Coral Snake's Firearms History - Single Shot Pistols and Revolvers Part 3 - The Cartridge Era in Full Flower By Coral Snake
The control over the handgun industry represented by the Rollin White patent ended in 1869. However for the most part Colt and Remington still held on to their percussion revolvers and Smith and Wesson hung onto their popular model 1 and model 1 1/2 revolvers. However Smith and Wesson had plans in place for a new revolver called the Model 3 that would outshine the competition that would result from the end of the Rollin White patent. At first the Model 3 was conceived as simply a larger .41 caliber rimfire four shooter builr along the lines of the model 1 and 1 1/2. However Smith and Wesson realized it would take more than that and perhaps even another patented feature no other handgun company could duplicate to keep the company strong. Therefore the original .41 caliber number 3 was scrapped in favor of an entirely new gun that would occupy the new Model 3 slot that would solve the deficiencies of what came before while being more advanced than anything Europe and Britian were producing.
The basic dificiencies of the Model 1, Model 2 and Model 1 1/2 revolvers were mainly their method of loading and ejection. To load any of these revolvers first one had to unlock and swing the barrel upward and remove the cylinder. The ccartridges were then loaded and the barrle again locked to the bottom of the frame. After fireing the cylinder had to be removed by unlocking and swinging the barrel upward again and poke the empties out one at a time by the way of an ejecter rod that was a part pf the barrel assembly. The new version of the Model 3 would improve on this system by placing the barrel hinge at the bottom and placing the cylinder arbor and cylinder in the barrel assemble thereby allowing the gun to remain intact when open for loading and unloading. For cartridge extraction the cylinder arbor would contain a rack and pinion device for working a star extractor that was used as the basis for a second monopoly master patent on the part of Smith and Wesson. Thus the new Model 3 would load and umload much like a double barrel cartridge sxhotgun or rifle rather than using the cumbersome break and remove the cylinder methhod of earlier Smith and Wesson revolvers. Furthermore the new version of the Model 3 was given a streamlined rounded appearance in the barrel assembly like that of the last series of Colt Percussion revolvers. This new Model 3 was also to be a .44 caliber center fire single action cartridge revolver to keep up with what was going on in England while continuing to appeal to American tastes in revolvers. The model 1 and model 1 1/2 continued and continued to use the cumbersome older system byt were given the more streamlined appearance of the Model 3.
The first major move away from the Percussion revolver by companies other than Smith and Wesson was in in the "pocket" or "darrenger" revolver area. It was here that Colt issued their last "pinned" barrel revolver in the form of their "open top" revolver. This little .22 introduced the feature that was going to be the main competitor of Smith and Wesson's shotgul like hinged frame design in revolvers for the next two decades in the form of a cartridge loading gate on the right side of the frame's recoil shield. In their next series of revolvers the New Line series in .22 and .32 rimfire and .32 and .38 centerfire calibers Colt finally went for a solid frame design. Most other work with cartridge designs on the part of Colt consisted of conversion systems in .36 and .44 caliber centerfire for their older percussion designs. Colt knew however that these designs could not go on forever however and when the Army was looking for a cartridge revolver to replace the percussion 1860 Army and Remington Army models from the Civil War colt would be ready with one.
What resulted was still a very conservative design that basically used the same single action mechanism as the Colt percussion revolvers albeit with with a hammer with a lower hammer spur and sporting a centerfire fireing pin rather than a blunt face for striking percussion nipples. Two new features brought into the new army sized revolver came from the New Line series of pocket pistols. These were the first solid frame in a Colt army sized revolver and a right side loading gate. The two reamining features were unique to the new gun its self. These were a hinged door for the loading gate and a barrle mounted sprign mounted ejector rod designed to make one at a time extaaction a little faster by avoiding the manual push pull action revolver ejectors from Europe were burdened with. It was essentially replaced by a push and let go system that speeded up cartridge ejection by half in site gate revolvers. This new revolver was called officially named the Single Action Army Model byt when it got in the hands of civilians and replaced the Colt 1851 Navy as the definitive "wild wooly west" revolver it become the most famous and recognized of all handguns (Sorry Luger fans but true) under the names "peacemaker", "Colt equalizer", and "six gun". The Cilt Single Action Army Model was originally chambered for the .45 Colt and .45 Scofield army cartridge only but would soon come to be chambered in most other center fire and rim fire cartridges available in the latter 19th century. In the army trials for a new handgun the Single Action Army would be pitted against the Smith and Wesson "Scofield" Model Revolver, This was essentially a variation of the Model 3 that used a frame mounted opening latch rather than the original barrel mounted one. It was probably because of its conservative design that the Single Action Army won out over the Scofield in this trial.
However Smith and Wesson did get a military offer for their original Model 3 as a result of a representitive of the Russian Czar visiting America in search of a revolver for his army. Under this Russian Contract the Model 3 would undergo three changes. The first was in the Cartridge. The Russians wanted a "European" style .44 cartridge with its bullet lubrication grooves inside the cartridge case rather than an "American" style one with the grooves outside the cartridge like those of a rim fire cartridge's bullet. With this change Model 3s chmabered for the "American" style cartridge became known as American Models and those chambered for the "European" style cartridge became called Russian Models. However in many ways the "European" style cartridge was a better design than the "American" and it became the basis for all subsequent Smith and Wesson center fire cartridge development and is still the revolver cartridge type we use today. The second change in the Model 3 was at the behest of the Russians and was basically aimed at giving the Revolver a more "European" look throughout. The Third change shortened the barrel and gave the gun an easier takedown system for cleaning. These Russian contracts pretty much kept Smith and Wesson too busy for any further competition with other American revolver manufacturers until the late 1870s.
Remington like Smith and Wesson started the open cartridge revolver era with mainly pocket and "darrenger" designs that were called Remington-Smoot designs in a variety of Centerfire and Rim Fire calibers. However the popularity of the Colt and Smith and Wesson army sized designs led them to come out with an army sized revolver with a hinged side gate and spring loaded ejector rod whose housing kept the design of their earlier percussion design do that remington holsters would not have to be changed. However since this model came too late for either the American or Russian Army trials it never captured the popularity of the Colt and Smith and Wesson models.
Another revolver manufacturer Merwin and Hubert tried to make it big by combining the automatic extraction feature of Smith and Wessons with the side gate loading feature of Colts and Remingtons. They did manage to sell quite a few oreolvers on this oddball design but went out of business towartd the end ort the 19th century.
the main revolver events in England and Europe at this time were built around the double action lock. basically three such locks developed along national lines in Europe, the Chamalot Delvigne, The Gasser, and the Nagant which would be destined to produce one of the most complex but successfu "oddball" revolvers of all time. It was also at this time that England saw the rise of P. Webley and Son which eventually became the Webley and Scott company that would hold a virtual monopoly on British revolvers up until the time "gun control" laws in the isles banned them. Most of these national revolvers employed the original side swinging manual push pull ejectors like the early European center fire revolvers but the French Chamalot Delvignes used a spring loaded barrel mounted one like the Colt Single action army. This would have made the French Cahmalot Delvigne the most advanced revolver of the time but for one thing. This was that P Webley and Son in addition to their side gate "Royal Irish Constabulary series revolvers was also building revolvers based on a variation of the Smith and Wesson Schofield design which included the first revolver latch that could be opened by the thumb from rhe left frame of the gun. This led eventualy to the Webley Green Revolver and the Webley service revolvers that were truely the most advanced handguns of the pre 1880s 19th century.
American developments got underway again when the Smith and Wesson contracts with Russia were completed. It started with a complete revamp of the Smith and Wesson lines. All of the original rimfire Smith and Wessons were dumped from the line and a new simplified automatic ejector replaced the original rack and pinion design in their center fire line. This change was forst done in the Model 3 which became the New Model 3. While the New Model 3 did not make much of a splash in the "Wild Wooly West" it did become a favorite of eastern target shooters and several of the "bull's eye" records set with it still stand today. Along with the New Model 3 came a New Model 1 1/2 which was a .32 centerfire rather than a rimmfire and used the new hinged frame/automatic extractor system rather than the old Civil War system. A totally new .38 caliber revolver without a model number sat between these two. This new line was also Smith and Wesson's first revolvers to use an automatic safety notch or "rebounding hammer" system. Smith and Wesson also used their single action frames for a series of .22 single shot target pistols that became popular with the eastern "bulls eye" shooting market.
It was also in the late 1870s through the 1890s that interest was awakened in the double action revolver In America. Colt and Merwin and Hubert were the first ones to make moves in this direction when Merwin and Hubert added a Dean Harding style double action mechinsim to many of the revolvers in their line and Colt's William Mason designed a modified Adams action for what came to be known as the Lightning .38 and Thunderer .41 and New Fronteer .45 caliber revolvers. However Mason through designing a rear cylinder locking design with several easily brakable parts actually hampered Colt double action revolvers until the close of the century. Smith and wesson also employed a modified Adams system for double action in a two lines of hinge frame revolvers in .32, .38 and .44 calibers that probably became their most popular American sellers under using this opening/extraction system. The regular double action line was true double action and could be trigger fired or thumbed cocked. the other line called Safety "Hammerless" or more popularly "lemmon squeezer" revolvers basically used an Adams trigger action only system with a concealed hammer. Another feature of the Safety "Hammerless" series was it was the only popular revolver series by a major manufacturer in America that employed a manual safety in the form of a grip safety. It was this device that gave the name "lemmon squeezer" to these guns.
Another important gun to come out of the late 19th" century was the Iver Johnson "Owl Head" or automatic extracting revolver. While Iver Johnson is usually considered a "saturday night special" manufacturer today his 19th and early 20th century revolvers in .32 and .38 center fire calibers were the first to use a transfer bar safety that allowd positive savety in loading all five of the gun's chambers. In the Iver Johnsons this transfer bar was a part of an Adams style trigger mounted hammer lifter.
In the late 1880s the Colt company realized that if double action was going to work for them they would have to devise a way to compete with the Smith and Wesson hinge frame system. Their premere designer William Mason realized from the time he started making Experemental revolvers for Winchester that the most competitive system would be a combined hinge/arbor system called a crane or a yoke mounted to the left side of an otherwise solid frame revolver that swung out to the side for loading and manually pushing a spring loaded star extracter by disengaging a frame mounted latch. Mason mated this system with his iffy double action mechinism to produce essentially what we would call the first "modern" revolver. The Colt Model of 1889 Navy Revolver. After its introduction the mechinism was modified to make it acceptable for militray use and gave it a rebounding hammer system for added safety. The result which was adopted by the Army as the Model of 1892 in .38 center fire caliber could fire reasonably in single action but could still be iffy in double action. The final perfection of the Colt double action revolver in the 19th century was the first model New Service in .45 Colt caliber. This time they dumped the Iffy Mason double action for a Webly Service revolver style Dean Harding action with a rebounding hammer system. In 1902 a Positive Safety Lock mechanism was added to the new Service internally which mad it much safer to load all six chambers of the revolver that it was with previous Colt Models. This basic system would be downsized for their "Navy" (Soon to be called Official Police instead) and pocket pistol sized revolvers to become the definitive Colt double action revolver system up to the 1970s when it was dumped except in the pocket and Python models for another Dean Harding system based on the Iver Jhonson transfer bar safety system rather than a rebounding hammer.
However because of "prior art" problems Colt could not patent the side swinging cylinder mechinism. this led Smith and Wesson to test the waters in 1896 with a .32 caliber revolver that employed a simpler version of it. Rather rhan using a side latch theirs used a n ejector rod based lock which was opened merely by pushing the ejector rod foreward with the thumb to open the cylinder. However during the Spanish American war when they were called upon to supplement the Colt 38s which were sn short supply and still rather "iffy" double action wise Smith and Wesson came up with their most popular revolver of all time. This gun basically used a modification of their 1896 system where the ejector rod mounted cylinder lock was opened by a frame mounted plunger rather than the ejector rod itself so that the mechinism would operate like the more familiar Colt latch. From that time on Smith and Wesson started de emphisizing their 19th century hinged frame models for a new series of side swing cylinder models known as Hand Ejectors that were built in calibers from .22 long rifle up to the .455 Webley British service cartridge. These went through several changes such as the cylinder lock locking in two places the the frame behind the cylinder and under the barrel to better secure the crane. (The larger hand ejectors in .44 special and .455 Webley calibers were actually locked in three places under the barrel, at the crane and at the frame in their first production runs and therefore called "triple lock" models. However the crane lock was soon despensed with and only the frame and barrel lock retained.) Another important change in hand ejectors was to thicken the barrel near the cylinder which gave then their barrels their unique tapered appearance, a replacement of the flat spring powered pivoting lever used for the hammer rebound and trigger return functions with a coil spring loaded hammer rebound/trigger return slide and several attempts at the Colt Positive Safety lock tied to the cylinder tirning hand at first and then later to the rebound slide. The rebound slide based one adopted in 1945 is the one in current use. Basically Smith and Wesson revolvers today still follow this design but use modern soft rubber "ergonomic" grips instead of the traditional walnut ones. They are available in calibers ranging from .22 long rifle to the new king of handgun cargridges the .500 Smith and Wesson Magnum.
Before leaving this part of firearms history there are two more oddball revolvers that will be mentioned, one because it pointed the way to the next advance in handguns and the other because it was probably the most complex and rube Gildburgish of all commercially and militarily successful revolvers. These are the Webley Fosberry revolver and the Nagant "gas seal" revolver.
The Webley Fosbery is important because even though it was a revolver it was NOT a mechanical handgun but one of the first Semi automatic designs. Basically its semi automatic functionality was based on having two frames, the main frame and the grip frame with a FIXED cylinder stop. Also the Webley Fosberry's cylinder did not have the usual ratchet at the rear of the cylinder but a zig zag arangement of cuts around it. Essentially this is how the Webley Fosbery worked. The gun was fist loaded in the manner of a typical Webley service revolver and cocked by pulling the hammer back like the slide on a regular semi auto postol after which its safety could be set until the gun was on the target the shooter intended to shoot. Upon fireing the hammer would fall in the usual revolver fashion and upon cartridge detonation the main frame would recoil independently from the grip frame and the cylinder would be rotated by the fixed cylinder stop following the zig zag path on the cylinder and the trigger would be disconnected from the sear in the main frame. The main frame would then return to the battery position leaving the hammer cocked and the sear re connected upon release of the trigger for the next shot. The Webly Fosbery was mainly used in target competitions however because it was not as practical a military semi auto as the luger or the Browning/Colt autos that were starting to go on the market at the same time as the Webley Fosbery.
Much like the Webley Fosbery was seen as the answer to how to build a semi automatic handgun around the traditional revolver technology. The Nagant "gas seal" revolver seemed to be the answer to another non existant revolver "problem". The gas leak that always accompanied revolvers between the cylinder and the barrel. Ever since revolvers began it was speculated that a large part of a cartridges power was lost in this gap and Leon Nagant dedicated himself to looking aor a wau to solve this "problem". He found this in the lapsed patents of one Henry Pieper and proceed to build a new revolver based on the Pieper design in .32 caliber. Basically the Nagant was a conventional European revolver with a side swinging totally manual ejector rod that was stored in the arbor when not in use with a double action rebounding hammer lockwork. However to this arangement was a cylinder that moved backward and foreward as well as around when the trigger was pulled in trigger action or the hammer was cocked in double action that was powered by special complicated cylinder locks and turning devices that allowed it to be locked in both the foreward and indexed positions. Add to this the Nagant used a cartridge with its bullet so deep seated in the case it resembele a blank fron the side. The idea behind all this was when the culinder was moved foreward and locked the combination of the foreward locked position with the sepcial cartridge would efficiently nutralize loss of power through the cylinder barrel gap because it would virtually no longer exist on a temporary basis. the gun did what it was advertised to do but in fact proved that cylinder barrel gap power losses were neglagable and that its extra complexity was not necessary. However one country proved to be interested in Nagant's revolver when they were looking for a revolver to replace their obsoleting Snith and Wesson Model 3s, Russia. The official excuse that the Russians gave for this decision was that Nagant also made their Mosin Nagant Rifles but the actual truth behind their choice of the Nagant revolver was probably more sinister. The Nagant, bedcause of its "gas seal" system was and still is the ONLY revolver that can be effectively fitted with a firearms silencer.
Revolvers and single shot pistols are still with us despite the arrival of the semi automatic pistol on the scene. There are several reasons for this but probably the main ones are the purely mechanical function of these guns and their ability to use high powered cartridges, even including popular ccenter fire hunting rifle cartridges with the new generation of single shots using bolt action and falling block rifle actions from remington and others. Another aspect of this cartridge vorsitility in purely mechanical firearms is that they can use weak loads like "wax loads" and "squibs" for cheap target practice without a maldunction while such loads either would not function the recoil action of a semi auto at all or else would require a modification of the weapons slide or bolt return spring to achieve functioning with such loads. For reasons of reliability and cartridge virsitality the revolver and the single shot pistol will probably be with us for a long time barring any further "gun control" idiocy on the part of the state.
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