What Is A Revolver?

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 519, 10 December 1853

introduction - minié - needle gun

revolver - colt - india wars - manufacture

QUIET peaceful folks, who neither wish to shoot nor to the shot at, hear and read about revolvers, and wonder what it can all mean. A revolver, so far as they can judge, seems to be a killing-machine; but whether it revolves like a catherine-wheel, or like a top, or like a satellite round a planet, they cannot guess; nor does it appear to them why the revolving faculty should increase the killing power. They hear, too, of Minié rifles and of needle-guns, and they wonder whether these also revolve. Be it for us to throw a few gleams of light on this matter.

A gun, or musket, or rifle, or fowlingpiece, as now made, is an advanced stage of a kind of firearms which has gone through many modifications. Arquebuses, haquebuts, hand-cannon, hand-guns, calivers, carabines, fusils, musketoons, petronels, firelocks - all were guns held in the hand while they were discharged, the mode of ignition being the chief source of difference. The matchlock was an arrangement of touch hole, whereby the gun could be fired by applying a match; the wheel-lock was a complicated piece of apparatus, in which a revolving steel wheel produced sparks by striking against a piece of pyrites or sulphuret of iron; but the flint-lock, invented in the time of Queen Elizabeth, produced a spark by one blow of a piece of flint against a piece of steel. A much greater advance was made when percussion-caps were introduced, consequent on when simply struck. The detonating mixture is put into a little copper cell or cap, which is adjusted over the touch-hole, and so arranged in the other part of the lock, that a smart blow breaks the cap and causes the contents to explode, igniting at the same time the gunpowder in the barrel.

Thus, then, the firing of guns has, in different ages, been effected by a match, by a revolving wheel, by a steel and flint, and by a percussion-cap. The loading, too, has undergone changes; for while some kinds of hand-guns are loaded at the muzzle, others receive their charge at the breech, near the stock or handle. The length of the barrel is another matter which varies considerably; the barrel of greater diameter will carry a larger shot, but the barrel of greater length will send it to a greater distance. The interior of the barrel, again, is a subject of attention; for while common muskets have a smooth bore, rifles have the bore grooved spirally, so as to give a kind of spinning motion to the bullet, calculated to aid the straightness of its flight. The bullet itself is also subject to modification; for while the general form is spherical, there are many other forms occasionally introduced.

Now, our quiet peaceful reader may perchance be content to know, that most of the modern improvements in respect to revolvers, Minié rifles, needle-guns, and so forth, relate to one or other of these five matters: the mode of igniting the powder - the mode of loading the gun - the length and diameter of the barrel - the rifling of the bore - and the shape of the bullet. We think that if; instead of confining our brief description to revolving pistols, we also say a few words concerning the new muskets and rifles, we may increase the intelligibility of the matter by causing each portion to throw a little light on the others. We now, therefore, summon the Minié rifle into court.

Captain Minié, a French officer, has invented a form of bullet wilich enables it to reach to a much greater distance then an ordinary spherical ball or bullet. It is of lead, cylindro-conical in shape, the conical end being placed forward in the gun. The hinder or cylindrical portion is made hollow; and into this hollow a plug of iron is thrust. When the gun is fired, the iron is driven violently like a wedge into the hollow, and drives the lead outwardly until it very tightly fills the rifle grooves in the barrel; this close contact insures a straighter course and greater range to the bullet, than if there were any 'windage' or space between the bullet and the barrel. A body of French riflemen, called the Tirailleurs do Vincennes, are provided with these Minié bullets, and with rifles invented by M. Delvigne, in which many improvements have been introduced. This rifle will shoot further than an ordinary rifle in respect to the barrel itself; while the Minié bullet will fly further than a spherical bullet, so that the two improvements together become rather formidable. It has been said that this rifle will hit a mark 600 yards distant with as much accuracy as a common British musket can at 300 yards; and that, with the Minié bullet, a distance of 1100 yards can be attained with nearly as much precision; nay, it is even asserted that Captain Minié will undertake to hit a man at the distance of 1420 yards, three times out of five shots - a distance, be it remarked, of more than three-quarters of a mile.

The new Prussian musket, or zündnadelgewehr (needle-igniting gun), or needle-gun, depends on a peculiar mode of firing. There is a sharp steel needle, acted on by a spring, so as to dart forward when the trigger is pulled; it pierces the paper of the cartridge, and ignites the charge by striking the priming. With this musket or rifle is used a particular kind of bullet, conical at the point, cylindrical in the middle, and round in the rear - a form which gives it much more straightness, of course, than a spherical bullet can command.

No one but a military man can conceive how eagerly and warmly the respective merits of the various muskets and rifles are now canvassed. English and French, German and Belgian, Danish and Swedish officers are discussing the matter; while gunsmiths are exercising their ingenuity in devising new modes of producing the desired results. And in addition to the variations in the modes of rifling the bore, igniting the charge, and shaping the bullet, there are tough contests respecting the superiority of loading at the muzzle and loading at the breech - two modes which require very different arrangements near the lock of the gun.