![]() The “Colt Paterson Revolver” was originally made in. In 1838, Colt obtained a patent for a revolver that could fire five shots before needing to be reloaded, formed his own firearms-manufacturing company, and opened a factory in Paterson, New Jersey. Within a short time, Colt had carved a wooden model of his “revolver” idea, and began to work with a number of local gunsmiths to make a working prototype. While studying the mechanism of the ship’s steering wheel, which used a clutch device to hold it in place, Colt realized that a similar device could be used to turn a cylinder inside a gun, and if a number of hollowed-out chambers were bored into the cylinder, each could be lined up in front of a single barrel, fired, then the next chamber turned and locked into place to fire the next bullet. In 1832, a mechanically-inclined 18-year old apprentice named Samuel Colt, from Connecticut, was serving aboard a cargo ship. What was really needed was some sort of repeating mechanism that would allow someone to load a number of shots at one time, then fire them off one at a time without pausing to reload between shots. The percussion cap had the advantage of being easier to use than the flintlock, and also working in any weather conditions (flintlocks did not work in the rain), but it still limited the gun to one shot before reloading. Now, when the trigger was pulled, the gun’s hammer fell onto the percussion cap, setting off the explosive inside and touching off the main powder charge which fired the bullet. This was a small metal cup filled with mercury fulminate which replaced the bulky flintlock mechanism. In 1820, a technological breakthrough finally occurred with the introduction of the “percussion cap”. They were not only the standard military weapon of the day, but were vital as hunting weapons, especially in the rugged frontiers of colonial America. These were single-shot weapons that used flint chips to create hot sparks to fire off the gunpowder, and had to be laboriously reloaded through the muzzle after each shot. Los Angeles County Museum of Natural Historyįrom the time that the firearm replaced the sword and spear on the battlefield, in the 1600’s, most guns, both muskets and pistols, were flintlocks. ![]()
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