Revolvers: Pepper-Box Revolver

The first repeating revolver type weapons and predecessors of modern revolvers are called pepper-box revolvers. The name has to do with the fact that they tend to resemble an old-fashioned pepper mill.

The chief characteristic of pepper-box revolvers are that they have multiple barrels that revolve about a central axis.

The firing mechanism can be practically any firing mechanism that has been used in the history of firearms. Indeed, there are pepper boxes that utilize matchlock, wheel lock, flintlock, percussion cap, pinfire cartridge, rimfire cartridge or centerfire cartridge.

The first pepper-box revolvers originated in the 1500s and used matchlock mechanisms. The user would pre-load all the barrels ahead of time and then apply a match to fire each one in turn. By the 1790s, the firing mechanism of choice was the flintlock and Nock's of England was well known for making pepper-box revolvers using a flintlock mechanism. All these early pepper-box revolvers had no automated mechanism to rotate the barrels, so the user had to do this manually after each shot.

The above is a fine example of a pepper-box revolver using a flintlock firing mechanism. Each time the user wants to fire it, he or she would have to turn the barrel, then open the pan and put some priming powder in, then cock the lock and then pull the trigger to fire. The weapon fires the barrel that happens to be at the top-most position when the trigger is pulled. The advantage of this over a single barrel pistol is that the user saves the time of loading a new ball and powder each time, as this can be done in advance for the six barrels.

Later on, when percussion cap technology was invented, the industrial revolution was in full swing and this enabled pepper-box revolvers to be mass produced. This made these revolvers much cheaper and thus affordable to a lot more people.

The image above is a 24-barrel pepper-box revolver using percussion cap technology. This particular specimen was made in the 1850s by a Belgian gun maker called Mariette. The user would load each barrel individually and then put a percussion cap on each of the nipples sticking out at the back of each barrel. While a 24-barrel specimen like this would take at least 40-60 minutes to load, but only take a short time to fire.

With the advent of pinfire cartridges, the pepper-box regained some popularity in the late 1800s as a small concealable weapon.

Public domain image from wikipedia.com

In the above example, we see a French-made Lefaucheux pepper-box revolver using pinfire cartridge technology. The user first removes the cylinder from the weapon by unscrewing the nut marked in the figure. The user then loads pinfire cartridges into the back of the cylinder, making sure that the firing pins of the cartridges stick out of the holes in the cylinder. The user then pushes the cylinder back into the weapon frame and screws the nut back in place. When the user pulls the trigger, the hammer strikes the pin of the cartridge on top of the weapon and it fires.

Most pepper-box revolvers are short range weapons and therefore, many specimens have no rifling at all, since it is not necessary for such short ranges. There are some examples with rifling in the barrels, but the majority of them have no rifling, including many that were manufactured decades after it became common to add rifling to other types of weapons.

One of the difficulties with pepper-box pistols is adding sights to the weapon, but since the weapon is usually designed for point-blank range use, this is not much of an issue. It is also difficult to maintain the balance of such a weapon.

Pepper-box revolvers started to disappear from public view around the 1840s or so, after the invention of true revolvers by Samuel Colt and others. However, there are still a few pepper-box type revolvers still being used today, most notably a P11 underwater revolver designed by Germany's Heckler & Koch.

The idea of a multiple barrel weapon has also been used in non-portable weapons. Richard Gatling used the idea his Gatling gun, which was mounted on a cart. The modern descendants of the Gatling gun are still used to this day, notably by the Fairchild Republic A-10 Warthog and the Lockheed AC-130 airplanes.

Revolvers: Basics

A revolver is a weapon that allows the user to fire multiple times without stopping to reload. While there are some other weapons, such as double barrel shotguns, that also allow a user to fire more than once, a characteristic of revolvers is that the firing chambers of a revolver turn about an axis (i.e. they "revolve") and this is the origin of the name.

Early revolvers were called pepper-boxes and they had multiple barrels which revolved about an axis and a common firing mechanism. The earliest ones exist from 1597 (a revolving arquebus) and use matchlock mechanisms. In the 1700s, James Puckle invented the "Puckle Gun" which had multiple firing chambers and one common barrel and firing mechanism. A hand crank rotated the firing chambers and brought each one in line with the barrel and firing mechanism. Elisha Collier of Boston, patented a popular revolver model in 1818, which used the flintlock firing mechanism. He also produced revolving shotguns and rifles. In 1819, John Evans of London bought Collier's patent and produced several weapons which were used by British soldiers stationed in India.

Many big developments in revolver technology were by Samuel Colt. In 1836, he patented his first revolver model. It was manufactured in Colt's factory in Paterson, New Jersey, and hence it is popularly called the "Paterson revolver." While Colt's name is the most famous one associated with revolvers, he never claimed to invent the concept. In fact, the Paterson revolver was an improved variant of the concept invented by Collier. Some of Colt's big innovations dealt with applying concepts of mass production, interchangeable parts and assembly line techniques to revolver production and this reduced the price of revolvers. He was also an excellent salesman and promoter and his weapons became extremely popular with the public. One of his later models was nicknamed "Peacemaker" and "Equalizer". A popular saying of the time went "Abe Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them all equal!"

Colt's first revolvers all used a ratchet and pawl mechanism to hold the cylinders in place. They were also "single action" mechanisms, i.e. the user must cock the weapon manually. The act of pulling back the hammer to cock the weapon also rotates the cylinder. Once the weapon is cocked, the user can pull the trigger to fire it.

Later on in 1851, a British gunsmith named Robert Adams invented the first "double action" revolver. In this mechanism, pulling the trigger halfway automatically rotates the cylinder and cocks the hammer. Pulling the trigger back some more releases the cocked hammer. Thus, the user can fire the weapon with just one trigger pull. The Adams revolver was hand-crafted, which made it more expensive than Colt's design. It also had a few flaws in the hammer and frame. This could only fire in double-action mode and was hence called a "DAO revolver" (i.e.) Double-Action Only. Improvements to the Adams model were made by Lieutenant Frederick E.B. Beaumont, a veteran of the Crimean war and the resulting model was called the Beaumont-Adams revolver. This new model could be operated in both single-action or double-action mode and was such a huge success that Samuel Colt had to shut down their factory in England as a result. Mechanisms that operate in both single and double-action mode are called DA revolvers (DA standing for "Double Action").

Most modern revolvers to this day are double-action. They are still used by law-enforcement around the world and remain popular among many private gun-owners. In fact, it is said by many that the best way to teach a new handgun enthusiast about shooting basics is to start with a revolver first.

Some of the advantages of revolvers over other multiple firing mechanisms (notably the automatic pistol) are:

1. Simpler mechanism, which is less prone to jamming.
2. Ease of use: With a double action revolver, all one has to do is pull the trigger. With a single-action revolver, one cocks the hammer and then pulls the trigger. Unlike a pistol or an automatic rifle, there are no additional safety mechanisms that need to be meddled with.
3. More powerful cartridges can be used: Due to the robust design of the revolver, bigger magnum cartridges can be used with one. In fact, the biggest handgun cartridges are mostly designed for revolvers.
4. Much easier and faster to reload than a pistol. Anyone who has loaded a pistol or rifle magazine knows that the first few cartridges go in easy, but the last 3 or 4 cartridges take considerable effort to push into the magazine. With a revolver, one merely opens the chamber and drops cartridges into it.
5. Works with greater range of ammunition types: Revolvers can be used with blanks, wad-cutters etc., which do not work with automatic pistols.
6. Easier cleaning and maintenance: Since revolvers have fewer moving parts than automatic pistols and rifles, they don't require disassembly and are therefore much easier to clean and maintain.

On the other hand, pistols generally hold more ammunition, are lighter and slimmer profile, and also use cheaper ammunition than revolvers.

One of the reasons that revolvers are/were popular with Indian police has to do with poor quality of ammunition available to them. If a pistol misfires due to faulty ammunition, the user has to pull back the slide and extract the faulty cartridge before it can be fired again. This takes a bit of time to accomplish. With a revolver, if one cartridge is faulty and does not fire, the user can simply pull the trigger again and the cylinder automatically rotates and brings up the next round ready to fire.

In the next few posts, we will look into various types of revolvers.