Multi-Shot Pistol
Specifications
- Type
- Revolver / Repeating Handgun
- Origin
- United States / Europe
- Era
- 19th century
- Notable Users
- American frontiersmen, lawmen, soldiers of the Civil War
- Epoch
- Modern Age
History
The multi-shot pistol — most famously the revolver — solved the single-shot pistol’s fatal limitation: the inability to fire more than once without reloading. Samuel Colt’s 1836 Patent Arms revolver, with its rotating cylinder holding five or six charges, gave a single person the firepower of half a squad. The Colt Navy, Colt Army, and Smith & Wesson revolvers became the defining weapons of the American frontier. ‘God created men; Colonel Colt made them equal’ became a popular saying. The revolver remains in service worldwide nearly 200 years after its invention.
Significance
The revolver multiplied individual firepower five- or sixfold with a single mechanical innovation. It made the lone gunfighter possible and established the handgun as the primary self-defense weapon of the modern era.
More from the Modern Age
12 weapons
54 Weapons. Five Epochs. One Poster.
The Multi-Shot Pistol is one of 13 weapons from the Modern Age featured on the poster.
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