[fred cook]

Just added this one of a kind to my Colt collection! It is a Colt Thunderer that has been rebuilt into .22 RF by West Coast pistolsmith George Matthews. The revolver was originally built by Colt in 1881 and was re-built by Mr. Matthews in 1953 for personal use. He sleeved the barrel and cylinder, built a new rf firing pin, took the "hump" off the top of the grip to make it look more like a Colt SA and added a custom set of Ivory grips. He also re-case hardened the frame and rust blued the barrel, cylinder and grip frame. So, what we have here is a .22 revolver that is about 10% smaller than a SA that will fire in either single action or double action mode. While the Colt Lightning/Thunderer revolvers were known to be somewhat fragile and likely to get "out of sorts", this one works perfectly. It even made the 1969 issue of the Guns and Ammo annual! Some pictures: