RE: StaggerCyl(inder) Revolvers

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Doc Hudson
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RE: StaggerCyl(inder) Revolvers

Post by Doc Hudson »

Some days ago, in a thread on dream guns, mention was made of a fictitious two barreled revolver dreamed up by L. Neil Smith. I commented that Smith’s two-barreled revolver had been manufactured in the 1880.

I was wrong!

Two-barreled revolvers date back into the percussion era!

We won’t even discuss the two-barreled revolvers and revolving rifles built by Billinghurst, in which a cylinder revolved around a shotgun barrel. Billinghurst did not patent his design, but LeMat did and became famous for it.

Neither will we discuss the various revolvers with a single-shot barrel mounted on a pivot below the barrel.

The fascinating book Firearms Curiosa by Lewis Winant, originally published in 1955 and now available from the NRA’s Firearms Classic Library, has an entire chapter devoted to two-barreled revolvers.

Mr. Winant opens by discussing firearms of the Billinghurst/LeMat style and the revolver/single-shot models. The first true two-barreled revolver was the Vaughn Revolver patented in 1862.

The Vaughn had two side-by-side barrels, two hammers, an 8-shot cylinder, and one trigger. Caliber appears to be in the neighborhood of .36 caliber and the weapon looks like a Colt Navy Revolver. The loading lever is set up to ram home two balls at the same time.

With both hammers cocked, the barrels could be fired one at the time, with an indefinite pause between shots by pulling the trigger and releasing it. Two shots could be fired in rapid succession by pulling the trigger, holding it after the first shot fired and then continue the trigger pull to fire the second barrel. Both barrels could be discharged simultaneously by pulling the trigger fully to the rear in one movement.

Of very similar design was the Ward Revolver patented in 1863. The main difference between the Ward and the earlier Vaughn Revolver is that Ward was designed to use metallic cartridges. I do not believe the Ward Revolvers were ever actually manufactured, if they had been, S&W would have sued them out of business for infringement of the Rolin White Bored Through Cylinder patent,

In 1866, came the Christ Revolver, patented by “Mr. Albert Christ of California, Hamilton County, Ohio.”

Mr. Christ’s revolver, which looks much like an overgrown Smith & Wesson Tip-Up revolver was an 18-shot .22 rimfire, The cyinder was bored with two concentric circles of chambers, with 12 chambers on the outer circle and 6 in the inner circle. The hammer had a movable firing pin that had to e manually switched between the inner and outer circles.

Some true two-barreled revolvers had two different calibers. In 1874, Mr. Owen Jones patented a two barrel revolver, with one barrel looking to be a .22 and the other loking to be either a .38 or .41 RF. To accomplish this trick a second cylinder was stored in the revolver’s grip. One chambered for the small caliber the other for the larger caliber. To swap calibers, one had to change cylinders.

In addition to these American designs, there were a number of European designs, many of them of the pin-fire ignition system and chambering as many as 20-rounds.

Besides the handguns readily identified as revolvers were the German made “Bar” Pistols. These vest-pocket sized pistols had two superposed barrels and rather than a round cylinder, they held a flat cartridge block holding four cartridges, two up and two down. Two heavy double-action pulls of the trigger would fire each barrel in succession. After which, the shooter manually turned the cartridge block over to expose the other two cartridges to the firing pin.

I intended to illustrate this article with photos of the handguns mentioned, but problems with PhotoBucket scotched that idea. If anyone wants to post the photos, PM me your e-mail addres and I’ll send the photos.

While searching for photos of the various two-barreled revolvers, I discovered that the double-barreled revolver idea is not yet laid to rest. As late as 1985, the US Patent Office issued Patent # 4561340 for a two-barreled revolver. From the patent drawings, it looks to be a swing-out cylinder DA revolver with an action not unlike the Vaughn design of 122 years earlier.

So gents, if L. Neil Smith wants to come up with a really new idea in firearms design, he’s got his work cut out for him. There were even revolvers with more than one cylinder.
Doc Hudson, OOF, IOFA, CSA, F&AM, SCV, NRA LIFE MEMBER, IDJRS #002, IDCT, King of Typoists

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AJMD429
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Re: RE: StaggerCyl(inder) Revolvers

Post by AJMD429 »

Cool info. I always wondered why nobody used the 'linear cylinder' kind of concept like with some of the air rifles you see, where the pellets are in a 5 or 6 shot 'strip' which works like a cylinder only moving straight. I guess somebody did use it, after all!
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Doc Hudson
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Re: RE: StaggerCyl(inder) Revolvers

Post by Doc Hudson »

AJMD429 wrote:Cool info. I always wondered why nobody used the 'linear cylinder' kind of concept like with some of the air rifles you see, where the pellets are in a 5 or 6 shot 'strip' which works like a cylinder only moving straight. I guess somebody did use it, after all!
Yep, it's been done.

They used to call them "Harmonica Guns" They came in rifles and pistols/ In some cases the ammo bar moved horizontally and in some vertically.

I remember seeing a photo of John Browning's Dad holding a 10-shot Harmonica Rifle that he'd built.

here is a photo:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_j7PMWDJke08/S ... onica2.jpg

And a link to a pretty interesting article:
http://underhammers.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... ammer.html
Doc Hudson, OOF, IOFA, CSA, F&AM, SCV, NRA LIFE MEMBER, IDJRS #002, IDCT, King of Typoists

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JohndeFresno
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Re: RE: StaggerCyl(inder) Revolvers

Post by JohndeFresno »

Wow!
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