It would be the simplest matter to plug the bores and retain their integrity while at the same time aging the exterior. One importer told us they’ve not had any complaints - until now. How any company could permit the destruction of the bores is beyond our ken. The result is that you get an etched or slightly pitted barrel. The distressing or antiquing makes the gun look just great to most eyes, but we take the greatest exception to the fact that the bores are not protected. Our test Cimarron ($349 as tested, or $389 with charcoal blue, or $399 with “Original” antiqued finish) had the normal blued and case-colored parts. The two more recent pistols were identically finished to begin with, but the EMF version has extra-cost acid-dip distressing, called “Old West” finish, that makes a new pistol look 150 years old ($370, or $300 with normal finish). For this test we gathered three Second Dragoons, one a 2nd-Generation Colt from 1981 (about $750), and two from Uberti, one imported by EMF and the other by Cimarron. Elmer Keith had a rare cased example with silver-plated grips. Original Dragoons (all three versions) designed for civilian sales had silver-plated grip straps. Some martial-use pistols had grips marked with an inspector’s escutcheon. The grip straps were brass, and grips were one-piece walnut. Easily distinguished by the square-back trigger guard and the rectangular bolt-stop notches, the Second Model Dragoon was originally presented with blued barrel, cylinder and trigger, and case-colored loading lever, hammer, and frame. In a similar manner, when Colt organized the production of the 2nd-Generation Dragoons in the early 1980s (built by Iver Johnson from I-J and Uberti parts), they made nearly 4,000 of the First, close to 7,000 of the Third, but only 2676 of the Second Dragoon, again rendering them the rarest of the lot. This makes the Second Dragoon the rarest of the original 4-pound Colts. The First Dragoon was made from 1848 to 1850 in the quantity of about 7,000, and the Third Dragoon was made for about ten years, in the quantity of about 10,500. The Second Dragoon was in production from 1850-51, with a total of about 2,700 made. Most originals, and all of our test trio, had the initials U.S.M.R. Mounted Rifles, some of which were called the Dragoons. The Dragoon name comes from the use, or designated use, of this heavy pistol by the U.S. For example, the 1860 Army Colt was not a lot less powerful than the Dragoon but weighed far less, yet was totally controllable, the result of ten years of refinement. There also was, most likely, ignorance about how heavy a revolver had to be in order to handle a given power level.
All were designed for horseback use, and as such, weight was not much of a consideration, though at 4 pounds, the Dragoons weighed half a pound less than the Walker. The Second Dragoon was the middle of three post-Walker revolvers developed by Colt beginning in 1848.
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