POTD: Prototype Colt Camp Perry – Before the Prototypes
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have a Colt target pistol that looks like a revolver but only holds one round. This is a prototype of what became the Colt Camp Perry Model, chambered in 22 LR, and it seems to predate even the official batch of Camp Perry prototypes.
The Camp Perry was the best target pistol Colt sold in the interwar years, named for the home of the National Matches in Ohio. Colt took an Officer’s Model revolver frame and swapped the six-shot cylinder for a flat-sided single-shot “cylinder” that is one piece with the barrel. The whole assembly swings out to the left on the crane for loading. Colt advertised it in 1920, regular production didn’t start until 1926, and only about 2,500 were built before it ended in 1941.
This gun started out with a frame dated December 1912 as an Officer’s Model double action revolver before the factory reworked it. Colt references list Camp Perry prototypes in a serial range of 1 to 63, with production starting at 101. This one carries an “A1R80” serial and part of an older number on the crane, so it looks to come before that batch. The 10 inch barrel, bright finish, and unserrated trigger line up with two early prototypes pictured in “The Book of Colt Firearms.” I have also read that the very first experimental Camp Perry kept its double action because Colt never bothered converting it, which matches how this one is described.
Personally, I love seeing a factory work out an idea on a leftover frame.
Most of our POTDs utilize images from our friends at Rock Island Auction Company, the premier firearms auction in the United States. Take some time to browse their current auctions – who knows, maybe you’ll find a piece of history to take home!
“Prototype Colt Camp Perry Single Shot Rimfire Target Pistol.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/4097/3283/prototype-colt-camp-perry-single-shot-rimfire-target-pistol. Accessed 29 Sept. 2026.
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