The Smith and Wesson Model 1 was the first revolver to use self-contained cartridges. Of course there have been a multitude of improvements and changes, but if you put a revolver from today next to one from the late eighteen hundreds it is easy to tell they are the same species. It was that concept-drilled-through cylinders to allow the use of pre-loaded cartridges-which launched the revolver into what we see as the modern design. They patented his invention and blocked Colt from building cartridge firearms for almost 20 years. After Colt fired White for daring to suggest an improvement to his revolver design, White took his idea to Smith & Wesson. White had an idea of a “bored-through” revolver cylinder to allow the use of metallic cartridges in a handgun. A neat feature on this gun was that the trigger was hidden inside the frame until the gun was cocked.Ĭolt made a huge mistake when he dismissed an idea from one of his gunsmiths, Rollin White. By 1836, he was producing the Colt Patterson, named for Patterson, N.J. He is arguably said to have invented the modern revolver with that model. The modern design revolver has been around since 1830 when Sam Colt was bored while crossing the ocean on a slow boat and carved out a wooden model of a revolver. It’s a very interesting piece of gun building, but didn’t catch on. It belonged to the officer Georg von Reichwein from Hessen in Germany. The first recorded revolver is an 8-shot, manually rotated, flintlock revolver made in 1597. This cylinder turns on a pivot pin in the center to align each hole in the cylinder in turn with the barrel and the firing mechanism.

That cylinder has holes drilled in which the charges or cartridges are fitted.

A revolving cylinder is fitted into the frame with a handle on the bottom.

The revolver was the first successful repeating handgun, and even today, the basic design has remained the same.

One of the biggest advancements in firearms was repeating firearms.

Ruger 6 22 calibre revolver used