OLDEST REVOLVER ?

[stephen wood]

...doesn't Elisha Collier appear as a character in one of Mallinson's Hervey novels? - demonstrates the gun on Hampstead Heath

[fernando]

Well, this one is not so old ... but not so new, either

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[Philip]

Gentlemen,
Thanks much for posting all those pics of these rare and fascinating guns!

Not all the examples posted so far are true revolvers in the modern sense. What made Sam'l Colt's "invention" so notable, to the point that the essence of its design is still in current use, is that the multiple charges (powder and bullet) were housed in a revolving CYLINDER and were discharged one by one through a single BARREL when the mechanism lined each chamber up with the bore.

Firearms with multiple rotating barrels are a separate class, which culminated and ended with the PEPPERBOX pistols of the first half of the 19th cent. The advantage of the true REVOLVER, with its compact cylinder and single barrel, are obvious to anyone who has hefted each type of pistol of comparable length and caliber. The weight of a pair of p'boxes in belt holsters can pull a guy's pants down if his belt isn't cinched tight enough, and that's not even addressing the issues of aiming and balance.

Of all the guns on this thread so far, Collier's flintlock revolver and the rare Portuguese revolving fowling piece (oh my, where can I get one for my collection?) are the direct mechanical antecedents to Colt's prototype. All the rest are the forebears of the percussion pepperbox.

[Matchlock]

Exactly, Philip,

I think we can summarize the 500 years of the development of the revolver from several rotating barrels to the turning cylinder by defining it as a process of shortening the barrels to the length required by the load inside and simultaneously reducing their number to one which is longer than the cylinder.

On this basis, can the 'Apache' revolver which features only the cylinder be called a true revolver?

Best,
Michael

[fernando]

Hi Michael
May i say no ... at least semantically?
Technicalities apart, and giving place to connotations, this would belong to the class of "pepper boxes" (poivriers, pimenteiros), only later appearing those labelled as "revolvers" ... having had an intermediary hybrid, so called "transitional".
Could it be that, the early term for multi shooters was connected to the "repetition" terminology?
BTW, this French Apache setup was more an impressive resource than an efective weapon ... says i, in my innocence .
Fernando

[Matchlock]

Thank you so much for your precise arguments, Fernando,

They exactly confirm my opinion, so thanks again for denying my question.
My request was just meant to explore whether there are any differing opinions on this topic.

And yes, of course this curious weapon must have had very little practical use, apart from astounding people for its multiple functions combined. On the other hand, though - what practical use did my almost 500 year old four barrel mace have?
Please cf. http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8179

(I realize that the barrels did not rotate). In spite of the spikes in the head the grip is way too fragile and the head containg the barrels is way too heavy in order to really deal a hard blow - the grip would have broken in no time.
And the spearhead is riveted to the hinged muzzle lid in such a delicate way that it, too, would have broken at the very first thrust.

What I wish to say is that curious combination weapons like my mace or the Apache 'revolver' have been built again and again throughout the centuries regardless of their being of little or no practical use.
I feel they are just based on the playful human wit, which seems to have first manifested in the Italian High Renaissance Mannerism of the 16th century, ca. 1520-80.

As to your thesis that the term of multishot firearms may have related to early repeating arms I should suggest to rather put it the other way round. The earliest period illustrations and actually surviving pieces of both multibarrel and superimposed load firearms clearly prove that the invention of repeated fire out of one single barrel did not take place before ca. the 1570's - and that of course is identical with the first application of a revolving cylinder connected to a fixed barrel. )

Before that time (and for long after) it was all about either multiple barrels or superimposed loads in one barrel (the first evidence of the latter, a six shot snap tinderlock arquebus the upper five loads of which would of course have to be fired manually by holding a smoldering match or piece of tinder into the respective pan!, is found in a South German manuscript of ca. 1525 - please see attachment:

Best,
Michael

[Berkley]

Some references on the distinction between "revolvers" and "pepperboxes":

The origin of the word "pepperbox" as applied to firearms is obscure. The nickname was more popularly adopted by the purchasers and users of these arms in the mid-19th century and came into wide popular acceptance by collectors of the 20th century, rather than being adopted by the gun manufacturers themselves. As attested to by advertising, instruction sheets and other literature of the era, the makers preferred to term their arms as "revolving pistols" or "repeating pistols."

-Norm Flayderman, Guide to Antique American Firearms, 8th Ed.

The brothers Benjamin and Barton Darling were granted a patent for the first American pepperbox.... Mr. Benjamin Darling has been repeatedly quoted as having maintained until his death at an advanced age that he invented the first American revolver. (The word "pepperbox" was not in vogue at the time of his invention, though it had been used earlier and was to be revived a few years later in America. In the 1830's a pepperbox was a "revolver" or a "rotary pistol.") The Darling patent, dated April 13, 1836, claimed the rotation of the cylinder by cocking the hammer; the Colt patent, which also claimed this mechanical rotation, was dated February 25, 1836 - some seven weeks earlier.

-Lewis Winant, Pepperbox Firearms

My brother...had a small-sized Colt's revolver strapped around him for protection against the Indians, and to guard against accidents he carried it uncapped. Mr. George Bemis was dismally formidable. George Bemis was our fellow-traveler. We had never seen him before. He wore in his belt an old original "Allen" revolver, such as irreverent people called a "pepper-box." Simply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol. As the trigger came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over, and presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the ball.

To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat which was probably never done with an "Allen" in the world. But George's was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one of the stage-drivers afterward said, "If she didn't get what she went after, she would fetch something else." And so she did. She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow.

It was a cheerful weapon--the "Allen." Sometimes all its six barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, but behind it.

-Mark Twain - Roughing It, which follows the travels of young Mark Twain through the Wild West during the years 1861–1867.