History of Multi-Shot and Repeating Firearms, Part 1: 1400-1791 – Earliest Repeaters

History of Multi-Shot and Repeating Firearms, Part 1: 1400-1791 – Earliest Repeaters

The topic of ten-round magazines is pervasive in today’s legal debate surrounding certain firearms. While my research focuses on the past, particularly on the evolution of weapons technology, this work has been used to serve as a foundation to inform firearms debates in and out of the courtroom.

Historically, the capacity of repeaters and magazine-fed repeaters often was not relegated to a fixed number, rather that number constantly changed depending on design. Some of the earliest designs seemingly appear to have capacities chosen at random as the numbers do not follow a set standard, and in many cases, the exact number was not of prime importance to the fundamental concept. For example, a magazine firearm patent from 1849, a document requiring precision in language, lists the capacity as “say, twelve more or less.”(Photo 1) Even more standardized models see diversity within magazine capacity. The determining factors for these variances appear to have more to do with limitations resulting from barrel length, magazine type, caliber, weight, and a range of functional factors rather than a perceived desire to limit capacity because of potential criminal use.

Note: As will be shown in this series of Forum posts, repeating technology exists in many forms that are often being developed concurrently.

1400-1791 – Earliest Repeaters

According to twentieth century historian for the National Park Service and firearms expert, Harold L. Peterson, an interest in “repeating weapons is almost as old as the history of firearms.” The concept of a multi-shot and/or repeater dates to the earliest technology of firearms. Hand cannons even came in multi-barrel variations (Photo 2). The first ignition system, the matchlock had repeating variations, with arquebuses, made between 1490 and 1530, possessing ten round capacities. While some repeaters were employed on the battlefield, they would not be widely popular for use in war until the late nineteenth century. That did not mean, however, that innovation in repeating technology was stymied. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Without the confines of wartime tactics and budget, many repeating firearms were commissioned by civilians who utilized them. The simplest method of producing arms capable of firing more than one round without manually reloading initially was to fit a firearm with more than one barrel. However, due to weight limitations, gunmakers began experimenting with other means of producing repeating arms during the sixteenth century. One of the first methods involved superimposed loads, which were successive charges of powder and ball on top of each other that were separated by wadding or the projectile itself in one barrel (Photo 3). They were fitted with locks that either had multiple cocks and pans or a single lock that could slide upon a rail. One such example was a sixteen-shot firearm made in 1580 (Photo 4). This firearm may also have been the first repeater made with an over ten-round capacity. It had both wheel-lock and matchlock mechanisms for firing. Once the firing sequence was engaged, the superimposed firearm would fire as follows: it possessed one cocking mechanism halfway down the barrel that would engage ten rounds. Another cocking mechanism was used to ignite the remaining six charges. If those locks failed, a matchlock mechanism was also available. Superimposed repeaters would continue to be developed into the nineteenth century, despite the invention of other forms of repeaters using such technologies such as magazines.

By the 1640s, a Dutch gun making family, Kalthoff (also spelled in some sources, Calthoff), began experimenting with a patent that allowed up to twenty-nine shots to be fired in rapid succession. It utilized a tubular magazine located in a pistol or rifle stock to hold powder and balls (Photo 5). The Kalthoff could have either a sliding breech mechanism that would pull the projectile and powder separately into the chamber of the barrel. Another one operated with a rotating mechanism that would seat the powder and then projectile. This system was so innovative it was reproduced and modified for over one hundred and fifty years and even saw military service. Of the Kalthoff style alone, there were at least nineteen known gunsmiths making variations of this gun. According to historian Herbert G. Houze, “their longevity is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that Admiral Horatio Nelson owned a repeating flintlock pistol of their basic design, as did President Thomas Jefferson.” Over fifty Kalthoff repeaters have survived today. Also, by the mid-seventeenth century in Italy, other magazine-fed repeaters were being developed. According to the Royal Armouries (Leeds), an early example can be found at the Musée de l’Armée which was made by Giacomo Berselli of Bolognia in the late 1660s. However, more well-known is the strictly civilian used Lorenzoni-style of Florence. The firearm is a magazine-fed repeater, considered by some to be a lever action due to the way the magazines are operated. It was made in pistol and rifle forms. One magazine was lined with powder and another with projectiles. The user then would tip the barrel down and work a lever to load the powder and projectile. This design was copied and modified by numerous designers after its invention with various configurations and magazine capacities (Photo 6). Another example of a magazine-fed repeater is the Chelembrom (multiple spellings), with a capacity of up to twenty rounds, from ca 1680, made by a French gunmaker based out of India (Photo 7). This type of firearm was traditionally associated with hunting and at least one of these guns was acquired by King George III, that was capable of firing twenty rounds. In 1683, gunmaker Michael Dorrtlo created a combination of the Kalthoff and Lorenzoni, that also used a form of lever action as well as a magazine (Photo 8). In addition to superimposed and magazine-fed repeaters from this time period, another repeating firearm, the revolver, emerged ca 1680. The Dafte revolver, was a revolving snaphaunce – an early version of a flintlock – that had a “single fixed barrel mounted to a central arbor upon which a cylinder of chambers rotates.” (Photo 9) Samuel Colt is often credited with the first revolver to have a cylinder that self-rotates; however, this firearm predates his invention by about one hundred and fifty years.

Continuing into the 1700s, repeaters appear around the world, including the colonies and early America. In 1722, Boston designer John Pim demonstrated a firearm that was alleged to have been “loaded but once” and “discharged eleven times following with bullets, in the space of two minutes.” Additionally, another Boston gunmaker, believed to be connected to Pim, named Samuel Miller advertised for a twenty-shot repeater.

In Prussia, in 1724, designer Emmanual Wetschgi advertised his flintlock magazine firearm in a handbill (Photo 10).

According to Houze:

“Not only did he describe his design’s advantages and the ease with which it could be used, he also included an engraving showing one of his pistols being fired. This image, which is believed to represent Christian III, Count Palatine of Zweibrucken with the inventor by his side holding a sporting gun built on the same system…More importantly, it also incorporates what may be the first true advertising slogan…’What other pistols can shoot multiple rounds on one loading as accurately, rapidly, and as far, as today’s Wetscghi?’”

The Lorenzoni-style magazine-fed firearm also made its way to England and America. British gunsmith, John Cookson created his version in the late seventeenth century (Photo 11). A gunmaker in Boston, also named John Cookson – it is not clear if this person was the same Cookson from England, a relative, or a coincidence – published an ad in the Boston Gazette, in 1756, advertising a nine-shot repeating firearm (Photo 12). Around the same time a Cookson-type twelve-shot repeater was made by American gunmaker John Shaw.

Around the same time, Joseph Belton also developed a repeater in the colonies. Not a magazine-fed repeater, the Belton utilized superimposed loads with a cocking mechanism that slid down the barrel to ignite its charge (Photo 13). It was also designed in such a way to operate as a single shot muzzleloader as well as a repeater. Belton petitioned the Continental Congress during the American Revolution to adopt his firearm. In 1777, he showcased a musket that shot sixteen rounds at once in front of General Horatio Gates, Major General Benedict Arnold, and scientist David Rittenhouse.

The Continental Congress ordered one hundred Belton firearms for use in the Continental Army. While this order was cancelled, it did not stop the development of future Belton firearms. In fact, several improved variations were designed with the partnership of London gunmaker, William Jover in the 1780s. The East India Company ordered over 500 Jover & Beltons. They were also paired with a replaceable seven-round chamber, operating similarly to a detachable magazine. The Jover & Belton firearms came in musket, rifle, pistol, and carbine forms. In 1785, Jover & Belton offered them as an improved superimposed system. A total of two hundred muskets, one hundred and sixty fusils, two hundred carbines, and eleven pairs of pistols were ordered. The standard Jover & Belton musket in 1786 had a seven-shot breechloading action that allowed for slow and rapid repeating fire. It also had a conventional muzzleloading mode. Jover & Belton claimed that the weapon could fire twenty-one shots in a minute, which according to historian David Harding, implies an individual would carry three loaded seven-shot chambers, one in the firearm and two available to be swapped out. According to Harding, the improved Jover & Beltons had several modes of fire: muzzleloader, slow repeater, and a faster rapid fire repeater. The latter utilized port fire or a slow-burning ignition system. When locked into place, the user would essentially ignore the main trigger, frizzen, and cock and just pull the lock backwards one stage at a time, making the firearm, while not strictly a semi-automatic, have a similar rate of fire to that or a double action (Photo 14).

While Jover & Belton worked on improved superimposed repeaters, magazine technology continued to be developed. Around 1779, the Girardoni air rifle was developed. It was a repeating arm that could fire twenty-two rounds from a tubular magazine (Photo 15). The lead balls would be loaded into a side tubular magazine. The user would push a spring-loaded sliding lever to put a ball into the chamber. The magazine itself could be reloaded with the help of speed loading tubes. Speed loading tubes or speed loaders are essentially a device through which you can load ammunition quickly into a magazine. The Girardoni was used by Meriweather Lewis on the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806). About 1,500 Girardonis were made for service with the Austrian military; however, light weight examples were allegedly produced in sporting variations. This design also was copied by gunmakers around the world.

The foregoing demonstrates that numerous types of repeating firearms existed leading up to the ratification of the Second Amendment, which in some cases, had direct ties to Founding Fathers. As was typical of the era, these were often made by private gunsmiths and sometimes individually commissioned. During the Founding Era and after, unless employed for military purposes with the need for quantity, firearms at large were not produced in volume as they would have been by the late nineteenth century after great shifts in the industrial era. We also know that Americans were likely aware of various European innovations, since surviving examples in America are sometimes modeled after those firearms, from the simple musket that supplied much of the US military during the American Revolution to repeaters with European style magazines. Overseas travel and the exchange of information were also common. In fact, most iconic American firearms designs, from the American long rifle to bolt actions like the Winchester Model 70, with a few exceptions, were conceptualized overseas and adapted and improved upon for use in America.

It is also interesting to note that the reason we are aware of these firearms, in most cases, is that examples have survived thanks in large part to museums and private collectors. In fact, gun collecting dates to the 1600s. While the earliest firearms collector is credited to be King Louis XIII of France, firearms were not only owned by royalty or the aristocracy. For example, in 1666, according to Houze, it was recorded that the merchant, Alexandra Delamarre, had put together a collection numbering some thirty pieces. Gun collecting continued to grow ever more popular during the eighteenth century and some truly large collections were assembled. For example, one collector, Joseph von Dufresne of Munich, Germany, at the time of his death in 1768 possessed 277 pistols, 457 long arms, plus crossbows and other items. Even in the colonies, estate sales featured repeating firearms, including an advertisement from South Carolina (1736) (Photo 16).

Importantly, this meant that those of the Founding Era were aware of significant innovations in firearms technology over time and it’s reasonable to expect that innovation to continue into the future – a notable example being the major difference in technology between the military smoothbore muskets used by most soldiers during the American Revolution and the far more advanced American long rifles owned by the American colonists during that same time frame.