Revolver

Lore & Background

In the development of firearms, an important limiting factor was the time required to reload. Early approaches included multi-barrelled weapons and later weapons with multiple barrels revolving along a single axis. A matchlock revolver with a single barrel and four chambers held at the Tower of London was originally believed to have been invented in the 15th century but has now been identified as an Indian matchlock of the 1800s. A revolving three-barrelled matchlock pistol in Venice is dated from at least 1548. During the late 16th century in China, Zhao Shi-zhen invented the Xun Lei Chong, a five-barreled musket revolver spear. Around the same time, the earliest examples of the modern revolver were made in Germany, featuring a single barrel with a revolving cylinder holding powder and ball, each cylinder having its own flash-pan and pan-cover.

In 1836, American Samuel Colt patented a popular revolver that led to widespread use, using a ratchet and pawl mechanism to rotate the cylinder by cocking the hammer. According to Colt, he came up with the idea while at sea, inspired by the capstan, although similar examples existed in museum collections. Early revolvers were caplock muzzleloaders; the user had to pour black powder into each chamber, ram down a bullet, and place a percussion cap on the nipple. In 1854, Eugene Lefaucheux introduced the Lefaucheux Model 1854, the first revolver to use self-contained metallic cartridges. On November 17, 1856, Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson signed an agreement for exclusive use of the Rollin White Patent, and Smith & Wesson began production late in 1857, enjoying years of exclusive production of rear-loading cartridge revolvers in America.

Reader's Guide

Although largely surpassed in convenience and ammunition capacity by semi-automatic pistols, revolvers remain popular as backup and off-duty handguns among American law enforcement officers and security guards, and are still common in the American private sector as defensive, sporting, and hunting firearms. The revolver's mechanism—cocking the hammer partially rotates the cylinder, indexing a chamber into alignment with the barrel—allows multiple shots without reloading, unlike older single-shot firearms. The hammer cocking in nearly all revolvers is manually driven, either by the user's thumb (single-action) or via internal linkage from the trigger pull (double-action), or both. Some rare models use blowback to automatically cock the hammer and index the next chamber, but these self-loading revolvers never gained widespread usage. Famous revolver models include the Colt 1851 Navy Revolver, the Webley, the Colt Single Action Army, the Colt Official Police, Smith & Wesson Model 10, the Smith & Wesson Model 29 of Dirty Harry fame, the Nagant M1895, and the Colt Python. The build quality of Colt's guns became famous, and its armories trained several generations of toolmakers and machinists who influenced other manufacturing efforts.

Did You Know?

• Most revolver models hold six cartridges, leading to the nickname 'six shooter' or 'sixgun'.
• The earliest surviving specimen of automatic cylinder rotation is attributed to John Dafte from around 1680.
• The Lefaucheux Model 1854 was the first revolver to use self-contained metallic cartridges.
• Samuel Colt patented his popular revolver in 1836, using a ratchet and pawl mechanism inspired by a ship's capstan.