Explanation is back here. Today’s gun is this one, a Colt Woodsman in .22 LR:
Have at it, in Comments,
25 comments
Comments are closed.
Explanation is back here. Today’s gun is this one, a Colt Woodsman in .22 LR:
Have at it, in Comments,
Comments are closed.
I’m unfamiliar with this gun but I like the look, kinda modern in appearance. Sort of looks like a Crosman CO2 pistol I had 50 years ago.
I think that the Crossman looked a little more like the Ruger Mark 1. My wife gave me a Crossman and a nice pair of Bushnell binoculars for our first Christmas. Right then I knew that she was a keeper. 45 years later I still have the Crossman, the binoculars, and the wife (although my priorities are not in that order).
My Crossman is a .22. I understand that they were also made in .17. I’ve rebuilt it twice as the gas seals eventually start to leak, but I think that the parts are still available. My only gripe with the pistol is that the aluminum frame was painted black and the finish has worn off. Today we call that patina. Oh well I’ve got wear spots too but like my old Crossman I still shoot reasonably well.
An elegant Art Deco pistol. I was never lucky enough to own one, but I did get the chance to put a few hundred rounds through a friend’s. He saw my smile and immediately said “No its not for sale.”
There’s a picture of George Patton standing in front of a 37mm armed M-3 light tank probably on a pre war exercise. Patton is carrying a Woodsman in a nice leather holster. Both the Colt and the 37mm were a little light for serious work but fun plinkers nevertheless.
Another one of Mr. Browning’s designs I believe. I have one with the shorter barrel, currently a safe queen, though
I recall the Crosman pellet gun that did look similar. I had a Crosman pistol years ago, I forget what model, but it looked a little like a 1911. I would like to find the Woodsman target configuration someday, just for fun.
I have a Colt Huntsman, the slightly less expensive version with fixed sights. It is beautiful and shoots better than I.
To understand how things have changed since then, I bought it new in CA while I was in graduate school there. My permanent address and drivers license were from CT. There was a waiting period but no 4473.
So, you were in grad-school prior to GCA-68.
It was a Crosman Model 600 pistol, and I found a few on eBay just now. I don’t think I will get another. But I think it was the Marksman company that made the Woodsman look a like.
JMB says it all. Harry Selby carried one. Classic.
Isn’t that the one your son used to use in his shooting competitions?
No, he used some horrendously-expensive single-shot thing.
I’m a little surprised that no one here mentioned that the Colt Woodsman was the preferred weapon of Matt Helm, during his WWII assassination days and later in his work for Mac.
These were good books, and there were many good reasons that Helm preferred his .22 (or a good sniper rifle) for most work. If course, he wasn’t above using a crowbar or the issued .38 revolver, but he liked to stick with his old friend: the Woodsman.
My father had one –and I admired it — but with the more utilitarian grips. But he was an inveterate gun-swapper, and it went away. Its place in my ecosystem today is filled by a Beretta Model 70S (.22 LR) with swoopy plastic grips that fit the right hand only.
I’ve only ever shot one of these beauties a couple of times, at various range sessions with some lucky Readers who owned them.
It was like letting off magic in my hand. And it was wonderfully, marvelously accurate.
My dad has one, and also a .22 Diamondback that I think is vintage early Seventies. Both marvelous guns.
Another JMB design. It has stylistic similarities to the 1911. Very accurate. Made from 1915 to 1977. There may be equals, but there are none better. It was used in competition for decades.
A 1934 Woodsman was the only one of my grandfather’s guns to come to me. I have since passed it on to my son to ensure he had it before I reached the clearing.
My dear wife of over 58 years now has that exact same pistol right down to the custom grips by Herrett’s. All it has ever done is shoot reliably and VERY accurately for the past 44 1/2 years. She would not part with it for anything you could imagine. She has shot the Woodsman Target Model with the heavy barrel but prefers her Targetsman version as it isn’t as barrel heavy. I am not allowed to shoot it as it is HERS!!!!!
Simply the best .22 pistol ever made.
Sized right for the cartridge, accurate, reliable, beautiful. Polished blue steel and walnut.
Plus my very first gun, at the legal age of 21 ,oh those many years ago.
A friend and I would buy a case of cci mini mag (2500) rounds for some unspeakably low price on sale and burn it up in the forests of the PNW.
(Washington state used to be free, you know. )
“Simply the best .22 pistol ever made.”
Makes you wonder why Colt stopped making them, dunnit?
Well… The Woodsman lives on in the Browning Buck Mark. Not as pretty, but the DNA is there. My second favorite 22LR pistola.
Ended up with a Match Target version(circa 1940) from an estate buy. Really a nice old .22. Found out a little later that the target grips on it were worth damn near as much as the gun.
Don’t forget the mags. They too are like hens’ teeth, ergo stratospherically priced.
Beretta Neos mags can be easily modded to work.
As of a couple of years ago Numrich had plenty of them. That’s when I got several, just in case I somehow get back in the will. đ
The only thing possibly better than Kim’s Woodsman would be the Colt Woodsman Match Target Mk. II 6″ heavy barrel that my Father has.
It is poetry in blued steel and shoots as well as it looks.
If I was less of a luddite I could probably post an image… Duck-Duck_Go it, you won’t be sorry.
I inherited one and made my own maple target grips for it. It’s a beautiful pistol to shoot.