History of Multi-Shot and Repeating Firearms, Part 2: 1791-1868 – Diversification and Standardization of 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.

1791-1868 – Diversification and Standardization of Repeaters

Around the ratification of the Second Amendment, other repeaters were being developed throughout the world, including multi-shot firearms in which all barrels could fire at once, such as the Nock Volley gun and Duck’s Foot pistol (Photo 17). There is also a surviving example of a firearm commissioned by the turn of the nineteenth century. It is a fourteen-barrel double Nock volley gun style rifle. Each set of seven barrels has its own lock plate and trigger. To better facilitate loading, the firearm came with a speed loader that allowed the user to pour the charge into a small device that the user could then pour down seven barrels simultaneously. This firearm was a sporting arm employed by a civilian. To facilitate accuracy at such a large size, it has a hand rest forward of trigger, under the barrels. In the event the user only wanted to use one set of seven barrels, they had a replaceable stock made with one lock plate and trigger.

In America, Joseph Gaston Chambers devised several repeating firearms. His rifle design had a flintlock mechanism; the user would load seven rounds down the barrel and the charges would fire in succession with one trigger pull. The way that this differs from other superimposed firearms was that it had a unique bullet with a hollow tip that would allow the burning powder to automatically ignite each subsequent bullet. He approached the U.S. War Department in 1792 with his invention, advertising it to fire twenty-rounds in a minute. The Secretary of War, Henry Knox, was interested in finding a firearm that would supply more power and requested that one of Chambers’ firearms be acquired for testing. A demonstration was set up at Alexander Hamilton’s “Seat” on the Schuylkill. Furthermore, Chambers approached Thomas Jefferson for help spreading the word of his invention. To which Jefferson referred him to the U.S. Patent Office. His invention was not adopted initially with concerns for structural stability, but his repeating muskets, pistols and seven-barreled swivel guns would be the first American military contract for repeating firearms when they were adopted by the U.S. Navy and Pennsylvania for the War of 1812. He updated his design, to include a swivel gun equipped with seven barrels. Each barrel held thirty-two cartridges, with a total of 224 rounds. The gun had only one flintlock mechanism that fired with one trigger pull to fire all the rounds in succession at about 120 rounds a minute for two minutes. Between September 1813 and September 1814, Philadelphia arms makers would produce at least fifty-three seven-barreled swivel guns that could fire two-hundred bullets a piece, two hundred repeating muskets, and one hundred repeating pistols (Photo 18). Outside of the United States, European countries were also interested in his inventions.

Around 1814, revolving technology saw development with the invention of the Wheeler and Collier flintlock (later percussion) revolving rifles, pistols, and shotguns (Photo 19). In 1821, American Isaiah Jennings attempted to improve upon the Belton superimposed design with his repeating flintlock. It was capable of firing twelve rounds before having to reload (Photo 20). According to the New York Evening Post in 1822, the Jennings was “important, both for public and private use…[whose] number of charges may be extended to fifteen or even twenty…and may be fired in the space of two seconds to a charge.” New York gunmaker, Reuben Ellis created a modified version of the Jennings to be made under military contract. In fact, New York bought a few hundred four-shot versions for their state militia.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, there were many makers and manufacturers of repeating firearms, however, the tradition of individual gunmakers was still prominent. As manufacturing processes advanced, these concepts evolved into more standard repeaters produced in greater quantities. The transition of firearms being made by private gunmakers increasingly shifted to factories by the mid-nineteenth century. Inline manufacturing, interchangeable parts, and mass production impacted not only the types of firearms that were available, but also quantity and quality. Repeaters were aided significantly by other major developments in firearms technology, including breechloaders and self-contained cartridges. These improvements did not happen in a vacuum, rather they compounded upon one another for the continued goal to make firearms shoot more accurate, faster, and further.

The next progression in revolving technology was the pepperbox pistol. Pepperbox pistols, a revolving pistol with multiple barrels that were manually rotated on a central axis, were popular in the United States by the 1830s, including use in the west with California gold miners (Photo 21). One maker of pepperboxes alone, Ethan Allen, between the 1840s and 1850s made over forty variations of this style of firearm. While many pepperbox pistols typically fired four to six shots, some were capable of firing twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four rounds. Additionally pinfire revolvers were available by the 1850s, including some twenty-shot versions. In 1836, Samuel Colt took out two patents for five or six-shot revolving rifles and pistols (Photo 22). As a result, and due to improvements in the patent process, Colt essentially owned the legal right to produce the revolver until the patent expired in the mid-1850s. The period that directly followed was marked by a time of experimentation with designers attempting to create the next successful and profitable firearm, while not infringing on existing patents. They do so to varying degrees of success and in some cases, peculiarity, however, the fact that so many people were trying to design the next great repeater shows the desire to capitalize on this technology.

Another style of repeater that emerged during this period was a combination weapon. Robert Lawton of Rhode Island patented a saber pistol in 1837 in which the cylinder revolved around the blade. Robert Colvin of Pennsylvania patented a sword revolver in 1862. In 1863, James Campbell of New York patented a sixteen-barrel pepperbox that would rotate around the shaft of a lance. In 1866, A. Rauh patented yet another variation on a sword pistol with a revolving mechanism. William Billinghurst developed a firearm that included a shotgun and a seven-shot rifle, which laid the foundation for the Civil War era LeMat revolver – a handgun which had a nine-shot cylinder and a shotgun barrel underneath. Other combination weapons, offered in the nineteenth century around the world and in the United States, included, knife revolvers, palm pistols, knuckleduster revolvers, and cane guns (Photo 23).

Some, not all, additional firearms from the period are as follows: They include a double shot gun, designed by Johnson Marsh in 1836 with two superimposed rounds and two hammers. The Bennett and Haviland firearm fired twelve rounds. John Hall, known for his innovative breechloaders and success with interchangeable parts, even designed a repeating rifle with a fifteen-round rotating cylinder in the 1850s. In 1850, the Percival & Smith repeating magazine pistol was patented. It had two magazines. The first one held twenty-four balls and the second magazine held the powder, similar to the Lorenzoni-style (Photo 24). Another attempt was in 1851, when Perry W. Porter developed a nine-shot repeating rifle and pistol that instead of a traditional cylinder as in Colt’s design, the cylinder is seated in a way that the chambers point towards the shooter and anyone nearby (Photo 25). Also in the 1850s, the Genhart turret rifle had a detachable circular magazine with an externally visible shot/round counter (Photo 26). In 1854, Edward Lindner patented a rifle with a six-round cylinder and nine-round tubular magazine. The gun design could hold multiple magazines at a time that could extend the length of the barrel (Photo 27). In 1859, John Walch patented a twelve-shot revolver that utilized two different forms of historical repeaters into one. The firearm cylinder housed six chambers; however, each chamber could hold two superimposed rounds. Initially, two hundred Walch revolvers were produced. A ten-shot variant was made by New Haven Arms Company; about 3,000 were produced. Between 1859 and 1862, the Jarre Harmonica Pistol and Rifle received several patents. This gun had a horizontally seated magazine that slides after each round is fired like a typewriter. It is also detachable (Photo 28). In 1862, Aaron Vaughn of Pennsylvania designed a double barrel revolver with a fourteen-round capacity. HD Ward of Massachusetts developed an eight-shot repeater. Also, in 1862, Edward Sneider created a seven-shot revolver. In 1865, a gunmaker named George Gardiner produced an eleven-shot revolver. And in 1866, the Josselyn Chain Revolver was patented to fire twenty-rounds (Photo 29).

Whether successful or not, these repeating designs are almost too numerous to count making the variations in style, capacity, and function difficult to catalog. In the nineteenth century, there were over seventy American makers creating percussion revolvers alone. By the time of the American Civil War, soldiers used revolvers from thirty-seven different companies, which included twenty models from Colt, plus seventy-three other models. About thirty American makers were designing pepperboxes; about fifteen others were making multi barrel firearms. In all, there were over one hundred and fifty manufacturers or makers in the United States alone producing some type of repeating firearm leading up to and decades after the Civil War.