The Rodolfo Fierro Revolver

By any reasonable measure, Rodolfo Fierro was a world class SOB.  I know it’s not nice to speak ill of the dead, but old Rodolfo shucked this mortal coil more than a hundred years ago and I’m going to take a chance.  Bear with me.

I am a big fan of the Colt and Smith and Wesson 1917 .45 ACP revolvers and all their modern derivations.  You’ve read my scribblings (or tappings?) here on the ExNotes blog about the virtually new 1917 Colt I scored a couple of years ago, and you know I’m not above bragging about a group or two I’ve shot with my Model 625 Smith.  You can read all about that sort of thing on our Tales of the Gun page.

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Anyway, to get back to the main attraction (which is the beautiful nickel-plated and engraved 1917 you see here), a few years ago I bought a very cool Marlin from Collectors Firearms in Houston, Texas.  They are good people and as luck would have it, I had a secret mission in Houston a week ago.  Hmmm, I thought.  As long as I was headed to the Lone Star state it might be a good idea to stop in at Collectors, and before we left the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia I went online to see what Collectors had in stock.  That’s when the revolver in these photos appeared.

Wow!  My life suddenly somehow felt incomplete.  I needed that revolver.  Nickel plating.  Engraving.  Ivory grips.  .45 ACP.  An Army 1917.  Want.  Need.  Gotta have.  I was a dog in heat.

I studied the photos, of which there were many, and I noticed the following on the revolver’s frame:

General Rodolfo Fierro.  Who the hell was he?  So I Googled the name, and wow, what a mean bastard he was.  Turns out old Rodolfo was Pancho Villa’s darker side, and he was the one who handled the dirty work for Villa.  I won’t belabor all his dastardly deeds (you can Google the name yourself), but as dastardly bastards go, this guy was as bad as it gets.

But wow, the gun was a 1917 Colt (a favorite), it was highly engraved, it was advertised as being in good shape, and I wanted it. At $4950, the price was way out of my range.  But the provenance…the provenance of this Colt was incredible.   And the photos…take a look:

Collectors Firearms had a brief description on their website that was even more enticing:

Colt 1917 .45 ACP caliber revolver. Beautifully engraved and chiseled Colt .45 ACP revolver. This revolver is extensively engraved with traditional Colt style scroll work. The right-side of the frame has a relief chiseled figure of the Mexican Seal of an eagle and snake with cactus in the foreground. The left-side of frame is a relief chiseled figure of a puma braced on a rock. Bore is excellent. Action works perfectly. Barrel length is 5½”. The grips are of old mellow ivory. The backstrap is engraved “Gral Rodolfo Fierro” AKA “The Butcher.” Fierro was a known associate of Pancho Villa. Revolver has 100% of its nickel finish. Barrel has a relief chiseled figure of a longhorn steer. Very handsome and striking revolver!

So I was about 80% of the way there, thinking I could probably Presbyterian these guys down (it’s an inside joke shared by Members of the Tribe), sell a bunch of other stuff, and I would ride with Rodolfo.  Visiting Collectors Firearms became an imperative and after finishing my secret mission stuff, Sue and I rolled in to that magnificent firearms emporium on that fine Texas morning.

Collectors Firearms is huge, possibly the largest high-end gun store I’ve ever visited.   Folks, trust me on this…if you’re ever in Houston and you want to see some really cool stuff, you absotively have to see this place.

It took the kid who attended to us a few minutes to locate the Rodolfo Fierro revolver, and when he did, I was stunned.  The nickel plating and engraving were absolutely magnificently executed, far more so than revealed by the website photos above.  Somehow, the nickel finish and engraving made the revolver seem even larger than it actually is (and it’s a big gun).  I shot a few photos with my iPhone, and I’ll share one with you here:

So I thought about that revolver the rest of the time I was in Texas and then I thought about it more when I returned home, the gears turning with what I might have to sell to get it.

And then it hit me.  In researching old Rodolfo and all the evil he brought to those in his orbit, I found out that while there is some uncertainty about his date of birth, there’s none whatsoever about when he died.  That was in 1915 when he drowned in quicksand after being thrown from his horse, weighed down by gold he had presumably stolen.

1915.  Got it?  That’s the year old Rodolfo had to stand before his Maker and answer for all his sins.  You see, 1915 was two years before Colt introduced the 1917 Army .45 ACP revolver, and that tells me there’s no way this gun was carried by that bloodthirsty SonuvaYouKnowWhat. Whew! Just saved myself $4950 on that one.

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