Revolver - Forgotten Weapons

The Gun as Art: Tiffany Colts from Two Eras

March 9, 2016 Ian McCollum 12

The famous American jewelry company Tiffany & Co has a long history of offering decorative firearms, and today I’m looking at two of them. One is a cartridge conversion Colt from the 1870s, engraved by […]

James D. Julia: Confederate Spiller & Burr Revolver (Presentation!)

March 7, 2016 Ian McCollum 13

The Spiller & Burr was a Confederate copy of the 1854 Whitney revolver, made in .36 caliber under contract to the CSA. As with so many Confederate arms projects, many thousands were promised and only […]

James D. Julia: Tucker & Sherrard Texas Confederate Revolver

March 3, 2016 Ian McCollum 17

The Tucker & Sherrard (and later Sherrard & Clark) is one of the more interesting Texas Confederate revolvers. The company initially was granted a contract with the Texas state government to provide 100 revolvers per […]

James D. Julia: LeMat Grapeshot Revolver Design Evolution

March 2, 2016 Ian McCollum 32

The LeMat grapeshot revolver is one of the most distinctive and powerful sidearms of the US Civil War, sporting both a 9-round .42 caliber cylinder of pistol bullets and a shotgun barrel as cylinder axis. […]

James D. Julia: Sisterdale Texas Confederate Revolver

February 28, 2016 Ian McCollum 40

The Sisterdale revolver is one of the most original designs of the Confederate revolvers. It was devised by a group of Texans led by one Alfred Kapp, son of a German immigrant in Sisterdale, Texas. […]

RIA: An Overview of the Pinfire Revolver System

February 22, 2016 Ian McCollum 21

The pinfire system was an early cartridge type which saw widespread use in Europe, but was not widely adopted in the United States. First invented by a French designer named Pauly, it was made commercially […]

RIA: Colt Richards Conversion 1860 Army

February 13, 2016 Ian McCollum 7

Colt, like all the other manufacturers in the US, was prevented from making cartridge revolvers by the Rollin white patent, which finally expired in 1869. This left them limited to their percussion revolvers, the 1849, […]

RIA: Polish Ng30 Nagant Revolver

February 11, 2016 Ian McCollum 31

The Model 1895 Nagant revolver is pretty common in the US thanks to large imports of Russian revolvers, but we rarely see Polish Nagants. These were adopted as a sidearms for police organizations under the […]

Allen & Thurber Pepperbox at RIA

November 27, 2015 Ian McCollum 40

If the Colt Paterson was the high-end classy choice for a sidearm in the mid-1800s, the Allen & Thurber pepperbox would have been the simple working man’s alternative. While Colt was working for military contracts, […]

Walch Double-Shot Revolver at RIA

November 24, 2015 Ian McCollum 16

Consider the problem of the pocket revolver of the 1860s. In order to be small enough to be reasonably concealable and comfortable to carry, it would typically be made in .31 caliber. That’s not a […]