Earliest Flintlock Revolvers and Repeaters ?:

To start - I should say that I don't know any of this stuff myself - I just came across it and feel that it's well worth passing forward.

 - But SO many people think that Samuel Colt invented the revolver ... (Colts first patents 1835, 1836).

However - Elisha H Collier made a five shot flintlock revolver in 1814 (1818 patent) that worked well by the standards of the day. The cylinder had to be turned by hand and the 'frizzen' contains a reservoir for powder to self-prime the pan.

Collier 5 Shot Flintlock Revolver.

 

This was no 'one-off' prototype - more than 10,000 of these were made between 1819 to 1824 by John Evans & Son, London - and widely used by the colonial British forces in India.

Note: Rod has e-mailed: "There are a very small number of Colliers in NZ (pistols and shotguns).  Tuawhaiki, the chief of the southern Nga Tahu and based on Ruapuke Island near Bluff, was a lover of good guns and the visiting whalers and sealers soon learned to give him nice examples in order to get their concessions granted.  A Collier revolver (which I believe is at the Southland museum) is one of these gifts."

Another Collier viewed from the other Side.

- Now, going back in time -  I recall that the Ferguson Repeating Flintlock rifle dates from 1776 (see my piece 8 April 2015) - and could be fired some six times a minute.

 Next I'm going to mention here the Lorenzoni Repeating Flintlock Pistol of 1680.

Lorenzoni of 1680.

- Not a revolver but this amazing gun has a powder magazine in the stock above the trigger and another mag. for the balls - the video shows how it worked (six to ten shots) better than I can try explain:

(- In the United States the Cookson Repeater of 1750 used the same system..)

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- And then there was the Hans Stopler 8 shot revolver of 1597 ..

Hans Stopler 8 Shot Arqubus Revolver of 1597

 

I'm not qualified in any way to write about these very early firearms - other than to say that the history of gunpowder and guns is still being researched and discovered by better brains than me.

 

Don't you love this shooting history ? - A good starting point is to read the Wikipedia entry for "Revolver" - but who'd have thought that they go back more than 400 years?

- I'll take one of each please. - Dream on eh.

 

Marty K.