Mid-19th Century America saw a flurry of activity in the landscape of firearms design. In many cases, designers would experiment with merging older technology with more modern to see if they could create something new, to varying results. One such designer was John Walch.
John Walch merged two centuries old technologies into one firearm. The first technology utilized superimposed or superposed loads. Superimposed loads are successive charges of powder and ball on top of each other that are separated by wadding or the projectile itself in one barrel. The second was the self-rotating revolver, which originally dates to the late 1600s. However, the revolver was modified, popularized, and commercialized in the 19th century by Samuel Colt.
In 1859, Walch patented a twelve-shot revolver. It had a singular cylinder with a pretty standard six chambers. However, instead of just six rounds, Walch stacked two rounds on top of one another. He also designed a ten-shot version produced by New Haven Arms Company – the precursor to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.
To see an example of the Walch revolver, check out this post from Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons, who has graciously permitted us to repost his historical content. Ian McCollum is the founder, editor, and presenter of Forgotten Weapons, a decade-old online web site and video archive dedicated to preserving firearms history.
Patented by John Walch in 1859, this is a .36 caliber revolver using superimposed chambers – meaning that each of the six chambers could hold two shots, for a total of 12 rounds before reloading. The revolver has two hammers and two side by side triggers, with the trigger for the front loading being positioned slightly ahead of the rear load’s trigger, to help ensure that they are fired in the correct order.
While the 12-shot capacity was a major advantage over other revolvers of the period, number of significant disadvantages (weak charges because of the small chamber capacity and the safety hazards of a misfire or accidental firing of the rear load first) led to it being produced only in small numbers. About 200 of these .36 caliber Navy guns were made, and only for commercial sale. They did see use in the Civil War, though, as did most other guns in production at the time. A much more popular version was the 10-shot, .31 caliber pocket model.
[This article was originally posted on April 22, 2016 at Forgotten Weapons.]