[Peter Bosman]

Peter

[Curt Cummins]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Curt Cummins]

The pistol that chain fired on me was a Remington 1858 Army . The balls from the side chambers melted and blew a stream of molten lead down the sides of the gun. Fortunately only two chambers chain fired along with the one that was aligned with the barrel. If the bottom chamber had gone off, it would have fired into the frame and blown the pistol apart in my hand.

I never wanted a revolving carbine or rifle, not because your lead hand is on the forestock, but because all revolvers spit flame out the sides. Revolvers with poor cylinder to bore fit also "shave" and spit lead out the sides. Never seemed like a good idea to have a revolver cylinder right in front of your face/eyes.

The chainfire was caused by getting .440 round ball for my long rifle mixed up with .454 balls for the pistol. I had the chambers properly sealed with Crisco, and that probably saved my hand.

Curt

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Gordon Frye]

I've had revolvers chain fire on me plenty of times, and it never really bothered me. The only issue is that then I was down several shots, with several targets still standing. Oh well... But there's nothing dangerous about a chain fire, the revolvers are designed to send the balls downrange, so as long as you're not using a "turret revolver" of the sort that aims some of the chambers BACK at you, all is well. I strongly suspect that this was the major reason that such "turret revolvers" weren't at all popular...

Per Revolving Carbines and Revolving Rifles: the problem is the noise, mostly. The Colt 1839 Revolving Carbine was actually pretty popular, and Colt's best seller from his Paterson days in fact. LOTS more of them were sold than the revolving pistols of any caliber. The '39 was in .52 caliber, just like the regulation Hall's Breechloading Carbine, and designed to fire the regulation .525 round ball (same as was used in the 1803 Rifle, the 1819 "Common" Rifle, the 1841 "Mississippi" Rifle and the various pistols issued to US Army and Navy personnel). In fact, the US Navy purchased a fairly large number of the '39 Carbines (as did the Republic of Texas Navy) and issued them widly (well, as widly as a thousand or so firearms can be issued, but the fleet was pretty small then, too) to the Pacific Squadron. The Colt's were used (as were the Colt Revolving Pistols which the US Navy purchased as well) in the Navy's Conquest of California in 1846-'47, along side the far more numerous flintlock muskets of the 1816 variety. And along side pikes, as well, interestingly enough. But Colt was planning on bringing the '39 Carbine back into production in 1849, but his pistols proved to be so popular that he just never got around to it.

The 1855 "Root" Rifle and Carbine was kind of popular, though nothing like the popularity of the pistols Colt was producing in the 1850's and '60's. The first rifles issued to Berdan's Sharpshooters were, in fact, the Colt 1855 Musket, which was actually more accurate than the Sharps. But the big problem with them was that not only did they "spit" something horrid, but they were VERY loud to shoot. Since no one bothered with ear protection in those days, this was a big deal. So though accurate, they were unpopular. And though you got five fast shots off, reloading wasn't so fast, and for multiple shots past the first five, the Sharps was faster.

Contrary to what modern day reenactors believe (and Hollywood shows) virtually no one carried a spare cylinder around for his revolver. Maybe a spare pistol, but not a spare cylinder. They just weren't usually issued or sold. A very few Colts were issued/sold with them, such as the early Patersons with no loading lever, the "Baby Dragoons" with no loading lever, and some of the '51 Navy's sold to Prussia and Austria, but that's about it. The US Army sure as heck never did after 1839.

Now, back to Flintlock Carbines...

Cheers!

Gordon

[Peter Bosman]