Additional, small flutes are found around each of the fill holes to help channel the lead into the holes. Rapley refers to these machined cuts as being “boattail” shaped, although the cavities themselves do not cast boattail bullets. The way these additional grooves are machined into the sprue cutter appears to have evolved from essentially none, to small cuts and finally to larger ones. The base on the samples provided in Rapley’s books, it appears that the mold cavities evolved slightly as well, from a wide open based to a slightly restricted flat base. Looking at the examples published by Rapley, and this example, it appears that the earliest molds probably had the wide open bases and no additional fluting other than the primary lead channel in the sprue cutter, and then the additional flow cuts around each hole started to appear, becoming larger at about the same time that the bases of the cavities had the small base restrictions added.

While the three examples published by Rapley show an oval “Colt’s Patent Mark” on the mold block, near the handles, this example does not have such a mark, nor is marked “US”. However, it is clearly marked with a script Wat inspection from Ordnance Officer William Anderson Thornton, confirming it was definitely a martial mold, accepted by the US Ordnance Department. The mold is also marked with a small N, which is likely a factory sub-inspection mark. It is not clear if the worker making the mold just had a bad day and forgot to stamp the Colt marking, or if this mold was assembled using a combination of older, left over Walker gang mold parts and some newly made parts, resulting in the mix of features.

The mold remains about VERY GOOD condition with a thickly oxidized and untouched brown patina on most of the external iron parts. The interior of the mold block is partly bright with scattered surface oxidation and discoloration. The mold cavities remain partly bright as well, with scattered surface oxidation. The cavities themselves are very crisp and sharp and would likely cast fine bullets today. The brass ferrules and grip caps are untouched and have a deep, dark ocher patina and it nearly black in some areas. The wood grips show some wear, with some scattered surface marks, dings and mars. The right grip also has some sticky residue where it appears an old label was taped to the handle. The mold opens and closes smoothly, and the sprue cutter moves as it should. The mold body and sprue cutter do show some scattered impact marks, which is not uncommon for these large, heavy gang molds.

Overall, this a very nice example of a scarce martially marked arsenal gang mold for the Walker revolver and the early Whitneyville-Hartford Dragoon revolvers. These rare molds do not appear on the market very often and Rapley rates these molds as “Five Stars” for rarity, suggesting that no more than 25 examples exist today. It would be a fantastic addition to the display of your martial Walker revolver or to add to an advanced Colt or bullet mold collector.