The truth of it is . . . the only one who knows what Sam Colt was thinking, was Sam Colt. To try and state what he was thinking, some 160 years later is being an armchair historian and about as accurate as pinning the tail on the donkey. At the time of the industrial revolution, there were many, many manufacturers who dabbled in patents in order to keep the competition of getting the "edge" - that's the way business is played. I had a g-g-uncle who held one of the first patents on woven wire fencing and he also was often tied up in litigation over patent infringements not only in the U.S. but in Canada as well. Let's face it - Colt had open top models which worked - he was tooled up for them and he produced thousands of them. Like any manufacturer - you produce them as cheaply as you can with the least amount of production steps - make a quality product and sell them for as much as the market will bear in order to make profits. At the beginning of the Civil War, Colt was selling the Armies to the government at $25 - along comes the Remingtons and their price to the government was half of what Colt's was. As has been stated, it is also my understanding that the military requested top strap revolvers for their trials which made it necessary for Colt to design a model for the trials or else not be a part of them. At some point, it was inevitible that top straps would become the "norm" as improvements were being made in ammunition. In this day and age, the "old west" tends to be "glorified" as do the fast draws and gun fights. It must be remembered that those sort of things were a very minute part of the history of the revolvers. They were a utility item used for bagging food, self protection ans such. They served their purpose well and their design was very adequate for the standard loads they were designed for - whether they were loaded with commercially made combustible cartridges for from a flask with a spout designed for the charge for the individual pistol. If Colt had of seriously considered the addition of a top strap to say the Navy or the Army, production costs would have gone up. As a businessman, his cost to the Army would have gone up as well. Now lets see . . . do I buy the Colts for the troops at $25 apiece - $27.50 with their new top strap design . . . or do I buy the Remingtons which already have a top strap at $12.50 each? I've got to arm the troops - they sort of have me over the barrel as I can't get enough Remingtons . . . . . I guess I'll have to fill in with an order to Colt as their revolvers are popular and a good product. And we won't even venture into the subject of "kick backs" which was a common business practice of the day.
