Revolver
A revolver is a repeating handgun with at least one barrel and a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers for firing. Because most revolver models hold six cartridges before needing to be reloaded, revolvers are commonly called six shooters or sixguns. Due to their rotating cylinder mechanism, they may also be called wheel guns.
Before firing, cocking the revolver's hammer partially rotates the cylinder, indexing one of the cylinder chambers into alignment with the barrel, allowing the bullet to be fired through the bore. By sequentially rotating through each chamber, the revolver allows the user to fire multiple times until having to reload the gun, unlike older single-shot firearms that had to be reloaded after each shot.
The hammer cocking in nearly all revolvers is manually driven and can be cocked either by the user using the thumb to directly pull back the hammer, or via internal linkage relaying the force of the trigger-pull, or both.
Some rare revolver models utilize the blowback of the preceding shot to automatically cock the hammer and index the next chamber, although these self-loading revolvers never gained any widespread usage.
Though the majority of weapons using a revolver mechanism are handguns, other firearms may also have a revolver action. These include some models of rifles, shotguns, grenade launchers, and autocannons. Revolver weapons differ from Gatling-style rotary weapons in that in a revolver only the chambers rotate, while in a rotary weapon there are multiple full firearm actions with their own barrels which rotate around a common ammunition feed.
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.
Although largely surpassed in convenience and ammunition capacity by semi-automatic pistols, revolvers still remain popular as back-up 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.
History
In the development of firearms, an important limiting factor was the time required to reload the weapon after it was fired. While the user was reloading, the weapon was useless, allowing an adversary to attack the user. Several approaches to the problem of increasing the rate of fire were developed, the earliest involving multi-barrelled weapons which allowed two or more shots without reloading. Later weapons featured 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 some time 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. These petronel weapons featured a single barrel with a revolving cylinder holding the powder and ball, with each cylinder having its own separate flash-pan and pan-cover. They would soon be made by many European gun-makers, in numerous designs and configurations. Of particular note is the gun attributed to John Dafte from c.1680, which is the earliest surviving specimen of automatic cylinder rotation. This gun combined in 'one package the three essential ingredients of a successful revolver: mechanical cylinder rotation, individual priming for each chamber, and a cylinder stop for barrel/cylinder alignment, all activated by cocking the firearm.' Commonalities in design suggest the weapon inspired a later, more compact imitation by the gunmaker Thomas Annely.
In 1821, the US Navy trialled a revolver belonging to Captain Artemus Wheeler; in 1819 and 1824, two committees of British artillery officers examined a similar revolver from Elisha Collier. FitzRoy Somerset, as secretary to the Master-General of the Ordnance the Duke of Wellington, reported that the gun had fired 'one hundred rounds in twenty-nine minutes at a target distant one-hundred yard, putting seventy-one balls through the target and lodging one in it... five rounds at two hundred yards... there was not a missfire in the 105 rounds.' The weapon was not adopted, however, for the same reason that previous similar guns had not been widely distributed: they were complicated, difficult to use and prohibitively expensive to make. A rare exception was the early 19th century popularity of multiple-barrel handguns called "pepper-boxes". Originally they were muzzleloaders, but in 1837, the Belgian gunsmith Mariette invented a hammerless pepperbox with a ring trigger and turn-off barrels that could be unscrewed.
In 1836, American Samuel Colt patented a popular revolver which led to widespread use, and for which Colt is credited as having invented the first modern practical revolver. Colt used a ratchet and pawl mechanism to rotate the cylinder by cocking the hammer, which provided a reliable and repeatable way to index each round and did away with the need to manually rotate the cylinder. According to Colt, he came up with the idea for the revolver while at sea, inspired by the capstan and its similar ratchet and pawl mechanism, although similar examples of such revolvers did exist in museum collections and the existence of an earlier example could have precluded Colt registering a patent on the mechanism. Nevertheless, the new mechanism, coupled with Colt's ability as a salesman—one historian describing him as 'a pioneer Madison Avenue-style pitchman'—and his approach to manufacturing ensured his influence spread. The build quality of his company's guns became famous, and its armories in America and England trained several seminal generations of toolmakers and other machinists, who had great influence in other manufacturing efforts of the next half century.
Early revolvers were caplock muzzleloaders: the user had to pour black powder into each chamber, ram down a bullet on top of it, then place a percussion cap on the nipple at the rear of each chamber, where the hammer would fall on it and ignite the powder charge. This was similar to loading a traditional single-shot muzzle-loading pistol, except that the powder and shot could be loaded directly into the front of the cylinder rather than having to be loaded down the whole length of the barrel. Importantly, this allowed the barrel itself to be rifled, since the user was not required to force the tight-fitting bullet down the barrel in order to load it. After firing a shot, the user would raise their pistol vertically while cocking the hammer back for their next shot, so the fragments of the burst percussion cap would fall clear of the weapon and not jam the mechanism. Some of the most popular cap-and-ball revolvers were the Colt Model 1851 "Navy" model, 1860 "Army" model, and Colt Pocket Percussion Revolvers, all of which saw extensive use in the American Civil War. Although American revolvers were the most common, European arms makers were making numerous revolvers by that time as well, many of which found their way into the hands of the American forces. These included the single-action Lefaucheux and LeMat revolvers, as well as the Beaumont–Adams and Tranter revolvers—early double-action weapons in spite of being muzzle-loaders.
In 1854, Eugene Lefaucheux introduced the Lefaucheux Model 1854, the first revolver to use self-contained metallic cartridges rather than loose powder, pistol ball, and percussion caps. It is a single-action, pinfire revolver holding six rounds.
On November 17, 1856, Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson signed an agreement for the exclusive use of the Rollin White Patent at a rate of 25 cents for every revolver. Smith & Wesson began production late in 1857, and enjoyed years of exclusive production of rear-loading cartridge revolvers in America due to their association with Rollin White, who held the patent and vigorously defended it against any perceived infringement by other manufacturers. Although White held the patent, other manufacturers were able to sell firearms using the design, provided they were willing to pay royalties.
After White's patent expired in April 1869, a third extension was refused. Other gun-makers were then allowed to produce their own weapons using the rear-loading method, without having to pay a royalty on each gun sold. Early guns were often conversions of earlier cap-and-ball revolvers, modified to accept metallic cartridges loaded from the rear, but later models, such as the Colt Model 1872 "open top" and the Smith & Wesson Model 3, were designed from the start as cartridge revolvers.
In 1873, Colt introduced the famous Model 1873, also known as the Single Action Army, the "Colt.45", and "the Peacemaker", one of the most famous handguns ever made. This popular design, which was a culmination of many of the advances introduced in earlier weapons, fired 6 metallic cartridges and was offered in over 30 different calibers and various barrel lengths. It is still in production, along with numerous clones and lookalikes, and its overall appearance has remained the same since 1873. Although originally made for the United States Army, the Model 1873 was widely distributed and popular with civilians, ranchers, lawmen, and outlaws alike. Its design has influenced countless other revolvers. Colt has discontinued its production twice, but resumed production due to popular demand.
In the U.S., the single-action revolver remained more popular than the double-action revolver until the late 19th century. In Europe, however, arms makers were quick to adopt the double-action trigger. While the U.S. was producing weapons like the Model 1873, European manufacturers were building double-action models like the French MAS Modèle 1873 and the later British Enfield Mk I and II revolvers. Colt's first attempt at a double action revolver to compete with European manufacturers was the Colt Model 1877, which earned lasting notoriety for its complex, expensive, and fragile trigger mechanism, which in addition to failing frequently, also had a heavy trigger pull.
In 1889, Colt introduced the Model 1889, the first double action revolver with a "swing-out" cylinder, as opposed to a "top-break" or "side-loading" cylinder. Swing-out cylinders quickly caught on, because they combined the best features of earlier designs. Top-break actions had the ability to eject all empty shells simultaneously and exposed all chambers for easy reloading, but having the frame hinged into two halves weakened the gun and negatively affected accuracy due to the lack of rigidity. "Side-loaders", like the earlier Colt Model 1871 and 1873, had a rigid frame, but required the user to eject and load one chamber at a time as they rotated the cylinder to line each chamber up with the side-mounted loading gate. Smith & Wesson followed seven years later with the Hand Ejector, Model 1896 in.32 S&W Long caliber, followed by the very similar, yet improved, Model 1899, which introduced the new.38 Special cartridge. The Model 10 went on to become the best selling handgun of the 20th century, at 6,000,000 units, and the.38 Special is still the most popular chambering for revolvers in the world. These new guns were an improvement over the Colt 1889 design since they incorporated a combined center-pin and ejector rod to lock the cylinder in position, whereas the Colt 1889 did not use a center pin and the cylinder was prone to move out of alignment.
Revolvers have remained popular in many areas, although for law enforcement and military personnel, they have largely been supplanted by magazine-fed semi-automatic pistols, such as the Beretta M9 and the SIG Sauer M17, especially in circumstances where faster reload times and higher cartridge capacity are important.