It is a smaller brother of the more famous "Colt's Revolving Belt Pistol of Naval Caliber" introduced the same year and commonly designated by collectors as the "1851 Navy Model".

[2] In 1860, the .36 caliber Police Pocket model was created, after lessons were learned from experimentation aimed at reducing the size of the .44 Colt Holster Pistols (i.e. large cavalry weapons), Colt took advantage of stronger mass-produced steel by rebating the frame of the Navy revolver to hold a larger-diameter 44/100-inch chambered cylinder, basically fitting the power of a large cavalry saddle holster-gun and fitting it into the .36 caliber Navy Model, a gun that could be carried in a belt holster.

Relative to the .31 Pocket Revolvers, the period of manufacture was short and overall numbers were further limited by a fire at the Colt Factory in 1862 and War production concerns.

Richard Francis Burton was a devotee of Colt Revolvers and carried a selection of them on his Middle Eastern and African journeys including the trip to Somalia and Ethiopia in 1855.

The largest, which fitted with a stock became an excellent carbine, was at once named Abu Sittah (the Father of Six) and the Shaytan or Devil: the pocket pistol became the Malunah or Accursed, and the distance to which it carried ball made every man wonder.

In 1872 Old west gambler Shang Stanton killed Slim Jim Shumway with an 1849 Pocket Revolver with a silver finish and a carved ivory grip.

The thinness and round cross-section of the grip make it easy for the gun to shift in the shooter's grasp, and the sights are very small and difficult to see, compared to modern weapons.

Nevertheless, by holding Kentucky windage or installing a taller front sight, the shooter may expect to make telling hits on a man-sized silhouette target at that range and very effective sustained fire at shorter distances.