Tag Archives: Kodiak

Colt Fills the Stable with a New Grizzly, Kodiak, and Vipers

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While everyone knows such long-legged wheelguns as the Peacemaker, Python, and Navy ’51/Army ’60 Series guns, Colt has seen dozens of short-lived revolvers in its company history. Handguns that just slipped in and slipped out just as fast.

For instance, in 1993, the Colt Kodiak, a limited-run of no more than 2,000 .44 Magnum that was built by the Colt Custom Shop in 1993 on the Anaconda series frame, hit the shelves and was never seen again.

In 1994 the Colt Custom Shop made a short run of just 999 Colt Grizzly models in .357 Magnum using a King Cobra frame with a Magna-Ported 6-inch Python series barrel.

Even before that, in 1977, the company made an aluminum-framed version of its 4th Model Police Positive– a revolver that itself was headed for cancelation. Using the small D (Detective) frame, it was light and rated for just .38 Special. Dubbed the Viper, it is one of the hardest of Colt’s “snake guns” to capture.

A circa 1977 nickel Viper

Well, for what it is worth, Colt just dropped new versions of all three of these guns on the market.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Louisville on ice

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“Fighter and Freighter – Kodiak, Alaska.” Painting, Oil on Board; by William F. Draper; 1942; Framed Dimensions 24H X 28W.

NHHC 88-189-B

The warship looks to be a Northampton or Pensacola-class heavy cruiser. Of those, just one, USS Louisville (CA-28), was in the Aleutians throughout the summer of 1942.  As part of TF 8, she plastered Japanese defenses on Kiska Island. She also likely posed for Draper’s brush.

USS Louisville (CA-28) Steams out of Kulak Bay, Adak, the Aleutian Islands, bound for operations against Attu, 25 April 1943. The photograph looks toward Sweepers Cove. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-72060

Commissioned 15 January 1931, she earned an impressive 13 battle stars in the Pacific, was laid up in 1946, and sold for scrap in 1959.