High Capacity Revolver - In 1835, Casimir Lefaucheux developed what would become the first truly successful self-contained cartridge system, which would become world-famous for its ignition method; "The fire". Lefaucheux was a French gunsmith and inventor born in 1802, just a year before the Napoleonic Wars plunged Europe into a decade of near-constant conflict. Lefaucheux was not the first to experiment with combining gunpowder, projectile, and ignition source into a single, easy-to-handle cartridge. In fact, the Swiss-born French gunmaker Samuel Joannes Pauly probably created the first working system about a decade after Lefochaux was born. It was under Pauli that young Casimir was apprenticed at the age of 12 and where he learned the gunsmith's trade. In fact, in 1827 Lefaucheux was manager of the Paris branch of Pauly, and very soon after Casimir became the owner of the company. What can be credited to Lefaucheux is that he was the first to devise a generally successful and reliable self-contained cartridge system. Although the pin cartridges we think of today are metal, Lefaucheux's new cartridge used a cardboard tube to hold the black powder, lead bullet, and pin primer. It wasn't until more than a decade later that improvements to Lefaucheux's revolutionary design by Benjamin Houllier would lead to the metal cartridge we think of as a "pin" today. Due to the French government believing that the production of military weapons was solely for their national arsenal and not for private contractors, Casimir focused on the production of sporting weapons. He applied his cartridge design to weapons for this market, including breech-loading rifles and single-shot pistols. It was Casimir's son Eugene who would indelibly put the Lefaucheux name on the map with his revolutionary revolver design.
Eugene was interested in implementing the concept of firing a revolving gun, and in 1851 he exhibited such a gun at the London Exhibition. The revolver was revolutionary because the cartridges were loaded from the rear of the cylinder, which was a cartridge case. Anyone who studies the history of firearms will immediately notice that in America the concept of the "drilled" cylinder is attributed to Rollin White. White's U.S. Patents #12, 648 and #12649, issued on April 3, 1855, gave him exclusive control over this essential element of the design of any metal-chambered revolver until the patent expired in 1869. White then entered into an agreement with Smith & Wesson, giving them the right to manufacture revolvers incorporating his patent in exchange for a payment of 0.25 cents per gun. Thus, White Smith & Wesson essentially granted a monopoly on the most effective cartridge revolver designs and prevented major manufacturers such as Colt and Remington from competing in the cartridge revolver market while patent restrictions were in place. However, Lefaucheux's design predated White's patent by at least four years, and Lefaucheux received a French patent for the concept (#19, 380) on April 15, 1854, almost exactly one year before White received his US patent for the same. principle. If Lefaucheux Jr. had been progressive enough to register his patent in America, the history of American cartridge pistol design would have been very different, and it is likely that Smith & Wesson would not have become the industry leader they are today. In fact, Smith & Wesson would fail financially in its first decade in business.
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Eugene Lefaucheux's design, which would become known as the Model 1854 Pin Fire Revolver, was based on his original patent of April 15, 1854, but also on additional changes to the original patent that he issued on June 10 and November 9 of that year registered. . The revolver depicted in Lefaucheux's patent application bore a close resemblance to the Colt Model 1851 Navy revolver, including the open frame, octagonal barrel, and single-action locking mechanism. His patent drawing even included the square-butt trigger on the earliest production Colt M1851. The main differences between the Colt and Lefaucheux designs were the inclusion of a hinged loading port where Colt cut the frame to cover, the inclusion of an ejector rod on the lower right side of the barrel to push spent casings out of the cylinder, and of course the inclusion of the six drilled chambers in the cartridge's metal barrel. Interestingly, the patent drawing is very similar to a Richards-Mason cartridge modification of a square-back Colt Navy revolver nearly two decades before Colt produced these conversions!
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The following year, Lefaucheux submitted his new revolver design to the French Army for testing. The French Navy wanted to replace the single-shot percussion muzzle-loading pistols then in service, and the pistols selected for evaluation were the Colt M1851 Navy, the M1854 Beaumont-Adams, and the Lefaucheux design. Whether it was nationalism or just practicality is hard to tell, but from the outset the French Navy had decided that the only acceptable gun would be one that used self-contained metal cartridge ammunition, so the design of the Colt and Adams percussion blaster became standard and is never used. chance of acceptance. The Lefaucheux design was officially selected as the winner in 1857 and entered service with the French Navy the following year as the Model 1858. It is interesting to note that one area of testing in which the Colt revolver clearly outperformed the Lefaucheux was in the actual power of the cassette. The Colt cap and ball fires a .36 caliber round lead ball at about 750 feet per second, giving a muzzle energy of about 152 ft/lbs. In terms of modern ammunition, that amount of muzzle energy is about the same as a .32 ACP, which isn't exactly known as a "man stopping" cartridge. However, the 12mm round fired by Lefaucheux had a pitifully low muzzle velocity of about 330 ft/s and a muzzle energy of about 52 ft/lbs; about one-third the power of the Colt Navy projectile and slightly less muzzle energy than the modern .25 ACP, a cartridge certainly derided in terms of stopping power. This lack of power is likely a combination of many factors, including the limited space in the case for the propellant gas of the black powder and the inherent weakness in the metallurgy of the copper cases of the time, which would have severely strained the cases to restrict. to which it can be exposed without tearing.
Despite the cartridge's woefully underpowered design, Lefaucheux's design would be the most widely-issued battle cartridge revolver of the American Civil War. Thousands of these revolvers were imported for use by American troops, and at least several hundred also saw service with Confederate troops. The typical Civil War firearm revolver used was the M1854 military cartridge in 12mm. Most of these guns had octagonal to round barrels measuring between about 5.75" and 6.25", although larger variations are noted. Most had a pointed safety clip and a lanyard ring in the stock. Lefaucheux revolvers were produced with both blue and clear finishes, and it appears that the guns imported were a combination of both finishes. Approximately 12,333 patent M-1854 Lefaucheux revolvers are recorded as officially purchased by the United States government during the American Civil War, of which 11,833 were delivered. In addition, more than 2.2 million rounds of ammunition were purchased by the Federal Department of Munitions, mostly from domestic sources. However, surviving examples and regimental records indicate that more than the "official" number were probably imported, especially when looking at southern usage.
With Eugene's military revolver adopted by the French navy and used in conflict across the Atlantic, he proved the design to be a successful military design. With that market firmly under control for now, Eugene began to better research the civilian gun market. This meant introducing to the general public shooting revolvers of different sizes and calibers for different purposes. Most of these guns were produced in 7mm, 9mm, and the earlier 12mm caliber and in sizes ranging from palm-sized 7mm pocket pistols with folding triggers to medium (sometimes called belt-sized) 7mm and 9mm revolvers and larger holster sized 12mm revolvers. Many of the guns used a double-action locking mechanism, with guns designed to be pocketed often using a folding trigger rather than a trigger guard; for the convenience of hiding and drawing from the jacket pocket. Lefaucheux was very successful in selling these civilian small arms and shooting became extremely popular in Europe and Britain, with many more guns being produced by the Liege gun trade in Belgium as well as the Birmingham trade in England.
Eugene soon began experimenting with new ways to apply self-contained ammunition to higher-capacity weapons. By the mid-1800s, the standard revolver capacity was set at five out of six, with most pocket pistols having the former number of cartridges and the larger
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