The Revolver: Old and New
By MARJ LAW
Many years ago, Joe and I visited the Fairgrounds in Tallahassee. Back then, the gun show was bursting at the seams, filling two of those huge buildings. I was new to handguns.
“What is that… thing?” I ask.
“It’s a revolver,” explains Joe.
“Unh, unh,” I reply, thinking he’s trying to trick me. “If it’s a revolver, where’s the cylinder?”
We are handed the gun.
“It’s got six holes in it!” Darn, but isn’t that the weirdest thing.
“This is called a Pepperbox,” says Joe, handing it to me. Yes, instead of having a cylinder to roll out, the barrel is made out of a hunk of hardened steel with six barrels drilled into it.
“I see why it’s called a Pepperbox. Pull the trigger and six shots come out all at once!”
“No, Marj. That’s not how it works.”
“Well, it has six barrels. Don’t you fill them up with ammunition and shoot? Otherwise, why would they drill out 6 barrels?”
“This is a very old percussion revolver. See the date written on it? It says ‘Patented in 1840.’ It’s older than we are!”
“How does it work?” I wonder. “And what’s that rectangular bar on the top?”
“That’s the hammer.”
“Really? Can you pull the trigger back, so I can see how it moves?”
“First, if I were to really fire this, I’d place a percussion cap on the nipple you see here. Now, I’ll pull the trigger slowly. You see the front of the bar rise up. As it rises upward, the metal holding the capped nipple rotates into position. Then, the hammer whacks onto the percussion cap. This sets off a spark which ignites the charge in the barrel.”
“Wait a minute. You haven’t said there was something in the barrel!” I accuse. “What will you put in there?”
“You pour a pre-determined amount of charge in the barrels. Then you take a ramrod and push a lead ball all the way into each barrel.”
“What keeps the ball from just falling out?” I wonder.
“The ball fits in snugly when you swage it into the barrel,” he replies.
“So, you fill up all the barrels, pull the trigger and six shots fly out?” I wonder.
“No. The Pepperbox is a double-action only gun. Do you remember what that means?”
“Yes. It means the trigger has to both cock the hammer, and then release it.”
“Good. Although the Pepperbox has six barrels, you pull the trigger one at a time until all six lead balls shoot out. And because the trigger has to both cock and release the hammer, as well as rotate the cylinder, trigger pull on the Pepperbox is long and hard.”
“I don’t see any sights.”
“The Pepperbox does not have sights.”
“Well, then, how to you aim?”
“The Pepperbox is not the kind of gun that you aim. It’s made to be a close-up gun. The shooter would aim at the critical mass and shoot.”
“I wouldn’t think it would be very accurate that way.”
“That’s true. It wasn’t terribly accurate. As our friends at Wikipedia say: ‘The flaw with the pepperbox design is that it becomes more front-heavy if the length and number of barrels are increased, making accurate aiming difficult.’” It continues: “‘it is almost impossible to aim beyond close range because the hammer is in the line of sight…’”
Joe continues discussing the Pepperbox:
“The pepperbox had no rifling in its barrels. The Civil War had a lot of close-up shooting. It would probably just be used as a back-up gun, but at least you’d have 6 shots.”
“The barrel holes are kinda small. How big a ball do you use?”
“It takes a .31-caliber lead ball. And, yes, it is small. Mark Twain, in Roughing It, made fun of the Pepperbox. He wrote: ‘I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter, which carried a ball like a homeopathic pill, and it took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult. … It only had one fault – you could not hit anything with it.’”
Of course, revolvers have changed mightily over time. Today, Smith & Wesson makes the Governor.
The Governor is small and light for its size. It holds six rounds. It shoots .45 ACP, .45 Long Colt, and .410 shotgun shells. Pretty versatile!
The Governor’s barrel is 2¾ inches long and has a cylinder of 2½ inches. An article in The Truth About Guns points out the cylinder is “nearly the size of a can of Red Bull.” OK. Not pretty, but still versatile.
“Loading it with .410 shotgun shells, you can use it to kill snakes. If you load it with .45 ACP or .45 Colt, it is a great defensive handgun,” says Joe.
But still, it’s a .45-caliber revolver. Won’t recoil be heavy? So, one day we’re at the Wakulla County Sheriff’s Office range. We’ve brought a Governor with us.
I wonder how difficult it would be to pull the trigger. I aim. I squeeze. Then I squeeze some more.
“Cock the hammer first,” suggests Joe.
I cock the hammer, aim again and squeeze. Blam! In single action, trigger pull is very light, but that recoil is pretty darn stiff! OK. I can see Joe using this as a defensive handgun, but it really has too much of a kick for me. I wouldn’t want to practice with it and if you don’t practice… Well, if you don’t practice then it won’t be much of a defensive weapon, would it?
It just so happens that Ellen, a newbie, comes to the range the following week. She has a Governor!
“Where did you get that?” I wonder as she shows me her new gun.
“I purchased it out of town,” she replies. “I want a gun for defense. This man named Hank told me this is exactly what I need. He says: ‘It’s a .45. It’s a Smith & Wesson revolver and it’s called the Governor. All you have to do is point and shoot. Just put in .45 Colt ammunition, and it’ll take a man right down. It’ll even drop a bear!’
‘’You don’t want no wimpy little gun,’ he continues. ‘This here Governor weighs 30.2 ounces. It’s a real man’s gun. Even has Tritium front sights, so you can aim in the dark. Carry this beaut, and you’ll never be afraid of anything. I’ll even throw in some ammunition!’”
After my recent experience with a Governor at the WCSO range, I’m skeptical of Ellen’s luck shooting the Governor. But sometimes newbies can surprise me, so we discuss range rules and safety rules. She has safety glasses and hearing protection. We’re good to go.
Ellen lines up the groove in the back of the gun with the Tritium front sight.
“Get a firm hold,” I counsel her.
Blam!
“Ow! That’s an awful hard kick!” Ellen rolls her shoulders and shakes her hand. “I almost hit my head with the recoil!”
She sits down at the bench. “I think I’ve had enough for one day.”
When Ellen returns home, she looks up the Governor on the site The Truth About Guns.
“The Governor’s stainless-steel barrel and gaping muzzle together present an extremely intimidating image to anyone on its business end,” she reads.
“I bet that’s true,” she thinks. She reads further: “Recoil was snappier than a Schnauzer.”
“That’s sure true too!”
She ponders for a while, then calls me.
“Hank was probably right when he told me this gun is a great defensive weapon,” she agrees. “And I like that rolling out the cylinder to load the rounds is easy, and pushing the spent casings out is really simple with the ejector rod.
But it’s too much gun for me,” she adds ruefully. “I’ve read about the first percussion revolvers, and this Governor is much much easier to load and unload than they were. I like the Tritium front sights. They are really easy to see. I like the versatility of ammunition you can use in the Governor. Revolvers have changed in more than a century and a half!”
“But I want a gun for me,” she continues.
“Buy locally,” I caution. “Local merchants want to continue working with you. They understand the needs of those new to the range. You have a great gun but it’s not the one for you.”
When we hang up, I think about the Pepperbox and the Governor.
Revolvers have come a long way!
Marj Law is the former director of Keep Wakulla County Beautiful who has become an avid shooter in retirement.
